RIGHT WORRY, WRONG CONTINENT :

Arabs in U.S. could be held, official warns : Rights unit member foresees detainment (NIRAJ WARIKOO, July 20, 2002, Detroit Free Press)

A member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission said in Detroit on Friday he could foresee a scenario in which the public would demand internment camps for ArabAmericans if Arab terrorists strike again in this country.

If there's a future terrorist attack in America "and they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights," commission member Peter Kirsanow said.

The reason, he said, is that "the public would be less concerned about any perceived erosion of civil liberties than they are about protecting their own lives."

Kirsanow, who was appointed to the commission last year by President George W. Bush, said after the session that he personally doesn't support such camps and the government would never envision them. He said he was merely saying public opinion would so strongly favor the idea that it would be difficult to prevent. There would be a "groundswell of opinion" for the detainment, he said.

While it is undoubtedly true that should we begin to lose our war against Islamic Fundamentalist terror there could come a day when Arab-born aliens would be interned, we are so far from that day that this kind of talk is foolish. A far greater concern should be Europe, where such measures may be just a few years away unless Europeans significantly boost their birth rates, do a much better job integrating their immigrants into Western Culture, root out the anti-Semitism endemic in their own societies, and join us in seriously debilitating the sources of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 22, 2002 3:58 PM