How Not To Fight Terrorism

In the news today: Here in New Jersey, an Irish Catholic commando who had been fighting British rule in Northern Ireland was about to be sent back to Belfast but got a last-minute reprieve from the government and will now be able to stay pending a hearing. Malachy McAllister, who has been working as a stonemason while living in New Jersey, had been involved in a leftist paramilitary organization in Ireland, and he has been branded a terrorist by the federal government. McAllister had done time in jail in Northern Ireland for assassination plots, involvement in which he has denied, but he also adds that he is actively involved ion the politics of the Ulster region and he is not a threat to U.S. national security. (He is seeking political asylum.) U.S. Representative Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, speaking on McAllister's behalf, pointed out that Irish republicans had always been viewed here as people fighting an occupying force in the name of assuring freedom and justice in Ulster.

McAllister was due to be sent back under the USA Patriot Act, the odious 2001 law designed to roll back civil liberties for Americans and legal residents. The government attempted to show that they were indiscriminate in sending foreigners back by sending an Irish Catholic home along with the many Muslims they deported. This is yet another example of how the government is going after terrorists the wrong way. They're persecuting innocent people - Irish, Arab, whomever - to get at terrorists. It's like trying to kill a mosquito with an air-to-air missile (remember that Monty Python sketch?).