Day 1 of Peter King's Congressional Hearing on "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response": Still a Bad Idea and a Waste of Time

You can probably guess from the above comic that I'm not so crazy about Peter King's congressional hearing on "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response." Basically, Peter King is arguing that Al Qaeda is seeking to convince Muslim Americans to commit acts of terrorism in the United States and that the Muslim community needs to do more to combat such radicalization. 

First of all, these hearing wont accomplish anything. As Fareed Zakaria said, these hearings are not going to help the FBI, since it is already doing whatever needs to be done to find and capture terrorists. It's not like FBI officials are taking notes at these hearings and learning something new. These hearings will only further inflame the preexisting fears that people have about Islam and Muslims.

The second issue that I have with these hearings is that it is associating the radicalization of Muslim individuals

with the entire Muslim community. If we look at a recent study by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland security, it reports that 4 out of 10 plots by Al Qaeda in the United States have been foiled with the assistance of the Muslim community, a number which has grown to 75% within the past year. So why is the community's response such a concern?

I listened to a good chunk of the hearings this morning and it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. At least everyone is agreeing that the vast majority of Americans are great citizens and only a tiny minority is being radicalized. I'm confident that if someone was to listen to the entire hearing, he would understand this. What worries me is that this message may not be reported in the summaries being reported in the news. I was listening to 1010 WINS' report (which usually aren't longer than a minute) on the hearings and all they mentioned was that some people still think that radicalization is a major concern, while others stated that the hearings are singling out the Muslim community. They did not mention what everyone agreed on. If the average person listening to the news does not hear that the congressional hearings are talking about a small minority and not the law abiding majority, these hearings are a lot more dangerous than I initially thought they were.