Jeffrey Golberg, responding to the news of five Americans with suspected ties to terrorism being detained in Pakistan a few days ago, writes, "Five young Muslim-Americans wash up in Pakistan on the way to jihad camp. But I can't imagine this means something." The post is titled "Move Along, Nothing To See Here."
Spencer Ackerman responds:
Instead, let's examine what we have here, since we don't actually have any substantive engagement with the thing-itself. We have a meta-observation that depends on a presumption that the rest of the world wants to ignore Something Sinister about Those People, and only Brave Truthtellers will tell the Truth about Those People. This isn't journalism, or analysis, or criticism. It's empty and vile innuendo. This is your racist uncle who shoots you a what'd-I-tellya arched eyebrow when the evening news shows a black man being arrest. The Atlantic is treating as journalism, and will continue to.
You can imagine how Goldberg might react to a blogger say, linking to a story about Bernie Madoff and expressing similar sentiments. He'd be angry. And he'd be right to be.
Anyway, as I wrote yesterday, the FBI spoke to the Pakistani authorities after the Council on American-Islamic Relations tipped them off, and after they themselves were approached by people in the community. So either Goldberg ignored that unfortunate piece of information in order to nudge his readers toward a rather ugly conclusion about Muslims as a whole, or Goldberg has a problem with reading comprehension, because that very detail is in the article he linked to. Or maybe he just didn't think it "meant" anything.
That kind of community cooperation with law enforcement shouldn't be dismissed. For people who might feel targeted by law enforcement because of their ethnicity or religion (particularly given the potential consequences for someone accused of being a terrorist) going to the authorities isn't a trivial matter. While domestic radicalization is clearly becoming a bigger problem -- and I realize this is a radical sentiment -- these guys haven't been convicted of anything yet.
-- A. Serwer
