JM notes Kelly's two "pet peeves": incompetence & the tendency of observers to label those arrested as idiots. She then reports on Kelly's assessment as to why NYPD has succeeded so spectacularly:
Luck, too, has often played a role in the NYPD's efforts to protect New York. But in our hour-long interview late last week, Mr. Kelly asserts that credit for keeping the city safe is due mainly to the counterterrorism empire that he has built, actively manages and staffed up with counterterror "stars" like David Cohen, the former CIA director of operations who oversees the city's aggressive undercover and intelligence activities.
Apart from helping bring violent crime down to historic lows, Mr. Kelly's fame is based on the counterterrorism plans he first sketched in 2002 on a piece of paper for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That model has transformed the way that the NYPD and other large police forces in many cities now combat terror. By creating a local intelligence capability—complete with undercover agents, informants, analysts, a community mapping effort, a terrorism cyber-unit, a small army of linguists and even an overseas presence in 11 cities—Mr. Kelly's counterterrorism force is widely regarded by experts as second only to the FBI in homeland defense intelligence.
Despite historic rivalries and resentments between the FBI and the NYPD, Mr. Kelly says the two work together well because they must. "The major source of information for us is the JTTF," Mr. Kelly says, referring to the FBI-led joint terrorism task forces through which several law enforcement agencies, the NYPD included, most often pursue terror tips and build cases.
Mr. Kelly's counterterrorism program is also credited in the intelligence community with another breakthrough: its emphasis on "home-grown" Islamic radicals as the major source of the city's, indeed America's, future counterterrorism challenge.
Not everyone accepted this thesis in 2007 when two NYPD analysts, Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, published a study concluding that while al Qaeda remained a serious problem, the terrorism threat confronting America now came mainly from homegrown "younger Muslim men between the ages of 15 and 35." Mainly middle class, rather than poor with no al Qaeda connection, many of these men have been radicalized by exposure to an "extreme and minority interpretation" of Islam, the report concluded.
Initially, some FBI analysts challenged the notion that America, which prides itself on its integration of immigrants of all ethnic groups and faiths, would fall prey to the "homegrown" radicalization that has plagued Europe and other less welcoming societies. No longer.
JM notes that stop-and-frisk policies, while defensible, risk alienating minorities and thus dissuading them from cooperating with police by furnishing information. This is impossible to gauge, but such resistance not only increases the risk of terrorism but also of traditional crimes, the latter likely committed overwhelmingly in the same neighborhoods inhabited by those very minorities and their families.
Bottom Line. Those arrested always seem dumb, compared to super-villains like Lex Luthor (Superman) & Ernst Stavro Blofeld (James Bond); but those who succeed are not super-criminal types either. Mayor Bloomberg, despite his penchant for silly statements like the one on the Times Square bomber possibly being motivated by anger over health care, did a great deed in appointing Ray Kelly--and gives Kelly the support he needs to make NYPD probably number one on the planet in local counter-terror capability. Given that Manhattan is the top global target, this is a necessary status for NYPD.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Terrorism, Homeland Security, Conservative Politics
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