Execution in Virginia

Mir Aimal Kansi, a native of Pakistan, is being executed tomorrow by the Commonwealth of Virginia for murdering two CIA employees in 1993. The State Department has warned that terrorists may use this as an excuse for another attack.

In Alien Nation, Peter Brimelow mentioned the case Mir Aimal Kansi in discussion of the media treatment of immigration and crime. In response, the Julian Simon, the late designated immigration enthusiast economist, wrote

"And these are the sort of inflammatory events that he suggests as our destiny:

 1.  'In January, 1993, a Pakistani [applicant for political asylum] (and, simultaneously, for amnesty as an illegal immigrant) opens fire on employees entering CIA headquarters, killing two and wounding three.'

2.  'In February, 1993, a gang of Middle Easterners... blow up New York's World Trade Center, killing six and injuring more than 1,000!!" (his exclamation points, of course).'

Julian Simon made a famous bet on commodity prices which he won, but if he'd had a bet down on "inflammatory events" he would have lost it on September 11^th, 2001.

According to CNS News,

In retrospect, Kansi was a harbinger of the modern age of terrorism. During his trial, he said he fired the shots to protest U.S. policies that hurt Muslim nations

Our italics, of course.

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Golden Rules: Do Unto America

Last year around this time, Bernardo Méndez Lugo [send him mail] of the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, issued some golden rules for illegal immigrants. He told them they're better off obeying the law and behaving themselves (if an American politician told Mexican immigrants that they should refrain from littering, beating their children, drinking while driving etc, all hell would break loose, but that's what Méndez Lugo said) and better off legally not having false documents, etc. What fascinated me was his telling illegals that as soon as they get to the city where they want to reside illegally, they should report to the Mexican Consulate.

"As soon as you arrive in a city in the United States, you should contact your nearest Consulate. The Consulate has people designated specifically for the protection and defense of the human and labor rights of its foreign nationals. There are ten Consulate offices available for Mexicans in California: Calexico, San Diego, Los Angeles, Oxnard, Fresno, Santa Ana, San Bernardino, San Jose, Sacramento and San Francisco."

Golden Rules for Undocumented Immigrants in U.S. elmensajero.com, Bernardo Méndez, December 28 2001

Which must mean that somewhere in the Mexican Consulate is a list of all the illegals in San Francisco. Doesn't this raise the issue of "harboring"?  A Consul has a duty to see that citizens of his are treated fairly once they're arrested. But he's really not supposed to support and encourage them in their criminal activities. Méndez Lugo may have diplomatic immunity to the laws about harboring illegals. But the State Department can declare badly-behaved Consuls persona non grata. If it finds that the Consulates are acting as accessories to illegal immigration, it can just close them.

All that would take would be an order from the President, George W….Oh, never mind.

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Multiculturalism Lives in Infamy

In San Pedro, California, a showing of the 1970 movie,  "Tora, Tora, Tora" , a joint American-Japanese production about the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor which was scheduled for December 7^th, has been cancelled by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.

"I wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community," Hahn said. "Dec. 7 is a tough day, especially for the second and third generations of Japanese-Americans. Why do we want to do something that makes it more difficult?"

The standard response to this is that of Eugene Volokh , quoted by James Taranto.

 [T]he main reason that many people now regret the internment of American citizens of Japanese extraction during World War II — there are other reasons, but this is the main one — is that the Japanese-American community was extremely loyal to the U.S. They were on our side, not the side of the Japanese, because they were us, not the Japanese. The attack on America was an attack on their country. Suggesting that recalling the events of that day is somehow "insensitive to the Japanese-American community" is an insult to that very community.

That's not necessarily so. Many Japanese-Americans are extremely patriotic, especially those who were born in the US, or whose ancestors immigrated before the war. But there was and is a segment of the community that is less patriotic.

See Japanese American Voice's resolution to the effect that the Memorial to Japanese-American Patriotism should reflect the views of those who were unpatriotic, or PBS documentary on organized draft resistance by Japanese internees. See anything at all by Ronald Takaki.

More to the point, since the conclusion of hostilities in 1945, there has been a good deal of Japanese immigration to the Los Angeles area. Many second generation Japanese today may be related not to veterans of the 442^nd RCT, but to veterans of the 731 Bacteriological Warfare Unit, on the Axis side.

That's why Councilwoman Hahn had to be sensitive to Japanese feelings.

But is anyone ever going to be sensitive to American feelings?

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November 13, 2002