PC Policy Killed Brit Soldier Lee Rigby

That brutally blatant daylight near-beheading of that British soldier in a London suburb by Islamic jihadists has prompted many to worry if such a tragedy will happen in this country. The news that the killer, Michael Adebolaj, 28, had been looked at by MI-5 into extremism ties for the past eight years and that he had preached on the same streets days before the murder, clearly shows that Rigby's murder could have been prevented if the government wasn't so beholden to political correctness. Thank goodness the NYPD is not, in spite of the PC pressure from liberals and Muslim organizations.

Last week my husband was walking around the Silver Lake reservoir when he saw an Asian man carrying a long bag walk by. It looked somewhat like a gun case and was long enough to perhaps carry a rifle but since it was made of cloth he surmised that it held a musical instrument. A few seconds later, a police car rolled up and the officer asked my husband if he had noticed anything strange. At first my husband said no but then the officer asked if he had seen a man carrying a long bag and my husband directed him to the way the man had walked. The officer thanked him and said they were just going to check it out. Apparently someone else thought it needed to be reported to police.

Ever since September 11, 2001 and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security's awareness campaign, the NYPD takes very seriously these reports of "If You See Something, Say Something". It also employs its "Stop and frisk" tactic which has been called racial profiling by civil rights organizations. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg have defended the policy and call it "proactive policing."

This policy known as a "250" within the department is the right to stop, question and frisk anyone deemed reasonably suspicious is a Supreme Court-approved tactic available to law enforcement across the country. No departments use this more than the NYPD - over 1.2 million in the last two years. But "stop and frisk" is just one of many means the NYPD uses to defend the city against terrorist activities and none would be considered politically correct.

According to the Associated Press, the NYPD targeted Muslim mosques by collecting the license plates of worshippers. Monitoring them on surveillance cameras and cataloguing sermons through a network of Muslim informants. It is thanks to these brave informants that the police have been able to establish a source within these communities that would alert the department to potential problems before they bubbled up. Even when it was clear there were no links to terrorism, the mosque informants gave the NYPD the ability to "take the pulse" of the community.

One may raise valid objections to this spying on one segment of the population but there is no denying that terrorists attacking our country come from that segment. Had MI-5 followed the NYPD protocols, perhaps Lee Rigby would still be alive. Instead, the British authorities have ordered the troops not to wear their uniforms outside the base. Can you believe this? British soldiers can't wear their uniforms in their own country because they might become targets.

What on earth has happened to the once mighty Britannia? There are now 85 Islamic Sharia Law courts operating in Britain. The Archbishop of Canterbury even suggested that Britain should adopt parts of Islamic law. How much power does the Muslim community have? Well, in Manchester, a hard-working café owner has been ordered to tear down an extractor fan because the smell of frying bacon "offended neighboring Muslims".

Now radical Muslims are trying their best to take over Sweden. Riots by Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate have been rioting for over a week, torching cars, two schools and a police station. France went through the same type of riots by young unemployed Muslims last year.

In the Netherlands, that country's kind and generous treatment of Muslim immigrants was thrown in its face when a jihadist viciously shot and stabbed Theo Van Gogh, the legendary artist's grand nephew in broad daylight and left a note on the body quoting the Koran.

I met Geert Wilder, the Dutch politician and founder of the Party for Freedom, in 2005 when he came to New York City to meet with conservative leaders to discuss how to rein in and keep out radical Muslims. He is still under constant police protection from the death threats he receives. He told us Holland had bent over backward for the Muslim immigrants. The government created Muslim schools. It even used public money to build mosques. The Netherlands foolishly believed that the new immigrants would assimilate into the Dutch culture. Instead, Wilders claims, over a million Muslims there, have already opted for radical Islam.

"Multiculturalism has failed," German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said. She has been urged to take a tougher line on immigrants who don't show a willingness to adapt to German society and her comments appeared intended to pacify her critics.

Great Britain has made the same mistake as Holland and officials are still cowardly refusing to address the cause of the violence even though London has been the victim of jihadist terrorism. It took twenty minutes for armed police to reach the street where Rigby lay mortally wounded even though the attack took place not far from his barracks. The murderer had a gun that I seriously doubt was registered and yet only special police teams can carry weapons. How stupid is that?

Three brave British women dared to approach the attackers and one asked them why they killed him. The answer was the usual, "because British soldiers killed Muslims every day." Well the truth is that Muslims kill more Muslims than the soldiers but why quibble with the truth. We are dealing with the brainwashed and the violent and the NYPD does what it needs to do with them.

Since 9/11/2001, the department uses the most advanced and sophisticated technology to fight what many liberals and President Obama claim is no longer necessary-the war on terror.

WABC reported attacks on the following were foiled by good strong police intelligence: BROOKLYN BRIDGE; NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE & CITIGROUP HEADQUARTERS; GARMENT DISTRICT; HERALD SQUARE SUBWAY STATION; PATH TRAIN and WTC RETAINING WALL; JFK AIRPORT/BUCKEYE PIPELINE - A TRANSATLANTIC PLOT; LONG ISLAND RAILROAD; BRONX SYNAGOGUES; NYC SUBWAY & TRANSIT HUBS; TIMES SQUARE; MANHATTAN SYNAGOGUE.

Other undercover activity resulted in the arrest of Jose Pimentel, a Muslim convert who was arrested in November 2011 in Manhattan as he constructed bombs and plotted to killer soldiers returning home to New York from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case of Jesse Morton, a New York City-based Muslim convert, resulted from NYPD monitoring, combined with the investigative and prosecutorial expertise of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of Virginia.

These are, of course, only the incidents whose investigations have concluded and resulted in arrests that closed the cases. There are probably many more that remain classified or are still under inquiry.

I feel very fortunate to live in a city with a well armed police force that is more concerned with the safety of its citizens than in soothing the sensitivities of easily offended multicultural communities. If the outrage of Rigby's murder wakes up his country to the danger of political correctness in a time of war, then his death will not be in vain.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com