When PC becomes a death wish

NYPD vindicated

By BOB McMANUS

Looks like it’s time for the Associated Press to give back its Pulitzer Prize.

Just as it’s time for politicians — and especially the press — to stop chewing on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s leg over the NYPD’s so-far-enormously-successful anti-terrorist surveillance programs.

Knock wood on the “successful” part, of course. If America has learned anything about terrorism since 9/11, it’s that the threat is incessant, though hugely unpredictable as to source, specific motivation and any given terrorist’s tool kit of choice.

That is, no one knows what tomorrow will bring, just as no one suspected what was in store for Boston on Monday — Patriots’ Day in the Bay State.

But it is beyond rational denial that one thread runs through virtually every known terrorist attack on America — and most of the others around the world — since 9/11: In one form or another, the terrorists have drawn their inspiration from one radical interpretation of Islam or another.

So while “Chechen terrorist” doesn’tnecessarilyaccord with trademark Osama bin Laden-style Islamist blood-letting, the differences are pretty much academic: Chechen Islamism has been ruthlessly expressed in the Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union (forcenturies, actually), and Chechen Islamists have been supplying al Qaeda with trained killers for decades.

No great surprise, then, that a pair of young Chechens turn up as central figures in the bloodiest terrorist attack on US soil since the Twin Towers fell (rivaled only by the slaughter at Fort Hood).

No doubt the dark fantasies that put the Boston bombers into motion will be teased out of their personal histories in the days and weeks to come. But there was enough on the record yesterday to discern radical Islamist motives in their plot.

That is, to ratify once again the wisdom of Ray Kelly and the NYPD in targeting Islamic extremism as a profound and continuing threat to New York and its citizens —allof its citizens, including thousands upon thousands of Muslims — and then acting accordingly.

WherewasKelly & Co. supposed to go to protect the city from Islamist terror — Lutheran quilting bees?

No. And he didn’t.

Operating fully within the bounds of a mid-’80s consent decree meant to guide NYPD oversight of radical political activity — as modified by a federal judge post-9/11 — the department went on the lookout for Islamist-inspired terror plots.

There’s nothing surreptitious about the program. Officers wear plain clothes, to be sure, but the meetings they monitor are open to the public and the informers they recruit are no more a threat to civil liberties than run-of-the-mill crack-dealer snitches.

Over time, the program has directly prevented, or helped to deflect, 14 potentially deadly plots against the city. How many never got under way out of concern for attracting the NYPD’s attention will never be known.

But the Associated Press, in particular, was offended, and the agency dogged the department for months. Its stories — some naïve, most just wrong and all oblivious to the legality of the program — clearly were intended to shut the Kelly effort down.

That the news agency collected a Pulitzer for its efforts reflects as badly on the judgment of those who run the contest as it does on motives of the AP itself.

Happily, Kelly was undeterred. To his great credit, and to Mayor Bloomberg’s too, the surveillance remains in place. No doubt this is well known to the Islamists — a deterrent to the terrorists and thus a comfort to New Yorkers.

Certainly dismantlement of the program — or a fig-leaf-covered evisceration of it — would be an encouragement to radical Islam. This is worth keeping in mind as the mayoral campaign begins to gather energy.

For, beyond the deep personal tragedies and traumas of the Boston bombing, it remained yesterday that one of America’s premier cities was in near-total lockdown — with the economic and social costs beyond calculation.

New Yorkers can relate, having been down that road before. Thusmostwould agree that reasonable vigilance is cheap if it helps avoid another such catastrophe.

And those thatdon’tagree — well, too bad about them.