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Wow.

God bless this great land, and our loving, accepting people.

Well, isn’t fortunate that Cheney advocated fighting a more compassionate war on terror long before JFK ever uttered the now famous phrase.

Have you read the Constitution of the United States? Just wondering. And if so do you believe in its principles? Again just wondering?

While I can feel for you and your daughters, my wife and I too have been stopped at the airport and searched since 9/11, and my wife was in a wheel chair. She was made to stand while they “wand-ed” her to make sure she was not carrying a bomb or other contraband. So in the end I have little sympathy for you and yours, only understanding. As a Black American male I, above all others except my Black American male counterparts, am fully conscience of the dangers and folly of profiling based solely on race. We went down that road in WWII and it wasn’t pretty.

Most Muslims, like most Americans are law-abiding and deserve the same respect and regard you yourself seem to be demanding for you and yours. Those that step outside the law of course need to be dealt with. But never for get the pilgrims fled England to escape religious persecution; America should never be fertile ground religious genocide.

V.

I do not want anyone’s rights trampled.

I thought I would be so blunt just to show that it isn’t so bad to profile someone.

I’m not saying I didn’t understand being checked. I just want people to use good judgement. What is the point in having only random searches?

Compassionate and Sensitive.

Were those words used to help the good, peaceful Muslims of the world understand that we are not coming after their religion? They must want the bad weeded out from amongst them as much as everyone else.

I really feel for the people that are constantly being checked because they have a name that is the same or similar to a name on the watch list.

I do feel for the good, law abiding Muslims and wish that this wasn’t happening. Their religion has been highjacked.

If it was 40 year old white women who were the terrorists on those planes I could fully understand my being searched fully each and every time I get on a plane.

I am not saying take away rights from Muslim people. I am saying that no American should have more rights than another.

I believe in profiling in any case, not just muslim looking (I should say Arab looking, as belief in a religion has nothing to do with how you look.) young men in an airport.

Do the math, prove your assertion, then profile. 100% of all suicide hijackers in the united states have been arab men travelling alone.

It’s stupid not to profile.

Yes.
So sorry. I should have said Arab or Middle Eastern, not Muslim.

Dawn: I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or propose. Finally, a post that speaks the truth and uses common sense. I’m sure you know the can you’ve opened. There will be name calling, comparisons, common illogical liberal rants and plenty of sarcastic remarks like justin.

The funny thing though- They cannot prove you wrong. When used correctly, profiling works. It helped catch McVeigh, Ramirez, Bundy etc…

And, like their perfect leader, kerry, they will not be able to come up with a better solution. Sure, they will come up with weak examples of what should be done, but just like kerry, they will not be able to prove that their way would actually make us more secure.

Great job Dawn, I hope your ready

Bush Campaign Video

Bush Video

“sarcastic remarks”

Hardly! I absolutely love the fact that in this country - any middle aged white person can so calmly pronounce that racial profiling isn’t a problem while simultaneously complain about airport security’s horrible inconvenience on her. If there’s one thing we whites can all relate to, its the feeling that:

“I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was get in our seats”

I mean - talk about perseverance. NOT ONLY was she exhausted, not tired, exhausted, but and all the while - all this woman wanted in the whole world was to take her seat. Man - I’m teary. Exhausted, and yet, so meager in her wants. Inspirational.

As if this wasn’t enough - Dawn then goes on use one of her 3 wishes to wish that this wasn’t happening. I myself wished for more cake with my in flight meal, but I’m selfish like that - but not Dawn - she stood up - made a stand - and wished for the insanity to stop. Well - not stop - I mean - we all know profiling works, but maybe stop when she was present, after all - when you’re exhausted - its hard to watch someone’s civil rights be stripped without being reminded of how much you want to get to your seat.

No sir - no sarcasm here. Just, just, just a little teary eyed I suppose when I see the way a citizen of our great nation stands up for the very ideals our founding fathers laid out so many years ago. Being: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of not having to think about other peoples problems when you’re EXHAUSTED.

God bless us, god bless us every one.

Except single middle eastern men.

Now - there may be some among you who say: ‘But Justin, you’re a liberal, I can tell by you past posts, which I found both well written and inspirational, how can you support something like racial profiling. To these people I give them two simple words:

‘It’

and

‘Works’

To see an example - one simply has to look at Israel. For years they were the victims of single middle eastern men, until, and this is a big one: they started racial profiling. Since that time, there has not been one terrorist attack. The thing is - once they started arresting single middle eastern men, the single middle eastern men didn’t think of recruiting women, or children, because single middle eastern men aren’t very smart or motivated. And this should be a lesson to all the nay sayers in this country: we are smarter than them and more motivated. Lets see what they come up with once they’re exhasted…once they ‘just want to get to their seats’. Thats what I thought. Single middle eastern male - you’re one notice: once we’re rested - your ass is grass.

My second example is right here in our great country. In the 1980’s, after an increase in violent crime by single black males - we began a system of racial profiling. And now - just 20 years later - without having to address any of the social issues that lead to this increase - we have successfully incarcerated hundreds of thousands of single black males, with no end in sight. At first I was worried, worried for our police. Who would they arrest once we got rid of all the single black males and there was no more crime? Thank goodness that, even with hundreds of thousands of single black males behind bars, it appears that crime hasn’t stopped. Thank god.

My example in the inverse is the UK. They continue to be crushed, literally and figuratively from the IRA. Because the IRA was as white as an egg - racial profiling the single Irish man wasn’t an option and to this day I refuse to fly to the UK for fear of being killed by a single Irish male.

Finally, the ugly truth comes out! I am tempted to use Dawn’s racist statements to paint all Republicans with the same rotten brush, but I will give you all a chance. I would like to make a request to all Right Column Watchbloggers:
Republicans, please state your agreement or disagreement with Dawn’s posting.

I want to know how many of you are arguing from an enlightened point of view and how many of you are arguing from a racist point of view. This will help me know whether or not to dismiss you out of hand forever (until you recant your racism) or whether I should show respect your viewpoints.

For the record, I completely disagree with every single word of Dawn’s post. I think it is 100% racist and based entirely on untrue premises.

And I’d like to pre-empt any WatchBlog managers who think they need to warn me for calling Dawn’s post “racist”: She is advocating treating people differently because of their race. She is, in fact, advocating stripping people’s civil rights away because of their race. That is racism.

> Airlines are being fined if they take more
> than 2 Muslim looking young men aside off
> the same flight.

I doubt that this is even true. I think you are either making it up or completely distorting the truth. If not, please provide evidence and prove me wrong.

> Muslims have been moving to Westernized
> countries. How many are in the U.S.?,
> Canada?, France?, England?.
>
> The civil and religious rights of our
> countries are being used against us.
>
> We can not let this happen !

We can not let what happen exactly? We can’t let Muslims live in free countries?

> If they moved to the Western countries
> to become TRUE citizens of them they will
> understand and help in any way they can
> to fight these wars.

So when America tries to fight terrorism by checking people at random, and you end up being randomly chosen, you whine and complain and feel like a victim, but at the same time you ask Muslims to “understand and help in any way they can”. Why don’t you want to “understand and help in any way [you] can”? Are you not a TRUE citizen?

I probably look as much like a terrorist as you do, and I’ve never complained for one second about being searched on an airline. I’m glad they’re searching me and searching other people at random. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that uncooperative attitudes like the one you expressed are probably part of the reason why the government is reluctant to institute more stringent airline security - they’re afraid of complaints by people who will be “inconvenienced”.

Racial profiling at airports won’t work, and if we do it we’d be subverting our most basic American values. As corny as the expression sounds, we’d be letting the terrorists win. If they start profiling Arab-looking men, the terrorists will send women, they’ll lighten their hair, they’ll pretend to be Mediterranean Europeans or Floridian sun worshippers. And all America will have to show for it is that we will have submitted to our most disgusting and most vile racist urges. Everybody loses.

> So sorry. I should have said Arab or
> Middle Eastern, not Muslim.

Ah, so Caucasian Muslims are okay, is that what you are saying? Keep digging that hole.

Also, you are extremely misinformed about Islam, Arabs, and Muslim terrorism. First, most Arab Americans are not Muslim. The majority of them are, in fact, Christians. And secondly the terrorists operating in Indonesia are not Arabs, either. And they are potentially as great a threat to us as Al Qaeda.

It may sometimes be difficult to not be a racist, but you really must try harder. it is better to wait longer at airports and pay more for your ticket than it is to advocate racism.

-Cf

WOW Justin !
All that and not one solution. What party do you belong to ?
I did not say anything about my being inconvenienced. I said it didn’t make sense to do random searches. I had been checked at the first airport and never left the supposedly secure areas.
If they were doing it right and I was a threat I should have been caught the first time.

I can think of how to use my second wish too.

Common Sense along with profiling.

Telling me I am racist and wrong doesn’t solve anything.
Give us the solutions.

People who know when things are done wrong must be the ones that have all the right answers.

Probably wrong there too.

Justin, your example about black men was supposed to prove that racial profiling works? Your argument (“even with hundreds of thousands of single black males behind bars, it appears that crime hasn’t stopped.”) sounds to me more like you’re saying that it hasn’t made a difference at all.

Your Israel example is ludicrously uninformed:
> For years they were the victims of single middle
> eastern men, until, and this is a big one: they
> started racial profiling. Since that time, there
> has not been one terrorist attack.

What in the world are you talking about? Israel has been “racially profiling” Palestinian men for decades. And there have been tons of terrorist attacks, including a very deadly one two weeks ago!!

Also, in keeping with the tradition of people who advocate racial profiling being uninformed about other cultures, you obviously need to be reminded that Israeli Jews are “middle eastern men”, too!

Even if racial profiling did work, we should not do it because it is immoral. There are lots of easy answers to America’s problems that are immoral, and we shouldn’t try any of them. Have an ethnic minority with a problem? Genocide works. Have a prison overpopulation problem? Summary executions work. Have a population growth problem? Infanticide works. Have political disagreements? Torture and terror works.

Americans have to show a little courage about this, and not succumb so easily to racism and ignorance.

-Cf

I’m with V. Edward and Justin.
Profiling is wrong.
Besides, I think terrorists are smart and devious enough to get around profiling - all they need to do is find a few nutters of any other nationaliy or ethnicity who want to bring America to its knees.
Think of McVeigh and Nichols, or David Koresh and Co., or the Unibomber, or the Beltway Snipers, or the person who sent all those anthrax letters through the mail. America has plenty of homegrown rage that middle eastern terrorists could tap into if they wanted to.
I say check _everybody_ all the time.
America should be about equality - even when it comes to being hassled and held up at the airport.

> WOW Justin !
> All that and not one solution.

I think you’re talking to me (Christopher) not Justin. Anyway, the solutions are plentiful, and we’re already trying some of them to a small degree: Air marshalls on every flight, sophisticated X-Ray and scanning technology in every airport, randomized searches of random passengers, extremely well-trained security personnel, research into new technologies, better organized communication from intelligence agencies to identify suspect passengers, etc. The list goes on and on.

We can do this without resorting to racism. I’d rather pay more money for a ticket and wait longer in line than compromise my very conscience by advocating racism. Wouldn’t you?

-Cf

Okay, Justin, I think I misunderstood your post. In fact, I am absolutely sure that I misunderstood your post. Your second half seems so sure of itself, but so preposterous at the same time. Your sarcasm is either too opaque for me or you are actually two people. Anyway, my remarks above aimed at “Justin” are aimed at the “Justin” character who wrote the second half of your post. :)

-Cf

> America should be about equality - even when
> it comes to being hassled and held up at the
> airport.

Well put. We shouldn’t be so quick to throw away our values, assuming we have any.

-Cf

Adrienne,
You are right. Terrorists come in all races and they are both male and female.

Law enforcement has to start somewhere.
Profiling would have to include other things besides how one looks.

Being checked at the airport wasn’t really a problem. We did it. We got home.

Is the way they are doing it making us safer?

Maybe something as simple as a stamp on the hand to show you have been checked would work. If you leave the secure area you would have to go through security again.

I was talking about being checked as I boarded the plane. If they do it right when entering the airport no one should have to be checked beyond that.

Solutions.

If I didn’t open the can of worms no one would be reading or writing in this post.

We do have our own ‘home grown’ terrorists. People are being recruited everywhere.

What are the governments and law enforcement people of the world supposed to do?

“ … And the meek will inherit the earth, but they shall not secure the mineral rights.”

I am a middle aged white guy who was stopped for the full search on two separate occasions. My teenage daughter and twelve year old son also got the full treatment, so that makes four separate occasions. We only flew five times in the last year. That means some member of my family has been searched 80% of the times we have traveled. I could make a case that we are being profiled. When I was a young man I started work at 5:00 am. Each morning I rode my bike to work carrying my lunch and it seemed like every second morning the cops stopped me and asked me what I had in the bag. I showed them and they moved me along. Another case of profiling? Would they have stopped an old woman driving a big car?

Profiling is just a way of trying to understand behavior of group members based on group characteristics. All marketing is based on profiling. Affirmative action programs are based on profiling. Our health care is based on profiling. There are various unpleasant exams I get only because of my age and gender. Almost everything we do is based on profiling. Only yesterday I was walking through an African American neighborhood in Washington. Some Kerry folks were out canvassing. They stopped and tried to talk with everyone on the street – except me. I wonder, were they profiling?

When we refuse to profile, we do stupid things. A couple years back, my 80+ year old inlaws got a brochure warning them about AIDS. They didn’t even have sex with each other and their chances of getting AIDS were a lot less than their chances of getting hit by lighting on a cloudless day. They could theoretically be victims, but the money could have been better spent reaching those at greater risk. The AIDS activists should have profiled. Profiling has long been a successful technique for law enforcement. Protect people’s rights, yes. Make sure your profiles are based on analysis, not prejudice. But use the analysis. I didn’t mind being searched on both occasions if it meant I would arrive safely at my destination, although I would be interested to learn what profile I fit.

Christopher,

Yes. I probably was talking to you. Also Justin.

Thank you for the info.

I would love to use my 3rd wish to erase all the hate,starvation,disease,illness,etc.

I don’t honestly believe that it is just Arab or Middle Eastern young men who are responsible for every terrorist act or that they will be responsible for all of them to come.

Maybe people talking in posts like these will someday help to find the correct solutions to all the problems of the world.

Can’t find solutions without starting the conversation.(Though I was rather blunt.)

Jack.

I liked that!

Dawn

Racial profiling is a crappy way to find out terrorists. First, Muslims and Arabs do not necessarily look like their stereotypes, and people who aren’t that way, can physically resemble the stereotypes. Second, it’s a method of detective work that actually expands the lists of possible suspects that have to be searched rather than narrow them down. Other methods can be use that reduce the number of false positives and don’t build pockets of resentment in the very communities from which we may draw allies.

People unfortunately assume that absolute system yields absolute control. It doesn’t. The same deficits of human thought and understanding occur. Authoritarian systems, in fact, sometimes amplify the effects, as people wield power with human fallibilities, but no checks and balances against their incompetence or corruption. The pressure to learn, to reform has to be forced from above, or it doesn’t occur. Officers of the government are typically given far less discretion in the application of the law, and therefore find themselves unable to adapt to situations. When Democracies are faced with this problem, citizens can push for reform. In authoritarian governments, they don’t have the stature to push things.

Besides, racism, objectionable on its own, won’t protect us either. People have choices. If we make our choices that predictable, our enemies will simply overwhelm our system by selecting people that don’t look Arab or Muslim. They’ll send a Chechnyan in, probably take the time and trouble to remove the ID and accents that would give him away. We cannot defeat them by static, prejudicial methods like racial profiling. We’ll only make it easier on them to hurt us.

What we do is we keep our ears, our eyes, and our minds open. We start from evidence, start from facts, start from a tentative picture of the world so we don’t tie ourselves to false and/or overly generalized ideas of our enemy.

We should recognize that not everybody’s motivations are as absolute as al-Quaeda’s, not everybody willing to resist us to the death, not everybody in a position where we can’t peacefully appeal to them. We should do this not because it’s the politically correct thing to do, but because it’s the pragmatic thing to do. Employing unnecessary violence or discrimination against the people of the Middle East, especially those coming into this country will only serve to multiply our enemies were none should be made in the first place.

Stephen,

How can we help the people that are so easily recruited by terrorist groups?

The solutions will take decades to accomplish.

We can’t go invade every country that suppresses their people.

We can’t throw money at the problem and hope it goes away.

Recruiting is going on right here in the U.S..

What is the so called civilized world supposed to do to stop those being so uncivilized?

“I thought I would be so blunt just to show that it isn’t so bad to profile someone.

I’m not saying I didn’t understand being checked. I just want people to use good judgement. What is the point in having only random searches?”

Funny, I was talking about this just today with my research methods class.

The point in having only random searches is to take into account that it is completely mistaken to make inferences about individuals from aggregate data. That’s the ecological fallacy. Even if 90% of terrorists are Arabic, it’s still logically unsound (to say nothing of the morality) to infer that any randomly selected Arab is more likely to be a terrorist than a non-Arab.

And to the poster upthread who commented that profiling works for serial killers. It does, to an extent, because serial killers are remarkably similar in many ways, and so strikingly profileABLE - unlike terrorists, who seem to be astonishingly diverse. Also, I think psychological profiling of a serial killer is done by incredibly well-trained professionals to whom the profile is an art, and they come to know intimately everything about serial killers. Racial profiling is done by computers and low-level employees - certainly nobody is going to argue that airline ticket counter employees and airport screeners are comparable professionals.

So come on…go to Wikipedia and search for ecological fallacy, or heaven forbid google ecological fallacy racial profiling. You’re going to be hard pressed to come up with any non-anecdotal evidence that racial profiling works in any of the ways it’s intended to.

I have to say I sympathise a lot with the sentiments expressed by Dawn regarding muslim immigration to liberal western democracies.

Lets be honest with ourselves here, there is a schizophrenic aspect to Muslim culture. They want the benefits of living in free countries, and yet they want to continue living as they do at home. In parts of England, there are communities of Muslims who have never learn English, who send their childen back to Asia for arranged spouses and who do not integrate into the host community. The only reason the US has worked as an immigrant nation, is that the immigrants have integrated. This does not mean that they have to fotget where they came from or forget their own culture, but that they help weave their own culture into the host societys culture, to the enrichment of both. The devout Muslim regards westerners as kaffirs, infidels, unbelievers. They are scandalised at the idea of good muslims integrating into a western community. Their culture does not tolerate tolerance and diversity. I say if they cannot integrate, then let them return to where the culture is more amenable to their wishes. If people want to call me a racist or religious bigot, I can live with that. My conscience is clear.

Damon wrote:
> Their culture does not tolerate tolerance and
> diversity. I say if they cannot integrate, then
> let them return to where the culture is more
> amenable to their wishes. If people want to call
> me a racist or religious bigot, I can live with
> that. My conscience is clear.

I wonder if you see the tragic irony of how quickly you can go from “Their culture does not tolerate tolerance and diversity” to “If people want to call me a racist or religious bigot, I can live with that.”

You may be surprised to hear me say this, but I agree that there are some serious problems with Muslim culture. But honestly none of them are problems that European culture didn’t have 50-100 years ago. Religious and ethnic hatred, oppression of women, slavery, hatred of homosexuals, autocratic rule, violent nationalism, etc. These things were the norm in Europe and America in the last century or two, and remnants of our own backward barbaric past still exists today, for example in the Family Marriage Amendment. In general, however, we got over most of our barbaric ways and embraced liberal democracy. Many Muslim cultures have not gotten over a lot of them, yet.

I honestly think that a person that beleives (for example) in the inferiority of women has an inferior and backward beleif system, and that they need to adapt if they want to live in America.

But guess what?

We have laws in our country that forbid people from doing things that we culturally disapprove of, and these laws shape the behavior and beleifs of our people. Gender and religious discrimination, domestic violence, treason, slavery, and of course terrorism are illegal and anyone who practices any of these crimes will be punished. As long as Americans obey the law, all Americans are free to believe what they wish.

And over a generation or two, American immigrant groups always gradually conform to the American way of life. Look at any other immigrant group in the United Stated historically, and you will see that most of them follow the same pattern and timeline to full integration, from the Irish to the Germans, to Italians, Hispanics, Chinese, Russians. Muslim immigration to the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon, and they are in the early stages of this process.

Honestly, I would bet you a hundred dollars that Muslim immigrants to the United States are far more fluent in English than almost any other group listed above were after they got here (except the Irish), and that by any measure Muslim integration into our country is pretty smooth in comparison to most other immigrant groups.

I don’t know much about Muslims in England, but there are pockets of Brooklyn where lots of people still speak Italian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There will always be those who cannot discard the ways of their old country. But the majority always do. Always.

Muslim Americans will integrate as well, especially if we decide not to demonize them. Let’s not be bigots against Muslims. Let’s be good Americans and teach them our ways, starting by teaching by example. Let us denounce racism and bigotry and intolerance every time we see it. Let us not throw up our hands and say “my conscience is clear” when we are, in fact, being intolerant.

-Cf

People come to the U.S. to get away from their benighted counties without the freedom we enjoy here. The 2004 Religious Freedom report was just released. You can find it at http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/human_rights/intl_religious_freedom.html.

Any foreigner who comes to the U.S. to work, pay taxes, obey the laws, enjoy freedom, and who agrees to protect and defend the American Constitution from all enemies domestic and foreign is welcome, as far as I am concerned. Others need not apply.

It all depends on what you mean by “the people” in your first question. Theoretically speaking, it can be any racial group, nationality, or religion. With Ireland you have the IRA and the ULA on either side of a sectarian divide. In Spain, you have the Basque Seperatists. In Japan you have Aum Shinrikyo, so far the only terrorist organization ever to use a WMD in practice- That was the Tokyo Sarin attack. In Vietnam, you had the Vietcong. Here you got the Right Wing Militia movements, radical environmentalists, and one very lonely luddite nut in a shack bombing college professors. If you want to ask your first question, you ought to ask it of the world, or more appropriately, of humanity. We’re all vulnerable to certain temptations. The Arabs and Muslims of this world are no more vulnerable and no less than any one of us. What predisposes them, more than anything else, is the memory and aftereffects of what was done to them by the Great Powers, what was forced on them.

But as for people here, I think its more a problem of a few bad apples than a pervasive situation with those immigrants. That is, unless we start beating up on them. If we start to make Arab’s second class citizen that will only make American Arabs and Muslims question the value of remaining loyal to this country.

We do cold, hard investigations on the facts, and do our best to be surgical in our approach. We should not shatter the idea that Arabs, Muslims and us are in the same boat and share the same values.

As for your last question, the solution, I feel, is inherent in the root of the word “civilized”. A civilized society is a society of the city. People exist in cities by coexistance and interdependence We stop the terrorists best by not allowing them to wrest reasonable people from our community to theirs.

The members of al-Qaeda plan to be the foundation of a greater Muslim civilization, a new golden empire of Islam. The more we act out of fear and hatred, the more we make their dream a reality.

Chris,

Here you go again with calling someone rascist when you haven’t even demonstrated you even understand the premise. Dawn was correct in the first place by saying we should profile muslims inparticular arab muslims. And I have no problem profiling when it is white people either. Timothy McVeigh for instance. Or American Taliban John Walker Lindh. This is not a racial matter. It’s a public safety matter.

But I think your reaction is due to your definition of what profiling is.

Racial profiling at airports won’t work, and if we do it we’d be subverting our most basic American values.

Two men rob a bank. For the sake of argument witnesses say they are white with really bad acne and tattoos on their arms. Of course you would not be against the police putting out the description of these men in order to catch them right? Even though every white male in town with really bad acne and tattoos on their arms could be looked at and or get questioned.

When you know who you are looking for you must profile. There is no way around it. To not do so because of political correctness is pure folly. Justice may be blind but law enforcement must not be.

As corny as the expression sounds, we’d be letting the terrorists win. If they start profiling Arab-looking men, the terrorists will send women, they’ll lighten their hair, they’ll pretend to be Mediterranean Europeans or Floridian sun worshippers. And all America will have to show for it is that we will have submitted to our most disgusting and most vile racist urges. Everybody loses.

I also understand your point here, but I think you blow it way out of proportion and in fact are showing some prejudicial urges of your own if you think most of us have disgusting and vile racist urges to give in to in the first place.

I don’t even think this is a racial issue at all. We need to do a better job of having watchlists that can tell us who is who and who to look for. Maybe we do need to search each and every person that gets on a plane. But it is not rascist to say for a time that we have a group of people, a subset of which want to commit acts of terrorism and we should make sure that they don’t acheive their goals.

Also, you are extremely misinformed about Islam, Arabs, and Muslim terrorism. First, most Arab Americans are not Muslim. The majority of them are, in fact, Christians. And secondly the terrorists operating in Indonesia are not Arabs, either. And they are potentially as great a threat to us as Al Qaeda.

You’re right, many Iranians and Lebonese immigrants to the US are actually christians. There’s an Iranian church near my house I’ve been meaning to visit one of these Sundays. I’m wondering if they have arabic classes. It’s also ironic that many of these immigrants have money which in some cases is the reason they were able to get here.

Let’s not be bigots against Muslims. Let’s be good Americans and teach them our ways, starting by teaching by example. Let us denounce racism and bigotry and intolerance every time we see it. Let us not throw up our hands and say “my conscience is clear” when we are, in fact, being intolerant.

I don’t even know what you’re talking about here. You’ve leapt over the subject of debate right to name calling. No one is talking about rascism, bigotry, and intolerance. We’re talking about security. Profiling is not jim crow. It’s not lynching.

Are we or are we not looking for Al Qaeda members here in the US, like Mohammed Atta and the 18 other Saudi citizens?

Dawn, you apparently missed, or, are ignoring, the story covered in the last 10 days about al-Queda recruiting non-arab looking persons. AND THAT is why racial profiling will do nothing good. Why give up rights laid down in our laws for a strategy that is doomed to accomplish nothing but reduce our rights? The only effective solution is going to be putting all our high tech hardware along every mile of our border to detect intruders and have regional response teams respond to the intrusions.

Screening every person coming into this nation is ultimately the only way to defend against terrorism which has always been with mankind and always will be as long as their are power struggles between groups of people. These half measures leave gaping holes for terrorists to move right through. Let’s get on with. Tell your President get a light bulb over his head, and recognize that the 1st line of defense against foreign terrorists is border surveillance, not chasing phantoms all over the globe. That is an effort worth pursuing but has no chance of ever becoming even remotely effective as a stand alone tactic.

Dawn, as for the Chinese, it will be them if we don’t get our collective economic act together. Do you realize that during the last world wide recession their economy slowed down only to 8% GDP growth?

The Chinese will own the world if Bush continues to have his wayward way with our economy present and future. The long term effects of Bush’s economic policies have conservative think tanks writing, ‘What the hell does he think he is doing’, or words to that effect.

The Point I was making was that many Muslims in Western countries not only have no desire to integrate, they actively seek to ensure that their children and extended families do not integrate and take on the host communitys culture.
I have seen Muslims in America and Britain interviewed on TV post 9/11. The striking thing they said in both cases was, ” We are not American/British Muslims, we are Muslims in America/Britain. Their total committment is to their religion, and the state does not command their loyalty or committment. Their attitudes are simply medieval. Islam has not had, and has no signs of having a Reformation. From a civilisation that was more advanced than the west in the Golden age of Islam, they have sunk back to a situation that the only obvious contribution they make to the world is oil. That is not to say that individual Muslims do not contribute hugely, but as a culture, they have opted out of cultural and societal and scientific advancement.

Damon, that is one perspective. But, the history of our nation is one in which immigrants huddled together in German, Irish, Italian, and Japanese neighborhoods. We still have them today. The Hill Country here in Central Texas is still predominantly German, despite being only a few hundred miles from Mexico. And these communities were settled well over a hundred years ago. But they are all American first, and German somewhere down the rungs of the ladder.

Immigrant’s second generations became more American/ethnic, and the third generations became almost exclusively American. The Black experience is of course the huge exception. I have known only a few Arabs in my time. One with whom I was acquainted was not even Muslim anymore (3rd generation and Catholic).

Having said all that, I do believe it is time the U.S. cut back on immigration in a serious way. The landscape of this nation with all its beauty and majesty spoke of in one of our most patriotic songs, will not remain beautiful or majestic if we allow the population to grow uncontrolled beyond the 300 million mark which we are about to cross if we have not already.

David, you are of course right when you speak of the Germans, the Irish, the Italians and so on. But those people have come from cultures that are western and predominantly civil rather than religious, where there is at least a division between the religious and the civic. They went to the US for the economic, educational and political opportunities they perceived America as offering themselves and their families. They embraced the culture, which in any case was not hugely different to what they had come from.

They of course wanted to hold onto things that represented their own culture, such as song and dance for example. But that did not stop them giving their allegiance to their host community.Essentially, they went to the States to be Americans, albeit German Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Latin Americans etc etc etc….. To the faithful Muslim, there is no God but Allah, and there can be no system which is separate from Islam, therefore no separation of Church and State, one of the founding principles of liberal democracy. Further, to the convinced Muslim, non Muslims are cleary regarded as kaffirs, infidels, unbelievers. Despite the fact that the Holy Qu’ran teaches respect for the people of the book, ie Christians and Jews, this is one instruction which is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Islam is going through a crisis with the modern world, and until that is resolved, we in the West have to protect our societies from attack from the inside.

Haha! Damon, I’ve worked with several Muslims that came here after Ayatollah Khomeni overthrew the Shah and started executing all the well educated Iranians. Those guys are all for a political “system which is separate from Islam.” Hating all Muslims for the actions of a few is such a knee-jerk, simplistic reaction.

I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was get in our seats

Dawn, I totally sympathize. I travel a lot with my wife and 2-year old boy and I’d rather abolish the checks completely rather than take my shoes off one more time.

I need to check the fine print on my ticket, but since the screeners are Federal employees, isn’t that an illegal search?

American Pundit,

By definition those Iranians who went there after the fall of the Shah were the middle classes and the technocrats and bourgeois. Sadly, they are not the ones who drive the temperament in many mid eastern countries. In any case, the fall of the Shah marked the beginning of the radicalism and anti Western nature of todays Islam, and it was hughly fanned by the ayatollah Khomeini. Given their flight from Iran, your friends were not representative of that culture. The fact is that most of the Iranians stayed put, and most of them supported Khomeini

David,

I did not miss or ignore the recruiting tactics of Al Queda. That is what I meant when I said recruiting is going on right here in the U.S..
They have thought these things through for many years. Our government and law enforcement has got to get ahead of them.

Our ‘War on Terror’ can not be fought by arresting or killing those who have or will commit a terrorist act alone.

We have to fight against the reasons people join groups like Al Queda to begin with.

We could start with helping people learn how to read. (I don’t understand why something wasn’t done to help years ago anyway.)Maybe then they can pick up the Karan and see it does not say they will be greeted by Allah with 75 virgins. Of course that doesn’t explain why women blow themselves up.

How do we fight against people believing they will be better off by blowing themselves up than by living a long life?

The ‘white man’ can not fix this problem. The Muslims have got to do it.

I have not read the Karan and probably never will but I would like to know where it says that anyone that is not Muslim must die. I cannot believe that it says that. Of course it depends on which Muslim leader is interpreting.

This goes on in all religions. People listen to what someone else says their ‘good book’ says and don’t bother to read it themselves. Right now it is the Radical Muslims that are using their ‘good book’ to preach hate around the world.

The belief that someone will not go to heaven if they don’t belong to your particular religion is good enough for me. Having to die for not being of your religion is a bit extreme.

Now.

Who has a better grasp of the whole situation?

The ‘War on Terror’ and the fight against the reasons people join groups such as Al Queda to begin with.

Kerry or Bush ?

Dawn,

“Having to die for not being of your religion is a bit extreme.”

You mean like Christ? “Damn them martyrs”, the Romans said.

“The ‘War on Terror’ and the fight against the reasons people join groups such as Al Queda to begin with. Kerry or Bush ?”

Kerry will be the better choice. Obviously. He has the capacity to learn and adjust and adapt to al-Queda tactics. Bush has a preconceived idea fed to him by the neocons and he ain’t budging because he can’t think creatively enough to come up with new or adaptive ideas. I can’t think of one new idea or thought Bush ever came up with, come to think of it.

David.
One of the stories about Christ says that he had the choice. He could have gotten away and not been crucified.
Interpretation.
I wasn’t there.
Pick a story and decide which one you would like to believe.

Just like we pick the candidate we vote for by whether we believe what he is saying more than the other.

I think most people would agree that racial profiling is wrong and goes against everything that makes our country great. As someone else pointed out, terrorists will simply shift their tactics; after all, terrorists come in all shapes, sizes and colors, so if we profile Arab looking single men, the terrorists will simply use other extremists. The two recent plane crashes in Russia are now thought to have been caused by women terrorists; they used women to exploit the weakness in the Russian system where women weren’t searched. Instead of profiling, I think it would be better to enforce the existing immigration laws, including sealing our leaking borders.

After the Oklahoma City bombing, initial reports were that Arabs were behind it. Timothy McVeigh didn’t fit that profile. Speaking of profiling errors, does anyone remember the DC Snipers? They certainly didn’t fit the profile put forth by all the experts. How about Aileen Wuornos? Profilers “know” that women aren’t serial killers, but she was. Now, these examples highlight the problem with profiling; it is just a law enforcement tool, but a perfect one. It can work at times, though, and help law enforcement allocate its limited resources in a more efficient, and more likely to be successful, manner.

I agree with Christopher; I would rather wait longer in line at the airport and know that my chances of arriving at my destination are thereby increased. Yes, it is an inconvenience, but I would expect it and plan for it. I would rather see the TSA employees doing their jobs than letting everyone pass through.

By the way, Michael Smerconish, a columnist and radio talk show host in Philadelphia, just published a book, Flying Blind, in which he advocates profiling. He is saying that testimony during the 9/11 hearings indicated that airlines were being fined for questioning more than two Arab males.

Troy,

Thank you for the info on Michael Smerconish and his book. I just knew someone would have that answer.

David,

Kerry will be the better choice. Obviously. He has the capacity to learn and adjust and adapt to al-Queda tactics.

Like Spain?

Dawn wrote:
> Troy, Thank you for the info on Michael Smerconish and
> his book. I just knew someone would have that answer.

Don’t gloat so soon, Dawn. Michael Smerconish was totally wrong. Here’s what the Department of Transportation says about 9/11 commissioner Lehmann and Smerconish’s “quota” accusations:

“In a recent column, a member of the 9/11 Commission was incorrect in telling your newspaper that the Federal Aviation Administration used a quota restricting the number of foreign passengers that could be subjected to secondary screening at one time. Despite the testimony from current and former airline executives cited in your column, secondary screening of passengers is random or behavior based. It is not now, nor has ever been based on ethnicity, religion or appearance…”

Thanks to Troy for giving me something to plug into Google to prove Dawn’s accusation wrong.

-Cf

Eric, yep, just like a bull in Spain, Bush will be Gored on Nov. 2.

Spain, Eric? If you want to hold grudges like that, fine. But I think the Spanish people would be fully willing to engage in a war against terrorists. They just don’t want to be stuck in a war they don’t see as having anything to do with that. This was the attitude of the party now in power before the elections ever took place. In the end, the terrorists win more if we play a blame game, and ostracize those who have simply listened to public opinion in their own country.

Damon wrote:
> Muslims in America and Britain interviewed on TV
> post 9/11… said… ” We are not American/British
> Muslims,we are Muslims in America/Britain.

First of all, we ought not to base our opinions about Muslim Americans on what we see on post-9/11 TV interviews.

Secondly, lots of Italian, German, and other immigrant Americans used to say things exactly like this all the time (and you’re dead wrong if you think that late-19th century Italian or German culture was enlightened, secular, peaceful or free). Millions of Christian Americans still say this all the time, pledging allegience to their faith and to God before to this country. Lots of Hispanic Americans still identify with their home country more than with America. It’s fairly typical that recent immigrants might assume this posture. It doesn’t last long.

> Their attitudes are simply medieval.

No, their attitudes are actually almost identical to what Europeans and Americans thought 100-150 ago. Think of the West’s “enlightened” behavior in the pre-modern era: the wild religiosity of the Great Awakening, Prohibition, and Victorian chastity belts; the wholesale betrayal of Native Americans and the imperial wars of Manifest Destiny; the bloody American Civil War, the slavery that led to it, and the Jim Crow that followed it; the European birth of Communism, Fascism, and Anarchism; the countless assassinations of Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Kings; the insane nationalism and the industrial slaughter of World War I; the impirial fantasies and mechanized atrocities of World War II; and murderous anti-Semitism from the Dreyfuss affair to the Holocaust. I am not condemning everything above - much of it is merely “of the times” - but I did need to point out that these are not “medieval” attitudes at all. They are the attributes of “industrial age” societies and of emergent “nationalism”.

-Cf

Eric wrote:
> Dawn was correct in the first place by saying we
> should profile muslims inparticular arab muslims.

I understand her perfectly. She, and you, are saying that because people who look like Arabic Muslims are statistically more likely to hijack airplanes than people who look like European Christians, that we should spend more energy and time searching and checking out people who look like Arab Muslims. Honestly, it makes a tiny bit of sense (and I do mean “tiny”: it’s like there’s a .0000003% chance of a Arab Muslim being a terrorist and a .00000001% chance of a European Christian being a terrorist). But it’s morally wrong. It’s also Constitutionally wrong, by the way.

> And I have no problem profiling when it is white
> people either.

What an empty statement. Gimme a break. White people are the majority in America, so by your standards they can never be profiled as “different”. Nobody is ever going to profile young white men with crew cuts because of Timothy McVeigh (and thank god for that because that’s what I look like!).

I am not against psychological and behavioral profiling. I am against racial profiling. Using race or ethnic appearance as anything close to a major criteria for evaluating a person’s potential threat is racism, and Dawn was suggesting exactly that. And so are you.

> Two men rob a bank. For the sake of argument witnesses
> say they are white with really bad acne and tattoos on
> their arms. Of course you would not be against the police
> putting out the description of these men in order to
> catch them right? Even though every white male in town
> with really bad acne and tattoos on their arms could be
> looked at and or get questioned.

Your analogy is a fallacy. You should include the part where the two white guys get caught and/or killed by the police and yet the police still search and arrest men who fit their description. Remember that Arab-looking men are innocent until proven guilty, just like white men are.

> When you know who you are looking for you
> must profile.

See, the fact is that we don’t know who we are looking for. We don’t. We suspect that the next terrorist will be an Arab-looking young Muslim man, but we don’t know. Until we know, we must treat all Americans the same.

> [you] are showing some prejudicial urges of
> your own if you think most of us have disgusting
> and vile racist urges to give in to in the first
> place.

Of course I have those urges. Notice I didn’t say “most of us”. I wrote “all Americans”, which includes me. The difference between people like me and people who approve of racial profiling, however, is that I feel guilty about those urges and I do what I can to correct them. Those who embrace racial profiling, on the other hand, either have no conscience, or they ignore their conscience, or perhaps they embrace their darker urges out of defiance to “political correctness”.

In any case, you are wrong to assume that I think that I am claiming to be innocent of having racist and xenophobic urges. I am, after all, a human. I am also, however, a civilized, educated, modern, western person and I am able to overcome my primitive fears and embrace the mental idea of racial equality even if it contradicts my fearful heart. You should try it!

> Are we or are we not looking for Al Qaeda members
> here in the US, like Mohammed Atta and the 18
> other Saudi citizens?

By that logic we might as well throw all Muslims into internment camps right away. I mean, it will work right? It’s practical, right? I of course know that you would reject such a barbaric plan, so let me ask you: Why is it okay to detain, search, humiliate Muslim men at airports but not to just round them all up into internment camps? To me, both plans are the same thing at different scales.

In order to keep our values intact, we have to locate terrorists using means other than racial profiling, even if it costs us more money. Racial profiling is a cheap and immoral shortcut, and the price is too high to be worth it. I’d rather double the price of an airline ticket than have the United States practice racial profiling. Wouldn’t you?

-Cf

Micahel Smerconish admits that he almost dropped his assertion about airlines being fined for questioning more than two Arabs until he spoke to Herb Kelleher, the co-founder of Southwest Airlines, who, supposedly confirmed the same things John Lehman was saying.

Does anyone have any information about this?

Being morally right and constitutionally correct is going to catch the bad guys?

Is it at all possible to bend without breaking?

The terrorists are changing tactics. They are not stupid in that respect. Part of their strategy is to get us to forget what we stand for in going after them.

Does anyone think they will try to pull off another 9/11 in this country? I seriously doubt it. (Russia was of course similar but they didn’t use the planes as missiles.)

Can we all agree that they need to be stopped?

Can we also agree that we must not sink to their level?
How do we do it? How do we keep everything intact and defeat an enemy that has nothing but contempt for all that we stand for?

I would rather wait longer in line at the airport and know that my chances of arriving at my destination are thereby increased.

After watching the 9/11 terrorists go through security, several even getting frisked, I lost all faith in the screening nonsense.

A much better solution would be to keep those guys from getting a ticket in the first place. Better passport security. Better intelligence. Better communication between the airlines, the FAA, the FBI, and the intelligence community.

Screening is moderately successful at keeping firearms and explosives off the planes (if Bush would ever make it a budget priority), but it’s not going to stop terrorists from getting on the planes.

Like Spain?

Oh, yeah Eric. Spain. They caught all those Madrid bombing terrorists, didn’t they. Someday we’ll catch bin Laden. Or not:

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” - George W. Bush

Can we all agree that they need to be stopped? Can we also agree that we must not sink to their level? How do we do it?

Voting for Kerry would be a good start. It’s obvious Bush isn’t interested in stopping them.

The idea that we shouldn’t give middleastern looking young men a second look is simply madness. We are at war with middleastern looking young men. Should we really give the same scrutiny to a 40 year old white woman with 2 kids as we do Mohammed from Saudia Arabia? There is nothing rascist about that.

It takes an overly sensitive, politically correct, liberal with their head buried in the sand to suggest otherwise. Save all you constitutional hysterical arguments. The constitution is intact and will stay intact. It takes a liberal to go the extreme on any argument.

Dawn, It’s funny you pick the name of your title for this blog.

Yes, the meek shall enherit the earth; However, whom will enherit that penalty is yet wrote in stone.

I still can’t figure why everybody gets so uptight over looking like someone. Is our individualality(sp) “Ego so imposed to “Self” that even “I” can’t along.

To stop profiling and war, America must be willing to work and comprise both Aboard and Domesticly on the future of our world at the same time. A big Kerry advantage.

Yes, it is a better to locate and catch terrorists. Waiting for them to attack us is not an option under consideration by main stream America. Therefore, what is America to do?

Bush says stay the course until everyone else says he has to change his point of view (sorry reps, but thats a fact).

Kerry and McCain started talking earlier this year about what he would do and many in power in Congress listened. In fact, the Senate Forgien Relations Committee and the House Arms Committee actual told the Bush Administration actual what they were going to do as far as turning over Iraq back to Iraq(C Span aired about three weeks of these hearings). Why he is not now I have to question, yet I might know why. However, I think it’s wrong to use our troops as pawns.

Bush loses on marketing idea of building up a supply when no demand exists. Congress once again has over spent their budget and the only thing holding this economy together is the consumer (Mr. & Misses Americas).

Kerry and Edwards know that some hugh changes need to be made to our globalization plans before it falls apart. Edwards I trust on the legal stuff. At least he is the only one that will tell you America has to economy’s.

Cheney, although I can not trust him, I know he is a bulldog. My only question is why did Bush hold him back.

Average citizen and visitors must realize that in these times we all must give a little of ourself. Speaking for some who has almost went to jail for someone else, I can tell you it’s not fun. Good family and friends are than your only protector. Being innoccent first helps.

Action: YES AMERICA NEEDS A PLAN THAT IS RIGHT!

Troy, in the link you provided, neither Smerconish nor Kelleher ever say that the DOT’s denial was incorrect. That is, it does not in the least bit support Dawn’s assertion that there is a quota system. If you read carefully, you will even see that Smerconish & Kelleher don’t even talk about a “quota” system. The only thing they discuss is the decision to search people at random instead of by using racial profiling. Both of them obviously object to random searches. Your link is a red herring.

There was another DOT quote in Smerconish’s testimony that I found to be an excellent explanation of how we can screen dangerous passengers without compromising our American values:

Use the “but/for” test to help determine the justification for your actions. Ask yourself, But for this person’s perceived race, ethnic heritage or religious orientation, would I have subjected this individual to additional security scrutiny? If the answer is “no,” then the action may violate civil rights laws.

The 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie bombing was thought to be the result of terrorists putting a bomb in a portable radio which was being carried by an innocent passenger, presumably a non-Arab-looking person.

And the 2 bombed planes in Russia last month were both probably taken down by women.

If we make racial profiling policy, then the terrorists will be able to know with certainty that all they have to do is give some 8-year old kid a GameBoy or mess with some 85-year old lady’s inhaler.

The point of random searches is to tell the terrorists that no matter what their plan is, we will thwart them.

Plus, random searches aren’t the only tool we have. The “acting suspicious” standard is also supposed to be widely used. Why waste our time searching and detaining the millions of young Arab-looking men who fly American airlines every year, when we could be focusing our attention on people who are boarding a plane and sweating too much, avoiding other people, examining or “casing” the scene, re-packing luggage, acting aggressive, and other things that are much better indicators of terrorist intent than using race as the first criteria.

Finally, remember that several of the 9/11 hijackers were searched before they got on the plane, and they were let on anyway. The 9/11 Commission’s report, in fact, found no evidence that the hijackers used box cutters. They may very well have used makeshift weapons or even their bare hands. In any event, no amount of profiling or searching would have helped prevent 9/11. Which brings me to American Pundit’s excellent point:
> A much better solution would be to keep those guys from
> getting a ticket in the first place. Better passport
> security. Better intelligence. Better communication
> between the airlines, the FAA, the FBI, and the
> intelligence community.

Damn right, except I think we should do the above and do random searches and and behavioral profiling. Racial profiling avoids the more difficult and more expensive solutions that we should be talking about. Ideas like the ones American Pundit lists above should be the real conversation we are having. Things like:

—> Better trained security who can tell when someone is acting suspicious (“being Arab-looking” is what untrained guards and ignorant civilians consider “acting suspicious”, but well-trained security personnel have far more accurate and advanced methods of understanding what is suspicious)

—> Better technology (I’ve read that there are machines that can “sniff” plastic explosives in luggage, but that they’re so expensive that only a couple of American airports have bothered to spend the money on them!)

Racial profiling is a cheap, lazy, immoral, un-American, and cowardly solution. And it’s stupid.

-Cf

Know what’s kind of weird? No one ever complains about profiling when serial killers are profiled.
Why is that?

KCtim,

My guess is because it is because a serial killer is one person and profiling people just because of their race or heritage is wrong.

Dawn, the first profiles released for serial killers always state- middle aged white male. Even when they prove to be wrong (DC snipers) everyone shrugs it off as an oops. No big deal. The police use these profiles to stop middle aged white males and ask what they are up to, what are they doing in the area and so on. Doing this is racial profiling, but it has been proven to work. Let’s face it, serial killers are usually middle aged white males, but if it can save a life, it is worth it and NOBODY cries or whines about it, for obvious reasons.
Now, truth be told, today’s terrorists are usually men of middle eastern decent. Terrorists are serial killers but usually don’t discriminate on who their victims are. Now, if it can save lives, why is it wrong. How can one be a smart thing to do and the other be wrong.

KCtim, you’re comparing apples to oranges.

First of all, the profiling you’re talking about is about looking for a particular person who is known to have committed a particular crime. This is not what racial profiling in airports is about - rather, airport racial profiling is based on putting suspicion for committing a crime on a whole group of people before any crime has been committed by any of those people.

Secondly, the profiling you describe involves a hell of a lot more than just race - it almost always focuses on their personality and psychological profile. In fact, it’s usually called psychological profiling: what kind of person commits crimes of this sort. The fact that they take a guess based on race is secondary. Such profiling comes close to passing the “but/for” test that I described above, too: “But for this person’s perceived race, ethnic heritage or religious orientation, would I have subjected this individual to additional security scrutiny?”

Criminal profiling like what they do for serial killers asks American security officials and the American public to watch out for people who behave in a certain specific way, or who have recently said or done certain things. It’s meant to help police detectives do their investigations more than it is meant to alert the public or security guards at airports to screen potentially dangerous passengers. The race thing is supposed to be secondary, and if you think it’s not secondary then you’re probably watching the wrong news programs.

-Cf

Dawn, how can you reconcile your assertion that “profiling people just because of their race or heritage is wrong” with your original post, in which you wrote: “Our politicians are worried about losing the Muslim vote if we do anything that might hurt their feelings. I say profile!!”? Have you changed your mind?

-Cf

Cf: “The race thing is supposed to be secondary, and if you think it’s not secondary then you’re probably watching the wrong news programs.”

Forgive me, but my comments come from 9 yrs as a police officer. Experience says that when looking for a gang member in the inner city, you look for a young black male. When looking for a serial killer, you look for a middle aged white male. A person can claim “personality and psychological” as reasons if it makes them feel better, but the truth is, when police are looking for one of these criminals, “personality and psychological” cannot be judged by just looking at someone. You must have a starting point.

The majority of terrorists are middle eastern men. To say otherwise is being untruthful and lacking common sense.

KCtim: When you’re looking for a gang member, does that mean that you should frisk every young black male you see? Or if you’re looking for a serial killer, should you pull over every middle-aged white guy you see? Of course not. You look for other more important signs, such as erratic or confrontational behavior, gangster colors, etc. That’s your first signal of trouble, not skin color, right? I mean, you don’t use race as your primary means of identifying criminals, do you?

Yet you advocate using race as the primary factor for pre-identifying potential villians at airports. The problem is when you use race as a primary means of risk identification.

> The majority of terrorists are
> middle eastern men.

This may be true, but it doesn’t mean that racial profiling will help stop them, and it doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Race should, however, be a factor, but just not the first factor. Example: if a guy is acting evasive, travelling alone, taking pictures of the airport tarmac, clutching his bad nervously, etc, I’d keep an eye on him. If he appears to be (or if his passport confirms him to be) middle eastern, I’d keep an extra close eye on him. But if the guy is acting perfectly normally, travelling with a family, reading a magazine, eating a pretzel, and is middle eastern, there quite literally is no grounds (not just legally, but practically) for subjecting him to extra scrutiny than any other passenger.

I look at it statistically, and I’ll demonstrate with some totally arbitrary numbers that I feel are reasonable enough to make my point. Let’s say that the odds of a caucasion person being a terrorist are 1 in 100 million. And let’s say that the odds of a middle eastern person being a terrorist are much greater, say 1 in 1 million. This disparity pales in comparison to the odds that a guy who’s behaving strangely might be a threat, someone whose odds are more like 1 in a 1000. That’s where we should focus our energy.

-Cf

Christopher,

I also said :
“Common Sense along with profiling.”

and this :
“I do not want anyone’s rights trampled.

I thought I would be so blunt just to show that it isn’t so bad to profile someone.”
-depending on the situation and the need to do it

and this :
“Being morally right and constitutionally correct is going to catch the bad guys?

Is it at all possible to bend without breaking?”

and this :
“The terrorists are changing tactics. They are not stupid in that respect. Part of their strategy is to get us to forget what we stand for in going after them.”

- Meaning it isn’t just arab looking young men.
- There is no single solution.

It will take a combination of methods to catch the terrorists and stop people from becoming terrorists to begin with.

All this has to be accomplished without destroying our basic principles.

I would love to meet the person who can do all this without stepping on anyone’s toes.

Cf: Dawn said it best- “Common Sense along with profiling”

To be effective, you cannot search everyone else but leave the one person who fits the proven profile alone.

Nobody is saying to leave people who are acting suspicious alone. The “you can’t search more than two Arab men” rule doesn’t exist.

Race is already allowed to be used as a factor. It is not allowed to be used as the first factor, much less the only factor. This is already how the rules work, and I am quite happy with those rules.

If you agree with my above statement, then what are you complaining about?

-Cf