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Anyone for Terrorist Profiling?
The Patriot Post ^ | 11 November 2005 | Mark Alexander

Posted on 08/11/2006 2:26:57 PM PDT by cf_river_rat

This is an archived edition of the The Patriot Post Digest "Top of the Fold," an excerpt from The Patriot Post Friday Digest. Subscribers receive the full edition of The Patriot Post each week free by e-mail and are able to view the full Current Edition and Recent Archives. Get your own FREE subscription.

Anyone for Terrorist Profiling?

Mark Alexander
From Patriot Post Vol. 05 No. 45; Published 11 November 2005 | Print Print Email Email

To ensure we Americans never offend anyone -- particularly fanatics intent on killing us -- law enforcement and security screeners are not allowed to "profile" people in public places or security checkpoints. However, they will continue to perform random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year-old congressmen with metal hips and even Medal of Honor recipients. But targeting Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40 constitutes "ethnic profiling."

Let's pause a moment and review....

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by: (a) A salesman from Utah (b) An construction worker (c) A college student on Spring Break (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the Munich Olympics by: (a) Your grandmother (b) A Midwest auto-parts dealer (c) A mom and her 6-year-old son visiting from Indiana (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by: (a) A bluegrass band (b) Dallas Cowboy fans (c) A tour group of 80-year-old women (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

During the 1980's numerous Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by: (a) A family on their way to Disney World (b) Jesse Ventura (c) A Boy Scout Troop (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by: (a) A pizza delivery boy (b) The UPS guy (c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old disabled American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by: (a) A girls' choir (b) A hardware store owner (c) A secretary (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by: (a) A Marine officer with two weeks leave (b) A plumber going to visit his mom (c) A Catholic nun (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by: (a) A college-bound freshman (b) A cardiac surgeon on his way to Houston (c) A waitress (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by: (a) A starving actress (b) A mom with a newborn (c) Twin six-year-old boys (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1995, a plot to blow up U.S.-bound international flights over the Pacific was attempted by (a) Hawaiian school kids (b) An decorated Vietnam Veteran (c) Twin sisters on their way to Paducah (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by: (a) A local TV weatherman (b) A dad and his two sons on a ski trip (c) A widower going to visit his grandchildren (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2000, 17 sailors died in an attack on the USS Cole (DDG 67) in Yemen by: (a) A child in a stroller (b) A high school class on their way to visit Washington, DC (c) Newlyweds on their way to Miami (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked -- two flown into the World Trade Centers, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground in rural Pennsylvania. They were hijacked by: (a) A retired police officer on a mission trip to Haiti (b) A firefighter going to Maryland for training (c) An paramedic on his way to vacation in Hawaii (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002 the United States liberated Afghanistan from: (a) USAID relief workers (b) Jewish Pilgrims (c) Christian missionaries (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl and other Westerners were kidnapped and beheaded by: (a) The Peace Corp (b) Scottish clansmen (c) Cuban refugees (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2002, more than 330 hostages in Beslan and 130 hostages in Moscow were murdered in sieges by: (a) Russian exchange students (b) The Red Guard (c) Church planters (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2003 the United States liberated Iraq from "The Butcher of Baghdad," but most American military personnel were killed by: (a) Iraqi school-girls (b) Street vegetable venders (c) Women without burkas (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2004, more than 200 Spanish civilians were murdered on trains by bombs in Madrid, detonated by: (a) Morning commuters (b) A three-year-old Chinese girl (c) Flamenco dancers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005 more than 50 UK citizens were killed by bombs on trains in London, detonated by: (a) Rail workers (b) Those unable to hail taxis (c) Wheelchair-bound grandmothers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005, there were hundreds of casualties, men, women and children, killed by bombs in Jerusalem, Riyadh and Amman. These innocent civilians were murdered by: (a) Construction workers (b) Farmers (c) Christian missionaries (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2005, the city of Paris, and other European cities experienced an extended period of riots and destruction. The unrest was led by: (a) "Youth" (b) Soccer fans (c) Catholic nuns (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 2,500 Americans have been murdered by terrorists. 35,000 Iraqi men, women and children have also been murdered by terrorists. Most of the combat and civilians casualties were the result of bombs detonated in civilian population centers by: (a) Fruit vendors in Baghdad (b) Disgruntled transit union workers (c) Iraqi schoolteachers (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2006, hundreds of Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets launched by: (a) the Salvation Army (b) remnants of the 'Jackson Five' (c) the cast of 'Friends' (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

In 2006, a plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes from the U.K. was attempted by (a) members of the royal family (b) Japanese tourists (c) groupies of the band 'Cream' (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

Since 2001, the FBI reports that there are major terrorist cells still in U.S. urban centers. Several of these cells have been uncovered and cell members arrested. In every case, the terrorists cell members were: (a) Southern Baptists Conventioneers (b) Lutheran Youth Groups (c) Presbyterian Elders (d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

President George Bush said this week, "America is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation." The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued an immediate objection to the President's reference to "Islamic fascists". Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR protested, "We have to isolate these individuals because there is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic faith that encourages people to be cruel or to be vicious or to be criminal. Muslims world wide know that for sure." In light of this objection, we are left to ponder why every Islamic leader in the U.S., and the world, does not publicly condemn every terror action being undertaken in the name of the god of Islam. Their silence is deafening...

Between 1970 and present, there were more than 60 other notable examples of terrorism perpetrated by Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40, but we think you get the point. Singling out "Middle Eastern male Islamists between the ages 17 and 40" is not "ethnic profiling," it's "terrorist profiling" -- acting on prolific evidence.

Anyone for Terrorist Profiling...?

Semper Vigilo, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander Publisher, The Patriot


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Philosophy; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: profiling; terrorists; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
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To: arasina
I know...there were plenty of compelling reasons to make people sew yellow six pointed stars on their clothing as well.

My father took me to Dachau when I was eight. I've never forgotten that place or the kind of institutional thinking that lead to it.

41 posted on 08/11/2006 10:06:02 PM PDT by CWOJackson
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To: potlatch


Great post

The images media does not want America to see

"It's too soon....."


42 posted on 08/11/2006 10:32:26 PM PDT by devolve (fx 9125_AMERICANS_KILLED_2003_BY_ILLEGALS MEX_ILLEGAL_GOT_911_TERRORISTS_ID NO_NUEVO_TEJAS)
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To: devolve

Thank you devolve


43 posted on 08/11/2006 10:34:23 PM PDT by potlatch (Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer in it?)
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To: Seadog Bytes
Hi, 'dog!

RE: "They aren't all Mideast teenage males anymore. They're white, female..."

Yes. ...I think some of the troops may suspect that already...


44 posted on 08/11/2006 11:23:09 PM PDT by Watery Tart (Netanyahu: Destroy the[ir] missile arsenal first, then you can have a cease fire.)
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To: Lady Jag

45 posted on 08/12/2006 12:10:27 AM PDT by Seadog Bytes (OPM - The Liberal 'solution' to every societal problem. (Other People's Money))
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To: humblegunner

If they don't start kicking the crap out of their caves and try to be human it will be.

muslim = target

Maybe the muslims will start teaching their progeny how to build rather than to blow-up.

Doubt that it will happen.


46 posted on 08/12/2006 1:56:58 AM PDT by Eaker (My Wife Rocks! - Travis McGee is my friend. “You’ll never need a gun, until you need it badly.”)
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To: Lady Jag

Sorry, logic is not allowed on this thread. Knee jerk reactions only, please.


47 posted on 08/12/2006 2:02:44 AM PDT by kms61
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To: kms61
Can you tell the difference between a Christian Filipino and a Moslem Filipino just by looking at him and hearing him talk?

THIS Christian Filipino, Michelle Malkin, thinks you can and has been calling for profiling YMMs for some time. The link in the previous sentence links to her video from yesterday wherein she makes the case again for YMM profiling.

Profile YMMs, not liquids and gels. My water bottle is not a threat. YMMs are a demonstrated threat.

I wish that the families of the victims of airline terror committed by YMMs would file a class action lawsuit against the airlines for not even attempting to keep YMMs off their flights despite that group being a known threat. PC is keeping sane security measures from being taken and people are going to die because of it.

Think about it. The only detection methods we have are xrays for solid objects, metal detectors for metal-based weapons, and explosive sniffers for SOME explosive substances. There are no liquid or gel detectors. Having millions of non-threatening passengers voluntarily dump their completely harmless water bottles, shampoo, toothpaste, and the latte they bought in the terminal is beyond STUPID! It doesn't protect anything at all. A terrorist simply has to conceal the gel or liquid on his body and there is no reliable detection method that will find it all.

The recently identified liquids and gels are not the only threats. There are myriads of substances and devices that can be brought on board a plane to hijack it, damage it, kill a number of passengers, destroy it, cause it to crash, etc. Trying to screen each and every object or substance that has any potential to do any of these things is IMPOSSIBLE. Yes, IMPOSSIBLE. Totally.

Screen YMMs. The day that hindus, wiccans, Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, or whatever start blowing up planes or turning them into airborne missiles to destroy buildings we can rethink that particular security policy. Until then, YMMs should have to be carefully screened before before being allowed to board mass transit.

But, this will not stop YMM perpetrated acts of terror. They may turn their attention to shopping centers and other gathering places. If that happens, then we'll have to take even more restrictive measures. And those sane, logical security measures will not include placing prohibitions on Gatorade and ChapStik.

48 posted on 08/12/2006 2:29:12 AM PDT by Spiff ("They start yelling, 'Murderer!' 'Traitor!' They call me by name." - Gael Murphy, Code Pink leader)
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To: cf_river_rat

The Enemy Within [and the Need for Profiling]

by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
January 24, 2003

The day after 9/11, Texas police arrested two Indian Muslim men riding a train and carrying about $5,000 in cash, black hair dye and boxcutters like those used to hijack four planes just one day earlier.

[The police held the pair initially on immigration charges (their U.S. visas had expired); when further inquiry turned up credit card fraud, that kept them longer in detention. But law enforcement's real interest, of course, had to do with their possible connections to Al-Qaeda.]

To investigate this matter - and here our information comes from one of the two, Ayub Ali Khan, after he was released - the authorities put them through some pretty rough treatment.

Khan says the interrogation "terrorized" him. [He recounts how "Five to six men would pull me in different directions very roughly as they asked rapid-fire questions. . . . Then suddenly they would brutally throw me against the wall." They also asked him political questions: had he, for example, "ever discussed the situation in Palestine with friends?"]

Eventually exonerated of connections to terrorism and freed from jail, Khan is - not surprisingly - bitter about his experience, saying that he and his traveling partner were singled out on the basis of profiling. This is self-evidently correct: Had Khan not been a Muslim, the police would have had little interest in him and his boxcutters.

Khan's tribulation brings to attention the single-most delicate and agonizing issue in prosecuting the War on Terror. Does singling out Muslims for additional scrutiny serve a purpose? And if so, is it legally and morally acceptable?

In reply to the first question - yes, enhanced scrutiny of Muslims makes good sense, for several reasons:

These circumstances - and this is the unpleasant part - point to the imperative of focusing on Muslims. There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that Muslim government employees in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps need to be watched for connections to terrorism, as do Muslim chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Muslim visitors and immigrants must undergo additional background checks. Mosques require a scrutiny beyond that applied to churches and temples.

Singling out a class of persons by their religion feels wrong, if not downright un-American, prompting the question: Even if useful, should such scrutiny be permitted?

If Americans want to protect themselves from Islamist terrorism, they must temporarily give higher priority to security concerns than to civil-libertarian sensitivities.

Preventing Islamists from inflicting further damage implies the regrettable step of focusing on Muslims. Not to do so is an invitation to further terrorism.

This solemn reality suggests four thoughts:

First, as Khan's experience shows, Muslims are already subjected to added scrutiny; the time has come for politicians to catch up to reality and formally acknowledge what are now quasi-clandestine practices. Doing so places these issues in the public arena, where they can openly be debated.

Second, because having to focus heightened attention on Muslims is inherently so unpleasant, it needs to be conducted with utmost care and tact, remembering, above all, that seven out of eight Muslims are not Islamists, and fewer still are connected to terrorism.

Third, this is an emergency measure that should end with the War on Terror's end.

Finally, innocent Muslims who must endure added surveillance can console themselves with the knowledge that their security, too, is enhanced by these steps.

Arrests and Convictions

Following is a partial listing of those arrested in the United States in connection to militant Islamic terrorism:

There have also been two major arrests connected to rogue states.

In addition, there has been at least one conviction:


49 posted on 08/12/2006 2:41:55 AM PDT by Spiff ("They start yelling, 'Murderer!' 'Traitor!' They call me by name." - Gael Murphy, Code Pink leader)
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To: potlatch; ConservativeMan55; 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub; JulieRNR21; Cindy; Smartass; MeekOneGOP; ...
Difficult times in Jihadistan...
 
http://www.seadogbytes.com/sbimages/TerroristConundrum4.jpg
 


 

   
click for more

(Please FReepmail if you want on, or off, this list.   I certainly have no desire to increase anyone’s stress-level. Thanks!!!)

50 posted on 08/12/2006 2:45:20 AM PDT by Seadog Bytes (OPM - The Liberal 'solution' to every societal problem. (Other People's Money))
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To: cf_river_rat
The following American of Jewish descent believes that YMMs should be profiled:

Give Grandma a Pass: Politically Correct Screening Won't Catch Jihadists

Charles Krauthammer
Jewish World Review - 29 July 2005

Six percent of British Muslims — more than 100,000 citizens — thought the July 7 London terror attacks were justified. A quarter of British Muslims merely sympathize with the bombers. Even more shocking, nearly one-fifth of British Muslims say they feel little or no loyalty to Britain. Yet the most disturbing news from the July 23 London Telegraph poll is that these trends are worse among younger British Muslims.

These numbers, attesting to a massive failure of assimilation, are inconceivable in the United States, with its centuries of successful Americanization. This does not mean that there cannot be isolated cells of American Muslims — or others, such as McVeigh types or antiabortion nuts — who hate their country and want to attack it. But the massive, teeming suburbs of disaffected and alienated immigrants simply do not exist here.

Which is why, whatever terror attacks might be in our near future, in the long run America is much safer because its enemies overwhelmingly reside overseas.

Britain's problem, however, is not just an alienated minority but also a suicidal civic openness that permits sheiks and imams to openly preach jihad against Britain. The United States, for all of its openness, does not tolerate this kind of treason. Just this month, an imam from Virginia was put away for life for the kind of incitement that makes Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed a sought-after media presence in Britain.

Britain is now desperately trying to correct its never-never land hospitality to agitators and inciters. It is proud of its long history of harboring exiles, misfits and revolutionaries from just about everywhere. After all, Karl Marx lived, wrote and died in London. But 52 victims dead and the near-miss two weeks later are helping Britain place necessity above nostalgia.

The American response to tightening up after London has been reflexive and idiotic: random bag checks in the New York subways. Random meaning that the people stopped are to be chosen numerically. One in every five or 10 or 20.

This is an obvious absurdity and everyone knows it. It recapitulates the appalling waste of effort and resources we see at airports every day when, for reasons of political correctness, 83-year-old grandmothers from Poughkeepsie are required to remove their shoes in the search for jihadists hungering for paradise.

The only good thing to be said for this ridiculous policy is that it testifies to the tolerance and goodwill of Americans, so intent on assuaging the feelings of minority fellow citizens that they are willing to undergo useless indignities and tolerate massive public waste.

Assuaging feelings is a good thing, but hunting for terrorists this way is simply nuts. The fact is that jihadist terrorism has been carried out from Bali to Casablanca to Madrid to London to New York to Washington by young Muslim men of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian origin.

This is not a stereotype. It is a simple statistical fact. Yes, you have your shoe-bomber, a mixed-race Muslim convert, who would not fit the profile. But the overwhelming odds are that the guy bent on blowing up your train traces his origins to the Islamic belt stretching from Mauritania to Indonesia.

Yet we recoil from concentrating bag checks on men who might fit this description. Well, if that is impossible for us to do, then let's work backward. Eliminate classes of people who are obviously not suspects.

We could start with a little age pruning — no one under, say, 13, and no one over, say, 60. Then we could exempt whole ethnic populations, a list that could immediately start with Hispanics, Scandinavians and East Asians. Then we could have a huge saving, a 50 percent elimination of waste, by giving a pass to women, except perhaps the most fidgety, sweaty, suspicious-looking, overcoat-wearing, knapsack-bearing young woman, to be identified by the presiding officer.

You object that with these shortcuts, we might not catch everybody. True. But how many do we catch now with the billions spent patting down grandmothers from Poughkeepsie?

You object that either plan — giving special scrutiny to young Islamic men, or, more sensitively, just eliminating certain demographic categories from scrutiny — will simply encourage the jihadists to start recruiting elderly Norwegian women.

Okay. We can handle that. Let them try recruiting converts, women and non-usual suspects for suicide missions. That will require a huge new wasteful effort on their part. And, more important, by reducing the pool of possible terrorists from the hundreds of millions to, at most, the tens of thousands, we will have reduced the probability of an attack by a factor of 10,000. Those are far better odds at far less cost to us in money and effort. And infinitely less stupid.

51 posted on 08/12/2006 2:57:04 AM PDT by Spiff ("They start yelling, 'Murderer!' 'Traitor!' They call me by name." - Gael Murphy, Code Pink leader)
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To: cf_river_rat


[Anti-profiling] Folly
Taking Osama bin Laden at his word is a good place to start in fighting terrorism.

By Heather Mac Donald

Jackson, Ms., September 14, 1964 (AP) — The U.S. Attorney in Mississippi announced today that a cross had been burned outside the Natchez home of Ben and Tillie Smith. "All signs point to the Ku Klux Klan," said federal prosecutor Ross Hencken, noting that the Smiths had been registering Negro voters. Consistent with the federal government's ban on racial profiling, Hencken announced that he was ordering the National Guard to stop every fifth driver on Highway 61 between Natchez and Vicksburg to search for the perpetrators. Were the guard to look only at white people, explained Hencken, it would "give a pass to all Negroes," and suggest that the "rights and freedoms enjoyed by all should be limited to a select group."

Call it the "Colbert King theory" of antiterror investigation. Washington Post columnist King has accused fellow pundit Charles Krauthammer of racism for suggesting that investigators seeking to find Islamic terrorists should concentrate on "young Muslim men of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian origin." King complains that "by eliminating Scandinavians from his list of obvious terror suspects, Krauthammer would have authorities give a pass to all white people." Krauthammer's proposal, charges King, is based on the belief that the "rights and freedoms enjoyed by all should be limited to a select group."

Colbert King's July 30 rant, "You Can't Fight Terrorism With Racism," exemplifies the opinion elite's hysteria and hypocrisy regarding anything that can be called "profiling." It is no more "racist" to focus on young Muslim males in an Islamic-terrorist investigation than it is to focus on whites in a Klan investigation. Yet it is doubtful that King would accuse the FBI of unfairly excluding blacks from scrutiny if the bureau didn't search black Baptist churches for white robes and gasoline after a Klan attack.

Anti-Cop Instincts

The outcry over "profiling" in the defense against Islamic terror is the culmination of a decades-long war against the police. The fundamental premise of that war is that racism lurks beneath most law-enforcement actions. Thus, any time the police try to categorize people to solve or prevent crime, they are doing so out of bigotry. But in order to maintain this position, anti-"profiling" crusaders such as Colbert King or the American Civil Liberties Union must embrace radical skepticism regarding the validity of any generalizations at all. Such skepticism would make not just national security, but reason itself, impossible.

The King-Krauthammer exchange was provoked by the New York Police Department's recent announcement that it would begin random bag searches on the New York subways. The NYPD started the bag checks after the failed July 21 bombing plot in London. The checks would be random to avoid any accusations of "profiling," announced Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Charles Krauthammer called the random checks "reflexive and idiotic" in a July 29 Washington Post column. They ignored the "simple statistical fact," he wrote, that the "overwhelming odds are that the guy bent on blowing up your train traces his origins to the Islamic belt stretching from Mauritania to Indonesia."

One might add that the relationship between being a Muslim terrorist and being a Muslim is more than a statistical fact, it is a logical tautology. By definition, all Muslim terrorists are Muslims. If Colbert King and the rest of the political elites don't like this association, they should take their complaint to Osama bin Laden. Until Osama, in deference to Americans' delicate sensibilities regarding certain minority populations, calls on Jews and Lutherans to join the Islamic jihad against Americans, the police are going to have to work with what he's given them.

There are, however, no unambiguous physical markers for being a Muslim. So rational Islamic-terror investigators must use a surrogate: apparent national origin. Al Qaeda and other Islamic-terror groups have drawn the vast majority of their members from what Krauthammer calls the "Islamic belt" — the Middle East, Pakistan, and North Africa, where white skin is not indigenous. Does that mean that Islamic-terror investigators are biased against people with darker skin? Of course not. Nor does it mean that antiterror agents should treat every Middle Easterner as a suspect. But they should be allowed to factor in apparent Muslim identity in evaluating whether certain behavior is suspicious. A string of eight Saudi males seeking to purchase large quantities of fertilizer at a garden supply store outside of Las Vegas should raise more questions than if eight Mormon missionaries were to do so.

King draws on two classic anti-cop strategies to discredit the policing consequences of Osama Bin Laden's fatwa: logic chopping and playing dumb. The generalization that nearly all Islamic terrorists are from the "Islamic belt" is both over- and under-inclusive, he shows. Giving extra scrutiny to young men who appear to be from Africa, says King self-righteously, will also include his two sons. But King's sons are not terrorists. Hence, the generalization, according to King, is invalid.

Some Perspective, Please

But much police work starts out as over-inclusive, which is why it proceeds along a continuum of suspicion and consequences. ACLU lawsuits notwithstanding, the police cannot always investigate only the actual perpetrators of a crime. If the consequence of a preliminary Islamic-terror profile were arresting someone or throwing him in jail, we should be deeply concerned about whether it is over-inclusive. But if the consequence is getting a little extra eyeballing from a police officer or maybe facing a higher chance of having your bag checked, then our tolerance for over-inclusiveness should be greater, so long as there is a strong rational basis for the generalization. Some perspective, please! No one is talking about locking someone up because of his nationality or religion. All that is being contemplated is giving the New York police the discretion to notice, among a range of possible factors, where a passenger is likely from in deciding whether to request a voluntary bag check. The passenger is free to walk away if he doesn't want to be checked. The cost of having some innocent subway riders subjected to slightly heightened, but extremely short-lived, scrutiny is trivial compared to the cost of missing a suicide bomber due to a prohibition on noting passengers' apparent geographic origin.

Colbert King's examples of the under-inclusiveness of an Islamic-terrorist profile are particularly ludicrous. Looking for apparent Muslim subway bombers would miss Dennis Rader, he says, the recently arrested "bind, torture, kill (BTK)" serial killer from Wichita, as well as abortion-clinic and Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph. But Islamic-terror investigators are not seeking serial killers or abortion-clinic bombers, however odious their crimes, they are looking for people who have sworn allegiance to a Muslim crusade against the West. Chechen terrorists, whom King presents triumphantly as the Caucasian trump card against a Middle Eastern profile, are fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia; nothing suggests that they have designs on American civilians or symbols of power.

King's second strategy for discrediting a geographically based Islamic-terror profile is to pretend that it is impossible to "identify a Muslim male of Arab or South Asian origin." But the odds are that King himself daily believes that he is observing Pakistanis, Koreans, Ethiopians, northern Europeans, Arabs, and Central Americans, rather than an undifferentiable mass of humanity. It is also likely that such provisional identifications are right more often than they are wrong. Because they may be wrong, they should trigger only minimal consequences.

Consistent with his contempt for the police, King doubts whether NYPD officers are smart enough to distinguish between a 60-year-old male and an 18-year-old male. Charles Krauthammer had suggested that at the very least, subway bag checkers eliminate from scrutiny people over 60 and under 13. Sneers King: "The age-60 cutoff is meaningless, too, since subway cops aren't especially noted for accuracy in pinning down stages of life." This is preposterous. Most NYPD cops have undoubtedly developed a more heightened awareness of personal detail than your average Washington Post columnist.

In a follow-up offering on August 6, King accuses conservatives of hypocrisy for opposing racial preferences and supporting a Muslim-directed antiterror effort. This charge compares apples and oranges. The Constitution doesn't ban the government from ever considering nationality, religion, or race; it does require very good reasons for doing so. National security is one of those reasons. True enough, most conservatives do not believe that ensuring racial "diversity" is a sufficient reason to admit underprepared black applicants to highly competitive public colleges over more qualified Asians and whites, or to award a highway contract to a Hispanic-headed cement firm over a non-Hispanic lowest bidder. But just as a counterintelligence effort to find Nazi saboteurs or Russian spies entails taking the nationality of possible suspects into account, stopping Muslim terrorists before they strike necessarily entails taking nationality and likely religion into account to locate the most likely suspects.

Tellingly, King confines his newfound zeal for color-blindness to law enforcement alone: "[I]t is the Constitution that stands against those who would authorize the use of assumptions based on race, ethnicity and religion in law enforcement. It is the Constitution that limits the use of race and ethnicity in law enforcement decisions except in the most extraordinary circumstances" [emphasis added]. Denying someone a contract or a slot in school because of his race or ethnicity remains, in King's careful phrasing, a wide-open option.

King can imagine only one reason for Krauthammer's profiling suggestions: Racism. "In Krauthammer's worldview," writes King, "it's all quite simple: Ignore him and his son; suspect me and mine." So how would King narrow down the search for possible Islamic terrorists? He doesn't say. The only clear principle from his articles is that the police may not use any sort of generalizations about religion, national origin, or even behavior to target their resources, because every generalization has an exception and because we may not always accurately identify members of a class. That leaves the police with two alternatives: Everyone is a suspect, or no one is a suspect. Both alternatives have the same result: The police do nothing until the next attack. In the meantime, however, no one will cry that his rights have been violated.

And after the next attack, would King, the ACLU, and the New York Times have the police randomly search synagogues and parish churches for leads? A prediction: If the U.S. is attacked again, American law-enforcement authorities will do what the British have already done — unapologetically take Osama bin Laden at his word and look for Muslim suspects. And if the self-appointed rights guardians were ever given responsibility for protecting lives, let's hope that they would do the same.

Heather Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.


52 posted on 08/12/2006 3:02:23 AM PDT by Spiff ("They start yelling, 'Murderer!' 'Traitor!' They call me by name." - Gael Murphy, Code Pink leader)
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To: Spiff; potlatch; ntnychik; Smartass; Boazo; Alamo-Girl; PhilDragoo; The Spirit Of Allegiance; ...

from Krauthammer:

'But the massive, teeming suburbs of disaffected and alienated immigrants simply do not exist here.'

My response is..

"YET"..........

Thanks and ping for some good reading


53 posted on 08/12/2006 5:29:16 AM PDT by bitt ("And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.")
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To: cf_river_rat
Just saw a Muslim guy on tv who was being interviewed by a local newsie. He said "the American people will never stand for profiling". I wish I could say he was wrong, but given the political correctness of the day I'm afraid he is right. The really sad part is most Americans would understand and favor profiling.
54 posted on 08/12/2006 5:41:06 AM PDT by pepperdog
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To: North Coast Conservative; 2111USMC; 2nd Bn, 11th Mar; 68 grunt; A.A. Cunningham; ASOC; ...

BTTT


55 posted on 08/12/2006 5:42:06 AM PDT by freema (Marine FRiend, 1stCuz2xRemoved, Mom, Aunt, Sister, Friend, Wife, Daughter, Niece)
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To: mistybella
Their females are begining to go for the gold also

When your chief competition for minimal respect and human dignity is the local livestock, blowing yourself up must seem more appealing.

56 posted on 08/12/2006 5:48:57 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: kms61
I completely agree with your assessment.

Therefore, we can begin profiling for terrorists immediately. There is nothing racist or bigoted about it.
57 posted on 08/12/2006 5:49:24 AM PDT by Beckwith (The dhimmicrats and liberal media have chosen sides and they've sided with the Jihadists.)
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To: cf_river_rat

bump.


58 posted on 08/12/2006 5:51:53 AM PDT by armymarinemom (My sons freed Iraqi and Afghan Honor Roll students.)
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To: Caipirabob
I imagine if my life had reproducing with a muslim man in store for me I'd be first in line to wrap a belt around me.

Unfortunately they like the killing as much as their men do,it's not an escape route for them.
59 posted on 08/12/2006 5:56:10 AM PDT by mistybella
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To: cf_river_rat
Anyone for Terrorist Profiling?


No.

Takes too long,costs too much. Inconveniences Americans.


Better first step - If any individual, who is not already a citizen of the USA, is on our soil, and carries a passport from any terrorist sponsoring and supporting country, or any predominantly muslim country, they are given 72 hours to settle their affairs and leave the USA, for good.

Students, H1B holders, tourists, diplomats, etc. 72 hours, and bye-bye.

Those who refuse to comply will be hunted down and deported.

Step two, effective immediately, NO individual from the above list will be granted entry into our Nation, period.

Every Arline that flies into the USA will be notified that NO ONE from the terrorist countries may fly here, ditto for all other forms of travel.

Step three: because it is stupid-easy to entry the country illegally by strolling across the border, One half of the National Guard units stationed overseas will be returned back home. They will then be redeployed to protect and secure OUR borders.

repeat as necessary.
60 posted on 08/12/2006 6:10:03 AM PDT by WhiteGuy (It's about the People Who Count the Votes................. - Wally O'Dell)
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