Posted on 08/17/2006 2:51:20 AM PDT by goldstategop
To profile or not to profile? Some recent suspicious incidents involving mass purchase of cell phones by Middle Eastern men have given this debate a new urgency.
On Tuesday, terrorism charges were dropped against two Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, who had been arrested in Ohio. Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan had been stopped for a traffic violation a week before; in their car, sheriff’s deputies found $11,000 in cash, airline passenger lists, material about airport security procedures, and twelve cell phones. It turned out that they had bought 600 cell phones recently.
Cell phones can be used as detonators. They’re also a ready means of non-traceable communication, as well as an easy source of ready cash, as they can be resold to people who don’t want their calls traceable. There have been several other strange incidents involving mass purchase of such phones recently: three Palestinians were recently arrested in Texas with 1,000 cell phones in their van, and there was another incident involving “Middle Eastern men” buying cell phones in large quantities in Tucson, Arizona.
These incidents, especially all coming around the same time, are extremely suspicious, but even before prosecutors dropped the terror charges against Houssaiky and Abulhassan, charges of racial profiling began surfacing in the mainstream media. A public defender handling Abulhassan’s case, Ray Smith, said of his client at a hearing: “If his name was Joe Smith, we wouldn’t be here. His origin and appearance and name condition us to (think), ‘Oh my gosh, he’s a terrorist.’” The dropping of the charges will only reinforce this impression, despite the fact that many questions remain about the case and Washington County, Ohio Prosecutor James Schneider said that he still might press terrorism-related charges against the pair. According to AP, “Relatives of the men said they were just trying to make money by reselling the phones and were targeted because of their Arab backgrounds.”
It is unclear, however, what those who are charging that racial profiling was a factor in the arrest of Houssaiky and Abulhassan would have preferred to have happened. The facts of the case remain that they had lists of airline passengers, information on airport security, a large amount of cash, and instruments capable of being used as detonators. I hope that in such circumstances – given the fact that jihad terrorists have abundantly established their taste for targeting airplanes -- investigators would have looked into the possibility of terrorism even if Houssaiky and Abulhassan had been two Norwegian grandmothers.
But the fact that they are two young Muslim men makes this not an option, but a necessity. For however unpleasant or politically inconvenient a fact it may be, young Muslim males are responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorist violence around the world today. Since 9/11 Islamic jihadists have perpetrated well over five thousand terror attacks; no other group even comes close. Sane and courageous law enforcement officials will therefore subject young Muslim males to greater scrutiny, within the bounds of the law – and political correctness can take the hindmost.
Profiling, of course, is an imperfect tool, however useful it may be. Islam is not a race, and neither is the jihad. Adherents of the jihad ideology can be found among all races: as John Walker Lindh, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, Ismail Royer, and Hasan Akbar can attest. All those men have in common is that they are converts to Islam – a phenomenon that doesn’t necessarily have any outward signs. In fact, a recently discovered Al-Qaeda manual directs jihadists to adopt a Western secular appearance, and to eschew any outward manifestation of Islamic faith, precisely in order to divert suspicion: “Have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation (beard, toothpick, book, [long] shirt, small Koran)....Be careful not to mention the brothers’ common expressions or show their behaviors (special praying appearance, ‘may Allah reward you’, ‘peace be on you’ while arriving and departing, etc.)...Avoid visiting famous Islamic places (mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, etc.).” Likewise, the recent terror arrests in Britain, which included a pregnant woman, demonstrate that not all jihad terrorists are men, either.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that young Middle Eastern males have committed a disproportionate amount of violent terror attacks in recent years. Although Islamic jihad supremacism is an ideology, not a race, more Middle Eastern males hold to it than do members of other groups. Accordingly, it is simply a waste of resources to subject all airline passengers, from grandmothers to toddlers, to equal scrutiny, while refusing to spend more time investigating passengers who come from the group from which most terrorists spring nowadays.
This is not a question of civil liberties. No one is arguing for the rounding-up of people who are just going about their business. If, however, the police see anything suspicious, as they did in the car of Houssaiky and Abulhassan, they have a right and a duty to check it out, and should be able to do so freely, without worrying about hurting feelings or incurring internal affairs investigations for politically incorrect practices. And it is still true that in a free society, people who are not breaking the law will have nothing to worry about.
After the uncovering of the recent jihadist airplane plot in Britain, British officials have begun moving toward this. However, politically this is an explosive issue: a British source said that the British Department for Transport “is ultra-sensitive about this and won’t say anything publicly because of political concerns about being accused of racial stereotyping.” And predictably, once a report was printed about this in the Times of London, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Desai declared: “What you are suggesting is that we should have a new offence in this country called ‘traveling whilst Asian.’ What we don’t want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists.” And of course, we don’t want to do that. But those communities themselves have to take responsibility for the fact that jihadists have lived and recruited and plotted in their midst, generally with no fear that their coreligionists would turn them in. While Muslim tipsters helped expose the latest airplane hijacking plot, and that is highly commendable, all too often the wrath of the Muslim communities in America and Britain has been focused on anti-terror efforts and the foreign policy of their governments – when what is needed instead is an understanding of and tolerance for the need for profiling. But Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain doesn’t think profiling is worth doing anyway: “If the profiling is done on the basis of race and religion, it will be wrong, it is not going to work.”
Why not? All the September 11 hijackers were Muslims. So were the July 7 London bombers. And the Madrid train bombers of March 2004. And on and on. All the plotters in the recent international airplane hijacking attempt are Muslims. All were working on the basis of Islamic theology. Why must officials continue not to notice this? To ignore this is to give up voluntarily the one thing that may make it possible to spot the perpetrators of a terror attack before it happens, and head it off. In other words, it is suicidal.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
a good, old plea for profilin; but one or more catastrophes probably needed for PC stuff to be overcome in the US....
one or more catastrophes probably needed for PC stuff to be overcome in the US...
Was thinking exactly the same thing.
...and your point is?
(sarc/)
As has been said before, when will we stop using the term "profiling" and begin using the more correct term "description of the suspects"?
The latter won't work against convert terrorists like one of those in the recent London attempt. Nor will it stop ones like these:
It might work for a while till the Islamofascists manage a work-around though.
Frankly I do not subscribe to the idea that we ought to concentrate on certain profiles.
The picture in yesterday's papers of the woman who was going to put explosives in her baby's bottle proves that we cannot be secure with profiling as the basis for searches.
As with Israel, we MUST consider everyone suspect.
Ranting about profiling might make good talk show fodder but is a vacuous argument.
They can only convert so many white looking people. Regardless of a few white converts the vast majority of muslims will still look middle eastern, because they are. Not profiling is idiocy, profiling will give us a valuable tool in combatting terrorism. Profiling doesn't mean that you stop checking all suspicious people, but that you pay more attention to suspicious ME people.
The idiotic argument you put forth has been given since 9/11 and is a worthless argument and doesn't hold up. It is used by muslim appologist who don't want profiling because it will help stop terrorist or by someone who is just plain stupid, you pick which one fits you.
Dedicating more effort on Muslims as opposed to Christians or Jews is not vacuous. It is wise use of finite resources.
Israel has for years considered everyone a suspect. We are not even close to understanding what the average Israeli has gone throught since the birth of their great nation. The need for profiling is documented by the text of the article itself. The FBI, the CIA, and all major law enforcement agencies use personnel called profilers to aid in the solving of cases, such as serial killers. The PC establishment has done it's best to make us all the same -- just like their favorite ex-country the USSR. The woman in question, if I am not mistaken, was a follower of the pedophile prophet and just means that we expand our "profile" to Muslim women as well. This technique is adaptable due to the changing nature of the threat.
Ping.
BTTT
I guess you missed the last line on my previous post.
Besides, a lot of Chechans,Albanians, Afghans and Iranians look "white", leave alone many of the Middle Easterners.
They will find a work-around. These are extremely patient vermin who will do everything they can to cause mayhem.
These animals don't even shy away from using pregnant women for their terrorism.
Profiling will only be a temporary "fix", if at all. And if that's the only seemingly potent strategy available to combat this menace, I have nothing against it. But I do have a problem when security becomes lax due to agencies ignoring the alternatives that the terrorists would likely use, if their usual means are restricted.
I was just about to post this. You beat me to it. Spencer hits the nail on the head.
We need to profile. Those who protest (e.g. the ACLU and CAIR) can go pound sand.
Forget race or ethnicity then. It isn't their race that must be profiled, but the violent worldview to which they've subscribed. It's called Islam.
Let's put it this way. If there was an organization that held Nazi beliefs and actually had collaborated with the Nazis in WWII that was discovered to be committing mass murder and had several members in the United States how would you react? What if that group had actually attacked the U.S. and killed nearly 3,000 people? What if that group was responsible for more mass murder worldwide than the number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis in WWII? What if the members of that group had a document that outlined the groups beliefs and that document included a call for endless violence against anyone opposed to them. And that document, in fact, detailed a strategy for world domination wherein everyone must join their group or lives as slaves or be exterminated. What if that group was violently anti-Semitic? What if members of that group kept kidnapping innocent people and then video taping themselves cutting their heads off? Would you want to know who the members of that group are within the United States? Would you want strong measures to be taken to deal with that group? If you permitted that group to continue existing (for whatever insane reason) what reasonable measures should be taken to ensure that the group is not engaging in murderous conspiracies as they had so many times before?
You know what group I'm talking about. I don't care if their worldview is a religion or not. If the Nazis called their worldview a "religion" should we have just let them alone? Islam openly seeks world domination. Islam insists that you and your family either convert, or become a slave (a Dhimmi) to them, or be exterminated. Unchecked, it is only a matter of time until you and your family will have to make that choice - join, live as a slave, or have your throats cut. Islam is spreading throughout the globe with over 7 million members of that group in the United States alone. They don't get a pass just because they're considered to be a religion. Given their stated goal and the historical record they should be treated accordingly.
did you see the picture of the ordinary looking mom holding her baby? She could be any mom anywhere in the world boarding a plane
it was her intention to have explosives in the baby's bottle and kill her, the baby, and everyone on the plane
if you think we can determine in advance who is willing to murder us us, then you can dream on, or you don't fly. which is it?
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