Would you let this guy on your airplane?
Not necessarily since there are some Caucasian Muslims. Remeber John Walker Lindh?
I think a careful, yet efficient system whereby there are several security perimeters are used. Each perimeter has direct contact with the next perimeter and can flag certain passengers as "persons of interest". If the next perimeter has reason to agree, then this person or persons can be screened more closely at the next perimeter.
It would still be rather slow, but would speed up flow at the bottle necks.
Oh, and BTW, even if they don't say they do, TSA does profile, and Airport security has been profiling for as long as hijackings have been around.
I have some friends from Malaysia and Singapore. Some of them told me, just prior to the April 19 Bombing in OKC, that their relatives were stopped at the Airport here in OKC, interrogated, searched, then let go. The authorities never gave a reason, nor should they have. Then after the bombings it was revealed that Terry Nichols had been to the Phillipines and was in contact with terrorists (very likely Al Quieda) there.
There are still many here in OKC that believe there was an Al Quieda tie to the bombing. Why that part of the investigation has been dropped is still a mystery. The feds claim that John Doe #2 was a figment of some Ryder truck store clerks immagination. If that's the case than he was also the figment of several eyewitnesses imaginations at the scene of the bombing just before it happened.
You're right. Not all muslims are south asian or arabic. Lindh wasn't really a terrorist, though. He was a Talibunny.
A few of the terrorists don't fit the profile of arabs or south asians. But easily 99% of them do.
So it's silly not to concentrate on them. I'm tired of seeing great-grandma get wanded at the security checkpoint while the guy speaking arabic waltzes on through.
I feel sorry for the patriotic arab citizens of this country who will feel the brunt of any profiling. Yet I'd feel even sorrier for them if a terrorist killed them.
And that terrorist is almost surely going to be an arab or a Pakistani.