Let's All Play Cowboys And Arabs

The arrest of British citizens of Middle Eastern descent for an alleged attempt to blow up airliners with liquid explosives shows that the United States needs to implement Israeli-style racial profiling and passenger interrogation techniques, according to an editorial by
Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe.

No sensible person imagines that ethnic or religious profiling alone can stop every terrorist plot. But it is illogical and potentially suicidal not to take account of the fact that so far every suicide-terrorist plotting to take down an American plane has been a radical Muslim man. It is not racism or bigotry to argue that the prevention of Islamist terrorism necessitates a special focus on Muslim travelers, just as it is not racism or bigotry when police trying to prevent a Mafia killing pay closer attention to Italians.

Of course most Muslims are not violent jihadis, but all violent jihadis are Muslim. This nation," President Bush has said, is at war with Islamic fascists." How much longer will we tolerate an aviation security system that pretends, for reasons of political correctness, not to know that?

That sounds so satisfying and true.

What we need to do is militarize our airports and interrogate all the brown people.

What Jacoby fails to note however is that Ben-Gurion handles approximately 9 million domestic and international passengers a year.

The United States airport system transported some 745.7 million passengers in 2005.

Ben Gurion is the safest airport the way that Fort Knox is the least robbed bank in America.

Our domestic threat level is no where near what the Israelis face, but that doesn't faze those with a hard-on for a new enemy as evil as Hitler and as powerful as the Soviet Union and as stealthy as the Viet Cong.

I'm all for smarter ways to find bombs and explosives and am encouraged by this DHS search for better liquid explosive detecting technology.

But a system of racial profiling?

That will do wonders for alienating radical, fundamentalist Muslims from mainstream or even conservative Muslims.

Look at how well its worked for Israel.

There's been little said about it since, but early reports regarding the English bomb plot investigation say that it was set off by a tip from someone in the Muslim community.

That's stinkin' fantastic.

Perhaps a better way to fight terrorism is to figure out how to remarginalize the death-worshiping religious extremists, protect the most glaring vulnerabilities like chemical plants, and just get on with our lives.

But then what would the authoritarians have to fantasize about?

Photo: Spider Dijon