O'Reilly advocated profiling of all "Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45," but not "racial profiling"
On the August 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly argued extensively for "profiling of Muslims" at airports, arguing that detaining all "Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45" for questioning "isn't racial profiling," but "criminal profiling."
Discussing the August 16 rerouting of a flight from London to Washington, D.C., due to a passenger disturbance, O'Reilly posed the question: "Is profiling Muslims the answer?" Apparently answering in the affirmative, O'Reilly declared, "[I]t's long past time for the USA to stop the nonsense and institute profiling at airports" because "[w]e're not at war with Granny Fricken. We're at war with Muslim fanatics. So, all young Muslims should be subjected to more scrutiny than Granny." Yet, despite advocating for profiling all "Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45," O'Reilly declared that such profiling "isn't racial profiling," but rather "criminal profiling" or, as he later termed it, "[t]error profiling."
From the August 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: The O'Reilly Factor is on. Tonight, more airline chaos today, this time on a London to D.C. flight. Is profiling of Muslims the answer? Is it time for a new strategy in Iraq? [Fox News contributor and former House Speaker] Newt Gingrich [R-GA] on that. And how should religious people fight the war on terror?
[...]
But first, a "Talking Points Memo." More airline terror chaos. As you may know, some woman caused a commotion on a United flight from London to D.C. The plane was escorted by American fighter jets and landed in Boston. Then some incompetent announced to the press the woman had matches, fluid, and had written a note about Al Qaeda. That turned out to be false, another hysterical reaction to the undeniable threat of airline terrorism.
Now, it's long past time for the U.S.A. to stop the nonsense and institute profiling at airports. We're not at war with Granny Fricken. We're at war with Muslims fanatics.
So, all young Muslims should be subjected to more scrutiny than Granny. And we should blend some Israeli screening procedures with our own.
For example, trained security people should receive the passenger list on every flight and interview those people most likely to be terrorists, folks who have traveled to Muslim countries, people who have criminal records. Passengers who are Muslims ages 16 to 45 all should be spoken with.
And if the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] doesn't like it, tough. This isn't racial profiling. This is criminal profiling. Israel looks for possible terrorists, not nail files. Yes, El Al [Israel Airlines] now does ban liquids, but the emphasis is on people, not weapons.
High-tech swabs are very effective, but you can't use them on all the customers. There simply isn't time. So, selective, not random searches should be in play in the U.S.A.
But the major change America must make is switching from the hourly-wage people at the security points to trained security people at the check-in counter. That's where terrorism will be stopped.
Criminal profiling is used by just about every police officer in this country, whether they admit it or not. It's called common sense and using your head.
The wrongheaded notion that you can't scrutinize Muslims, even though the terror war is driven by them, is beyond dumb. It's self-defeating and acutely dangerous. Profiling must begin now. And that's the "Memo."
[...]
O'REILLY: It's OK for Granny -- it's OK for Granny to sacrifice, but it's a waste of time, and it impacts negatively on the whole transportation industry to spend any amount of time on Granny. But it isn't a waste of time to profile Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45. That should be done automatically by professionals.
And nothing nasty, just do what the Israelis do, speak with them, all right. If you feel that there's some kind of -- if they've got a Iran stamp on their passport, yeah, you've got to talk to them. You don't disagree with that, do you?
RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR. (nationally syndicated columnist): I agree with this much of it, Bill. I think Americans are always looking for simple solutions. On immigration, we want to build a wall and then go home and go back to sleep. On this issue, we want to simply profile this group of people, as you said, and somehow that will end it. There are no simple solutions to this.
O'REILLY: Not going to end it, it makes it harder for the terrorists to operate. Look, you said they'll find surrogates. OK? And I agree with you.
NAVARRETTE: Yeah.
O'REILLY: It's hard to find surrogates. Once you go out of your little circle, the odds that somebody will inform on you rise dramatically. You know that.
And as for the wall down on the border, it's not going to solve the problem. It makes it harder for the coyotes to get them across.
And the United States government has a responsibility to protect us from terrorists, from illegal immigration. And to make it harder to do these things is a good thing, Mr. Navarrette. It isn't tearing apart the fabric of our society. It's smart, and it's good. I'll give you the last word.
NAVARRETTE: OK. Good. I think it is tough. I don't think it's smart. I think smart is something that gets at the problem, doesn't base it on assumptions like this. I'm sorry. Racial profiling just doesn't work. It hasn't worked out in the past.
O'REILLY: Terror profiling, not racial. Terror profiling.
NAVARRETTE: OK. Thank you, Bill.
O'REILLY: I'm not going to convince you, no matter what I do.
NAVARRETTE: Not today, Bill.
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I agree 100 % Terror profiling! Now, let's get those good ol' caucasion boys who terrorized Oklahoma City. I want a seperate line for all christian white males who live or have visited Michigan in the last decade.
While I could not agree more that Bill O'Reilly is a moron. Your argument about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing is not only short sighted, but also easily debunked. Here is why, Timothy McVeigh did not kill anyone in the name of religion nor was he a practising Christian. Muslims Extremists kill people in the name of Allah and the religion of Islam. While I disagree with religious or racial profiling the Timothy McVeigh argument is a bad one. Try this one... Most Muslims are not Arabic and most Arabs are not Muslim.
For reference check out this great video from Fox News a few days back....
[link to thinkprogress.org]
" Try this one... Most Muslims are not Arabic and most Arabs are not Muslim. "
That is a very true statement. However, did the terrorists on 9/11 fit the "profile"? Did the bus bombers in England fit the "profile"? Did the captured terrorists who would have pulled off another autracity fit the "profile"? I think that, so far, "profiling" could have stopped all the events listed above if it had been inplemented properly.
Sure Muslims may not like being profiled, but it is only them doing it. Sure you may have a 1 in 500 shot that some kook may be looking to destroy something, but if you're trying to stop the 1 time of 500 then look at everyone, if you're looking to stop the 499 times of 500 then look at Muslim young men.
Granted, he was not a terrorist, but was a white American man fighting for the terrorist-harboring Taliban.
We can never be sure that white American terrorists or white American terrorist collaborators don't exist.
Racial profiling won't keep us completely safe and you're foolish to think so.
is saying you don't check everyone.
Not profiling when 99.9 percent of the terrorist acts are done by Muslims is stupid.
Real terrorists are looking for a way on the plane. When we decide not to look at a group of people and focus on others, we are providing an opening for the terrorists to exploit.
They find out what factors go into the profile and then they recruit followers that don't fit the profile.
Besides I haven't seen anyone point out how we are going to be sure the terrorists are honest enough to provide accurate information about their religion so they can fit the profile better.
How are you going to tell if someone is a Muslim? Do you expect Muslim terrorists to just tell you the truth even if they think it might endanger their mission by drawing added unnecessary attention to themselves?
If you think they are that honest, why don't we just ask everyone if they are a terrorist or not? That should work pretty well by your logic.
There are millions of muslims in the US and there are many more people from areas of the world where Americans believe people may be muslim. Additionally there are people of every color who are muslim.
Stopping people of assumed arabic descent is just plain bigoted. The only reason you want to do this is your fear and the knowledge that you will not be stopped. Bigot's like yourself need to be stopped or the terrorists will have won.
"That is a very true statement. However, did the terrorists on 9/11 fit the "profile"? Did the bus bombers in England fit the "profile"? Did the captured terrorists who would have pulled off another autracity fit the "profile"? I think that, so far, "profiling" could have stopped all the events listed above if it had been inplemented properly."
Regarding the 9/11 attack, racial profiling may have stopped the attack, but one could say the same thing about heeding one of the 52 warnings:
[link to www.truthout.org]
Of the "52 warnings" you mention, how many have you simply made up? Which of those warnings are allowed by the ACLU and how many were kept secret because of the ACLU threats of lawsuits and actual lawsuits?? Even something as simple as profiling isn't allowed in the world of the ACLU. Just goes to show that of those "52 warnings" only 1 or 2 were actually missed. The rest were made illegal and buried in bureaucracy by the liberals who control the anti-war movement and who support the enemy.
More rampant speculation in place of facts.
If you have anything to backup your rather specific claim of :
"Just goes to show that of those "52 warnings" only 1 or 2 were actually missed. The rest were made illegal and buried in bureaucracy by the liberals who control the anti-war movement and who support the enemy." --RH
Or are you just pulling that out of your butt?
He used the term "terror profiling".
Was the Oklahoma City Bombing not an act of terrorism?
The IRA also used terrorism for non-religious reasons.
Your assertion that terrorism is exclusive to religion is the bad argument.
Only I never said terrorism was exclusive to religion or Muslims. All I said was Timothy McVeigh did not act in the name of Christianity therefore profiling Christians based on his act of terrorism is a bad argument. Along with yours!
He did say 'Christian white males'.
My bad.
His argument would have been a good one if he simply said 'white males who live..."
Do you want to show the pattern of white males bombing federal buildings? Does it approach the sterling record of Muslims commiting acts of terror?
Have bombed more federal buildings in the US than any muslims have.
Rudolf didn't bomb a federal building, he hid his explosives near one and threatened to do so.
The Oklahoma City Bombing did involved religion to some extent. When Tim McVeigh was arrested he had a copy of “The Turner Diaries” in his possession. This is a book about a white supremacist group who commit a terrorist act by blowing up FBI Headquarters. The government overreacts to the situation by creating a police state. The group convinces white Protestants that they were under attack by their own government [which is under the control of Jews]. A race, cultural and religious war breaks out and all minorities, Jews, Catholics and Liberal whites are killed leaving behind only white Protestants. This is what the delusional Tim McVeigh hoped to achieve.
that McVeigh had the Turner Diaries in his possession and there is a slight religious angle. However, that cult is smaller than ALF and to mention in the same breath as radical Islamics is a joke.
By an interesting twist, the Unabomber had Al Gore's book as an inspiration.
You mean Al Gore's book that says to make bombs and kill people. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
Don't you pay attention to the news? Or, do you just regurgitate the liberal mantra? Gore's book "earth in the balance" was found in the unabombers cabin. Similarities between unabombers "manifesto" and Gore's book kind of make Gore look like unabomber-lite.
[link to www-tech.mit.edu]
There is no substance to your attack on Gore. So surprising.
Most Arabs certainly are Muslim.
How did you make that one up? It is not even a contest.
terrorist acts can you point to in the last 5 years that where Christian related? I have a strong feeling, the Muslims Terrorists outweigh the Christian terrorists by 100 times fold.
Of course, most recent terrorism is from Muslims. The problem I have with this whole attitude is the apparent superiority argument that Christians keep giving here.
Going by recent events in a historical context is just cherry-picking a time period.
Throughout history Christians have taken their turns at being number 1 in that category. The Crusades, Euro-fascism, the Inquisition, Conquest of the New World, Colonialism, etc. all exhibit times when the rest of the world's religions had every reason to fear us.
we should learn from history and acknowledge how dangerous this form of cultism is instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending nearly every act isn't committed by Muslims.
You appear to be the one who wants to pretend Islam itself is the problem. It appears to be more specific than that, but you don't seem to see that.
Millitant Fundamentalism appears to be the specific problem within Islam.
If you knew some good Muslims as I do, you would not be so quick to condemn them wholesale.
...technically, Muslim isn't a race, so profilling all Muslim's between 16 and 45 isn't RACIAL profiling. But since O'Reilly said that profiling every Muslim between those ages is "CRIMINAL profiling", I think it logcially follows to conclude that O'reilly insinuated, inadvertantly or not, that all Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45 are criminals. When you racial profile, you evaluated pretty much EVERYONE of a particular race. If you apply that principle to Muslims, you evaluate anyone you think is a Muslim. So Bill's statement that profiling Muslims is the same as profiling criminals is a implication, intentional or not, that all Muslims are criminals (which isn't what I believe, of course.
At the very least it can now be said that Bill O' Reilly is prejudiced based on his own admission. Someone please get through to his show and make this argument to him.
prej·u·dice P Pronunciation Key (prj-ds) n. 1. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. 2. A preconceived preference or idea. 3. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions. See Synonyms at predilection. 4. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.
Your analysis is much more sophisticated than Bill-O himself could ever hope to be. I think he means that all Muslims are easy to pick out of a line at the ticket counter or security check-point because of the way they look and/or dress, even perhaps by names on a manifest. Because of that view, he has to re-badge such profiling (which ultimately is racial or phenotypic, if not to say based at least upon stereotypes) to soften the impression that he is a hate-mongering lunatic and a simpleton.
Perhaps he may one day be nabbed by a new screening paradigm: "stupidity-profiling."
Hmm,
I wonder how Bill is going to determine if someone is muslim. Not everyone from the middle east and surronding areas are muslim. Racial profiling does not work and has never worked. And to say it is criminal profiling is insane. That would be like saying anytime there is a serial killer the police will stop every white male between 30 and 5o to ask them questions.
However, I would like to congratulate Billy boy for one thing he got right. At least he admitted the police "profile" people. As a used to be young black male living in a majority white area I can atest to that. Some police officers use race as a way to profile people and it is very ineffective. Profiling is just a way to make assumptions and we all know what happens when you assume.
The Germans sometime in the late 30's or early 40's solved the identification problem by requiring certain people to wear a star sewed to their cloths. Maybe that could work here too!
Profiling is part of routine police work. For example…let’s say you have a string of bank robberies in town and in each case the description of the perpetrators is 4 white males in their twenties with long hair and beards. Common sense says the police should look for potential suspects that FIT THE DESCRIPTION of those who committed the crime. In the liberal world, the police would pull over all cars with 4 people inside, regardless of other physical characteristics, because to do otherwise would be unfair to all white males in their twenties with beards. Terrorism is similar…you have a string of crimes committed by Middle Eastern males, age 18-43 and instead of the police concentrating on Middle Eastern males, age 18-43, they spend their limited resources searching/investigating 93 year old Grandmothers, and infants in strollers so that they don’t offend anyone. Doesn’t it just make sense that since we know from experience the likelihood is that the next crime will be committed by people fitting a particular description that those folks should get extra scrutiny? This is a case of liberal political correctness gone wrong.
The situation you depicted at the beginning of your post is totally different than what O'Reilly is talking about. In your scenario, a crime was committed and the police are looking for the persons who committed the crime. The police should absolutely focus on "white males in their twenties with long hair and beards". In O’Reilly scenario, he wants to focus on people who have not committed any crime except for being Muslim in the United States.
...crimes have been committed by terrorist and the police should be absolutely focusing on persons fitting the description of those who committed the crimes…in this case, Middle Eastern men age 18 – 43. Just like H-MAN, who had to endure what he perceived to be racial profiling as a young black male in a predominately white area when, IMO, he simply fit the description of persons who had committed a crime, i.e. young black male with brown eyes and black hair. If he didn’t fit that description then he shouldn’t be scrutinized, but if he did, like Middle Eastern men age 18 -43, he should accept that in order for the police to do their job, they must consider him a potential suspect because he fits the description of people who committed the crime even though they are totally innocent. It’s only common sense.
No, we don’t agree.
Let’s take the scenario you depicted and conform it to what your and Bill O’Reilly’s position is:
Let’s say you have a string of bank robberies in town and in each case the description of the perpetrators is four white males in their twenties with long hair and beards. The police eventually catch the criminals by focusing on whites males in their twenties w/ long hair and beards but now they will start to harass this group of people because they have a “tendency” to rob banks.
Once a terrorist reaches age 46, he no longer desires martyrdom and eternal life in paradise with his virgins. Good thing we have O'Reilly the terror expert to teach us these things.
I don't know how he came up with the 46 figure. Maybe he pulled it out of his butt as he seems to do with MUCH of what he says.
I am still at a loss trying to figure out HOW you can tell someone is a Muslim? Since they come from every part of the globe and embrace a variety of attire and practices, how do you tell? Maybe BOR still thinks they have horns and tails or something.
How can you tell if someone is Muslim? Because they look muslim. You get the idea.
What is unfortunate is that B O'R actually made some points I strongly agree with but that got buried in his spew. I think our response to terrorism is much too focussed on reactionary response. Terrorists use boxcutters to highjack planes? Prohibit all sharp objects. Terrorist attempts to blow up plane with shoe bomb? OK, make everyone remove their shoes before boarding. Plot discovered to disguise explosives as beverages? Ban all fluids, etc, etc,....
It's a very simple-minded approach that I don't believe is really making us safer. I agree with his point that the focus needs to be on preventing terrorists from boarding rather than confiscating all potential weapons. And this should apply to every aspect of our approach to terrorism, not just airlines.
I also agree with the point about having more highly trained security personnel at security checkpoints. Taking over the airport security from local authorities might have been a reasonable idea, but it's been handled in a typically inept way.
That doesn't necessarily translate into having muslim-only checkpoints in my opinion, but I agree with the overall point that our approach to terrorism could be much more sensible and intelligent.
...making a BLANKET generalization like "How can you tell if someone is Muslim? Because they look muslim. You get the idea." One of my old co-workers was Muslim, and there's no way I would have known had he not MENTIONED it to me. He dressed in street clothes like a typical American and I ate lunch with him everyday and we'd just talk about sports and stuff.
I can understand the frustation with not being able to more effectively locate terrorists. The problem is that they are not a neat and tidy group, easily identifiable and you can watch for them. The kind of work that the British authorities undertook (long periods of very quite surveillance) requires patience (which the media in general with their voracious news cycles cannot fathom) and is unglamorous. The focus should be on dealing with the problem long before anyone gets anywhere near an airport. In Britain, that case apparently started with a Muslim person reporting a concern about someone else to the authorities. That underscores the importance of boring, namby-pamby sounding ideas such as community relations.
Your post raised an interesting issue for me: right-wingers (a group in which I am NOT lumping you) have absolutely fetishized WWII vis-a-vis the War on (or "of") Terror. Pontificating how we need to continue with the strategy of sending decent young men and women to die in Iraq because at some point enough will have died and terrorism will magically disappear, the focus is on the need for patience. Yet, they seem to be willing to exercise any patience when it comes to issues and methodologies that don't fit on bumper stickers. Just a thought.
"Yet, they seem to be willing to exercise any patience when it comes to issues and methodologies that don't fit on bumper stickers"
Should have ssaid "unwilling"
I'm not a good typist :(
you propose profiling people in this country that have the appearances of individuals living in a region stretching from Mauritania in West Africa to Indonesia and the Philipines in the South Pacific? Or do you support only profiling Middle Eastern men from Egypt to Iraq? Or would you expand it to Central Asia and include Iranians, Pakistanis, Afghanis, Uzbekis, etc., etc?
If Bill advocates profiling people from the first, broadest geographical region, he might need to know that Sudanese and Indonesians do not resemble one another in any way, shape, or form. Sudanese have the same appearnce as many darker-skinned African Americans and Indonesians, due to the shape of their eyes, are more "Oriental" in appearance.
So Bill, we must then profile all East Asian individuals in America because they look sort of like people from Indonesia, and all BLACK people because of Sudan and Somalia. or are we going to cut the profiling off at people with skin lighter than a certain color and people whose eyes are more horizontal than Indonesians'?
What about people from India? They can easily be confused with Middle Eastern men. What about Sikhs? A Sikh truck driver was killed in cold blood in Phoenix a few years ago because he was mistaken by his racist redneck murderers as being Muslim.
What about Hispanics? They can look like Iraqis or Saudis, can they not? Should we give every policeman in the country a detailed diagram specifying what specific physiological traits to search for while on the job?
This is just another irresponsible racist tirade by the spokesman of fascism himself, Bill O'Reilly.
Also since Kurds ( though the Kurds in Iraq are pretty happy with us the ones in Afghanistan arent) and Iranians are Aryan and many are quite light skinned and blue eyed that means those of European descent also would be profiled which pretty much means everyone but Eskimos. That is one of the PRACTICAL problems with profiling it give the illusion of doing something without actually doing anything that might help.
Just look at who the perpetrators have been. It HAS been the group he describes. It's rather silly to stop a white or black or asian family with their grandmother, and make sure they empty their shoes, when there is absolutely nothing that points to persons like that fitting the criminal profile of the terrorists.
However, you can't target everyone just because of their looks or religion, which is ultimately what O'Reilly wants. Millions of non-terrorist men with "generic muslim appearance" aren't terrorists anymore than you and I are.
This quote from O'Reilly:
"For example, trained security people should receive the passenger list on every flight and interview those people most likely to be terrorists, folks who have traveled to Muslim countries, people who have criminal records. Passengers who are Muslims ages 16 to 45 all should be spoken with."
Now, I don't see anything wrong with that, except the last, arbitrary group selection. Passengers who fit the profile for the screening criteria he sets in the first sentence should be spoken with - whether they are muslims or not. To target someone ONLY because of their religion is both wrong and inefficient. The rest of his blather is pretty meaningless though, as usual.
people who have flown out of or are flying to international tourist spots like Dubai in the Middle East? The British men who blew up the underground and double-decker buses last July were homegrown Brits of Middle Eastern descent. Just because one is flyingf to the Middle east means nothing. The FBI does not need indiscriminate racial profiling of people fitting a vague and generalized description to do its job. The FBI didn't need to racially profile to identify and keep tabs on two of the 9/11 hijackers.
You're absolutely right. Airport screening is the very last resort - most of the resources need to be directed to FBI, CIA and others, who can do a much better job without limiting themselves to some simple profiling procedures.
if you are catching terrorist at the airport who is prepared to detonate a bomb, that is a great cause for concern. The government should be on these people's tails long before they get to the airport. Screening, like you said, is a last resort.
If a terrorist is caught at the airport, I'd say that there's a failure in the system elsewhere. If there's a bomb going off on a plane, the solution isn't to make air travel even more inconvenient, because the failure was elsewhere.
I want the government to be able to use wiretapping, monitoring, "following the money" and a lot of the stuff that this administration has been doing - I just want it to be regulated by courts and lawmakers, not some secret keot by the White House, since that will inevitably lead to abuse and inefficiency.
you are unfairly penalizing Muslims/Arabs by supporting inspection of individuals who are travelers to the Middle East, because you are more likely than not going to get Muslims/Arabs on those flights. Flying to Middle East is no short weekend escapade, mind you. You aren't going to get blond, blue-eyed white people on such trips, so singling out Muslim/Arab people because they are flying over to that area shouldn't be allowed.
O'Lielly.
the fact that the United States government openly uses Christianity as a source of inspiration to commit war crimes. Outside of the UNited States, its an abhorrent use of religion. Should other countries be profiling Christian American's because of a fringe group of ideologues? I wonder how many terrorists we can create by keeping all Moslem males detained when they try to travel overseas.
That's an absurd analogy. Show me the latest Christian nutjob who is willing to blow themselves up along with thousands of innocent people for the "honor" of his or her religion?
There are Christian nut jobs who kill other people. Remember Eric Rudolf he bombed a gay nightclub , an abortion clinic and the '96 Olympics. Of course he did not kill himself but that does not make him any better.
Also, don't forget the provisional ira. Much of their violence was based in religion.
Lots of Christian soldiers in the US Army.
Not a fair comparison perhaps, but not a false one either.
You are comparing soldiers in our Army ordered to carry out a mission with people who board airplanes and crash them into buildings? You can't be serious?
You both know exactly what I mean, there is no moral equivalency here. Not even remotely close.
If you don't think there is a moral equivalency between muslim terrorists and the provisional ira I think you should talk to people from the UK who suffered from their bombings. Murder is murder is murder. You and your ilk just want to pretend that Muslims are the only people capable of murdering for their cause.
While you may believe this it does not make it right. The only reason you and others want to target Muslims is because of fear. You are afraid of them because they are different. The vast majority of Muslims are good people. Just like every other demographic in the world there is a small minority of them who do wrong. But that does not give anyone the right to target them.
A free society is full of risks. And freedom should be equal for ALL people. People should not have to live through extra scrutiny because of things they can not change. People who try to take those rights away are traitors to freedom and thus traitors to the constitution.
Are you ignoring all the Iraqi civilians that we killed in a war based on LIES?
there is moral equivalency. I agree, its difficult to compare because Americans, as you say Tommy, dont make a habit of blowing themselves up on planes. However, 'the rhetorical framework rests on three pillars' one of which is 'the assumption of the unique moral virtue of the UNited States.' I see this as comparable to the assumption of radical jihadists, of their divine quest. People in south-east asia, the middle east, and Latin America have every reason to fear the United States government, and its military arm. US soldiers are complicit in the crimes of the government, despite our patriotic and deeply real concern for their safety. I think you should consider the repurcussions of profiling. ITs not dissimilar to the repurcussions of Guantanamo Bay imprisonment - that is, if they weren't 'terrorists' before, they may well be now - you radicalise people if you treat them like criminals who are guilty of nothing.
Think about it. Instead of singling out one community due to race or color of skin, you watch for the guy who is nervous, follows people around or looks like he's casing the joint. Who cares what color or nationality he or she is.
Other than our frightened, threatened Bill O'Reilly and the mindless sheep who watch and listen to him.
Israeli airport security doesn't profile passengers on the basis of whether they're a Muslim 16-45 years of age (or whatever that racist, stupid a-hole claimed on his show). They look for nervousness, ticks, odd behavior - that kind of thing. If a lily-white christian man was sweating bullets and fidgeting in line at the Israeli Airport, he'd be pulled aside.
On a side note, Randi Rhodes said the other day that she'd claim she was a Muslim just to get into the shorter security line. I thought that was pretty funny.
And on another side note, I can't repeat enough what a racist, stunningly dumb, arrogant a-hole O'Reilly is enough. God, he's just ridiculous.
Profiling is a useful tool in criminal investigations. I don’t think you can take it out of the equation. There are many different characteristics and actions that go into a profile. Simply using appearence would be too broad to have any value. If you become too married to the profile it becomes a hindrance. It also becomes a weakness that can be exploited. When you take the vague profile to such an extreme that you decide all of some race or religion be visibly singled out (separate lines) you create an extremely volatile and dangerous backlash. My personal opinion is if the innocent person who fits some profile can be expected to deal with the inconvenience of increased security checks then so can everyone else. If you want to have these security measures in place then suck it up and take your turn being checked out and shut up.
What concerns me is the false sense of security profiling seems to give.
If people are not screened because they don't fit the profile, you can bet terrorists will try to find ways to get people through security that do not fit the profile.
A white Belgian woman was recently a suicide bomber. It is almost impossible to profile such people. Engineers, Doctors, women, all ages.
They mostly have religion in common, but how exactly can anyone tell? People convert all of the time. Many Palestinians and Lebanese are Christians so it would be wrong to assume anyone from the ME or relatives there are Muslim. What is to prevent a terrorist from lying about their religion in order to avoid profiling?
Does BOR really think that if we implemented profiling terrorists wouldn't simply put a little extra effort into looking non-muslim (whatever that means)? They'd probably stop wearing their "Bin Laden is Great" tee-shirts and carrying their large print Quaran's in public.
Scrutinity of people who's country of origin is known to have terrorists makes sense (e.g. Great Britain), but trying to identify a practitioner of a particular religion is (in BOR's own words) ridiculous.
form you fill out on a plane - 'are you a terrorist' 'are you coming to this country with the intention of committing a crime'
Er, yeah, I am, but I probably shouldnt admit it, they might just believe me. What is the point of profiling, come to think of it? WHats the point of interviewing a moslem male? Is he going to spill his guts? THe trouble is, US foreign policy has created a problem you simply cannot fight with the tough-guy hands in the air rubbish. You have to use a different approach---
with the country of origin-- Saudis would have to be the most closely scrutinized. I don't see BushCo pushing real hard for that.
And quit tipping them off about losing the "Bin Laden is Great" t-shirts! You're as bad as the NY Times telling them they should not send those giant novelty telethon checks to Terrorist Organizations.
I AGREE!!! Arabs are the ones blowing up things, not Polish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Belgium, etc.................................. I don't see a problem with this. If they don't like it, TOUGH. Maybe they'll start speaking out against their own radical fanatics. I live in the Detroit area, and in Dearborn. These people take to the streets with regularity, waving their " NATIVE " flags. Screaming and basically shouting SH*T ON AMERICA. WHY ARE THEY HERE??? They hate AMERICA SO BAD, and blame us for everything in this world. And don't start with THEY AS AMERICANS crap. Most of these people protesting and demonstrating every other day, blocking our streets here. ARE NOT AMERICAN CITIZENS YET! Sorry people this is one Democrat part Lib/ Moderate, whose showing their moderate side on this subject. It's Muslim Arabs making up most of the terrorists. Profile them to death! It may save YOUR LIFE!
740,000 people of Pakistani origin living in Britain. WIll you be profiling all of them, or just the moslem ones? Is wearing a turban the main criteria? or is it having a beard?
-Maybe they'll start speaking out against their own radical fanatics. -
is the biggest fallacy in this discussion. It is an insulting gesture to a portion of the worlds population who repeatedly and consistently remind the media and anyone who will listen that these so called 'terrorists' do not represent the moslem faith. Just because you can't be bothered listening, doesn't mean they're not saying it.
Can you back up that worthless baseless assertion with a shred of evidence of did you pull it out of your rectal database? Even if they WERE protesting is a VERY American thing to do. Also Arabs are NOT the ONLY people blowing things up. How often do I have to point out the Tamil Tigers have done more suicide bombings than any other goup even though they are a much smaller ethnic group than Arabs? IF we are only talking about BLOWING things up. I think the Israelis just blew up an awful lot of Lebanon and we certainly BLEW up an awful lot of Iraq. Always the weapons of the powerful are excused and the weapons of the weak are attacked.
Read the damn news in Detroit, or rather DEARBORN. You do know how to type that in, don't you? YOU DON'T LIKE FACTS? That's your problem. Your like O'Reilly most of the time. cCall the one speaking the truth a LIAR. He's famous for it. Cover up your STUPIDITY, by calling other people LIARS. Until YOU YOURSELF RESEARCH THE SUBJECT, GO TO HELL. I LIVE HERE, I KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON HERE. YOU ARE THE CLUELESS ONE. Get educated or STFU!
Longshot2 this is not where you are showing your moderate stance. Moderate people do not think one ethnic group should be singled out from everyone. That is for the ultra conservative right wing. As far as speaking out against terrorism you have muslims to thank for the recently averted terror plot. It was a muslim who told British authorities that someone they knew was acting strangely. At that point the British started their investigation.
Choosing to profile someone based on their perceived ethnic background is not effective. Ask the black woman coming back from Jamaica who were being profiled in Chicago. Many minorities (myslef included) have been profiled due to nothing other that the color of our skin. Maybe you have not gone through this type of demeaning activity. However, I will not sit back and allow you to spew your hate and intolerance that is only based in your cowardice.
You are allowing your fear to determine that a group of people who have no control over their heritage need to have a different class of citizenship. That goes against the constitution and imho makes you a coward. As far as the protests go I looked up what the recent protests have been
[link to www.freep.com]
Hmm looks like these people are protesting the bombing of Lebanon. I don't see anything negative about the US.
Let's keep looking. [link to english-cyprus.indymedia.org]
Hmm. This one is against Israel too. Maybe you need to send the links to the Detroit press that shows how "Arabs" are protesting against america.
I have researched the subject and I live in a large metropolitan area (Chicago) and I have seen immigration marches (that were all peaceful) and I took the oath the protect the constitution. So before you tell me to go to hell I think you need to look in the mirror and face your own fear. Liberals don't need cowards like you on our side!!!!
Exactly HOW would I research whether MOST that is at least a majority of Arabs anywhere are doing ANY single thing? It is impossible short of quitting my job and going house to house in Michigan. You are stupid beyond belief. Your assertion is garbage. Probably the ONLY thing MOST Arabs are doing in Michigan is BREATHING. The reason you DONT back it up is simply that you CANT back it up, it doesnt matter if you live there or on Planet Wingnut. YOU CANNOT BACK UP THIS LUDICROUS CLAIM. You pulled it from a dark dank place in your anatomy. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.
You know the cons don't care about the Tamil Tigers because they were trying to wipe out muslims not christians.