One absurdity of political correctness is that profiling is inherently wrong, because it is a form of racism. The truth of matter is that profiling is the only way to combat certain forms of evil. And this point is very relevant to the issue of terrorism and the fight against it. At the outset, we might usefully distinguish between richly informed profiling and dumb-witted profiling. Dumb-witted profiling simply takes a very prominent physical feature and assumes that all people with that prominent physical feature have a certain undesirable character trait. With dumb-witted profiling Jews and whites and blacks and Asians and Arabs and so forth have all been a victim of profiling.
Dumb-witted profiling has it that all Jews are only interested in amassing money and that all whites are racist and that all blacks are intellectually bereft and so on. Dumb-witted profiling is just that: dumb.
But profiling need not be dumb-witted at all. Profiling can be richly informed. If, on the one hand, all that you know is that the rapist had blue eyes, then it is just stupid to suppose that the rapist is just as likely to be black as he is white. So it is, even though there are blacks with blue eyes. If, on the other, you know that the rapist lures his way into the homes of women by singing funky American-style gospel music, it is equally silly to think that the rapist is just as likely to be white as black. So it is, even though there are whites who can majestically produce that quality of voice that is characteristic of funky American-style gospel music.
Suppose that we know that a murder was committed in the hood. Well, that simple fact is obviously rather relevant to constructing a richly informed profile of the murderer. Assuming (for the sake of argument) that the hood is essentially a black neighborhood, the probability that a white committed the murder is relatively low. Yet, it is also true that it will not be equally probable that all blacks committed the murder. Some blacks no more know their way around the hood than does a cow know its way around the earth. It is very unlikely that most black professors, for example, would reasonably fit the profile.
In Syracuse (NY), for instance, many Muslim Arabs operate run-down grocery stores in the hood. Just so, they would not make the profile either. For they tend to be rather noticeably out of place except for being in the stores that they run.
A richly informed profile of the murder would yield a black who frequents the hood. Can the profile be mistaken? Of course it can. Alas, this does not mean that profiles are out of order. If, for instance, the only profile available of a yet-to-be found murderer in Syracuse (NY) is that of an American born male who speaks French: well, I fit the profile. And it would be absolutely reasonable for people to insist that I give an account of my whereabouts at the time of the murder.
So here we are fighting terrorism. And while it is manifestly false that all Muslims are terrorists, it is nonetheless manifestly true that the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims. Now, you will notice that I did not say that the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Arabs who are Muslims. It seems that the Nigerian would-be-terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is Muslim but not Arabic.
So when it comes to air travel, for example, it is just silly to suppose that we should be equally suspicious of every Tom, Dick, and Harry or Sally, Mary, and Jane who seeks to board a plane. That is a ridiculous waste of resources.
In the name of political correct, the United States refuses to do, in an analogous way, what the Israeli airline El Al does. Muslim Arabs constitute the suspect class for EL AL. Accordingly, Muslim Arabs who fly EL AL are given special screening and search examinations. It suffices to point out that, notwithstanding all the tension in the Middle East and hostility towards Israel, EL AL has one extraordinary track record when it comes to planes not being blown out of the sky.
By contrast, in American airports, I have watched little old ladies being patted-down; and I must confess that this strikes me as absurd beyond measure. Or so it is until the day comes when little old ladies are targetet for “gifts” to be given to someone at the other end—“gifts” that turn out to be none other than explosives.
Al-Qaeda is training young men to commit acts of suicide terrorism against airline companies of the United States. These young men are not Jewish or Christian. They are Muslim. This is a richly informed profile—and not an expression of hostility towards Muslims.
In order to make the point, here is a very different profile: the people who tend to blow up abortion clinics, tend to be very conservative Christians who are white—not Muslims; not Jews. I have nothing against white males. Yet, the profile just articulated holds.
So I hold an extremely simple view. Anyone who has contact with Al-Qaeda should be automatically subjected to questioning. I mean no one is going to contact them to find out their postal address or the number meals that need to be sent or to gain clarity regarding the nature of evil.
It is true that anyone could contact Al-Qaeda. But the actually probability that just anyone will is ever so low. And while it is possible that Al-Qaeda would be just as happy to have Christians and Jews blow American planes out of the sky, it seems ever so unlikely that either Christians or Jews will be showing up for training.
It is not owing to racism that one readily thinks Muslim, when thinking about terrorism. Quite the contrary, it is owing to basic and thoughtful reasoning that one thinks of “terrorism” and “Muslim”. I will change my mind when Jews and Christians start showing up for Al-Qaeda terrorist training programs.