The problem with terrorist profiling...

...Is that EVERY ethic group, gender, and age group have been involved in terrorism.  It's not just "young Middle Eastern men"  like some idiots think.  Pick any group that people clambering for profiling think should be excluded, and you will find a significant number of terrorists.  For example:

Caucasians:  Anyone else remember the Oklahoma City anymore?  Largest terrorist attack on American soil prior to 2001? 

Women: Russia.  Algeria.  Actually, my understand is that one of the big "OMG they're teh evilz!" wielded against guerrilla fighters in Algeria's 1950s war for independence from France was "they use women to carry out their terrorist attacks!"  In other words, ladies have a long history in terrorism.

Eldery:  Algeria again, and quite likely that Al-Qaeda will continue to user elderly operatives in other areas.  There was also that nut who tried to commit a massacre at the Holocaust Museum but got stopped at the door; killed the security guard.  (We do want to stop individual mass murderers and not just those with group backing, right?)

Christians:  I bet the Irish would have something to say about this. 

Even children too young to intiate terrorist action themselves have been used to carry weapons and explosives.

I think we can all agree that we do not want to identify only "most" terrorists and call it close enough.  We want to catch all of them, and only them, before they kill people, right?  Then profiling doesn't help, because there are no "safe" groups.  If we want to go this route, then we need to go all the way to background checks for all passengers.

I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept. 

Then again, let's be honest.  Many people who say "I want profiling" really mean "I don't want to be personally bothered by this security stuff."  Majority priviledge talking loud and clear.

Blog Anti-Torture Day

The Bush administration claims that torture is a crucial interrogation method, absolutely essential to "keeping America safe".

This is bullshit.

First and foremost, torture is not an effective interrogation technique. Even the most cursory glance at history will tell you this. Witch hunts? Inquisition? Any of these ring a bell? Even today, name me one specific, documented, imminent terrorist attack that has been thwarted by torture tactics. I mean the same detail that was released when the 2006 airline liquids ban went into place: expected dates, expected targets, actual means to do so in the near future. If torture is so critical, then after 6 years there ought to be at least one case the Bush administration could trot out whenever challenged, one instance where they could say "had we not used these tactics, then on Nov 23, 2005, approximately 700 people would have been killed due to a bomb explosion in Time Square" or something similar.

There's not. The administration and its lackeys may like to say that "we've stopped dozens of potential attacks because of this", but why should we believe it when not a single one is at a stage where definite, concrete details can be given -- as they were the day the liquids ban went into place?

Now, think about this a little more, and get scared. If torture is not an effective interrogation technique, why is it being used?

Let me point something out. Torture is a common war tactic to demoralize a populace. Vietnam showed us this. So did WWII, and probably every war before that. The point of torture as a war tactic is not just the person being tortured. At least as important, often more so, is the populace scared into inaction by fear of that torture.

This is also why it's a very common tactic of terrorist groups. Since the start of the Iraq war, how many journalists/aid workers/others have been kidnapped in the Middle East and tortured on video in attempts to scare the torturers' enemies into complying with their demands? Enough to have kept the media busy for a while.

When we do the same, we are the same. When we use terrorist tactics, we are morally no different than any terrorist group. Having large funding and government approval makes such tactics more onerous, not less.

The trick when using torture as a war (or terror) tactic is for your enemies to know about it, and your proponents not to. Now I have to point out that many Iraqs outside the prison knew about Abu Ghraib long before the American press caught wind of it. Hmm...

The catch is, the Bush administration didn't keep the cat in the bag very well. Now, America is supposed to be a civilized country. We don't like that kind of thing. But, the administration wasn't about to abandon their torture tactics, so their task became making us like, or at least tolerate, them. Which is more likely to garner that result: "we want to use it to terrify a populace into submission", or "we want to use it to keep you, each and every one of you, safe."

Don't think for a second that torture tactics are really about protecting us; they're not. That's merely a smoke screen, a ruse to get the American people to look the other way. Torture tactics are an unacceptable means to an unjustifiable end, and America's citizens should demand that they be stopped.