How does he know their are 7 sleeper cells in major cities.
As another poster has stated, this has been stated numerous times by the alphabet agencies.
Sorry Charlie, all the flag waving and chest thumping does not hide the fact we where lied to by our Government to get us involved in a "War on Terror".
We were not lied to in order to get us involved in a “War on Terror.” Terrorist have been at war with us for a long time. After 9/11, someone did something about it. For those that have a hard time remembering, there were NUMEROUS terrorist attacks PRIOR to 9/11 and PRIOR to Bush being in office.
The whole "Do you still think Islam is a Religion of Peace" spiel is just nothing but plain old fashioned bigotry against Muslims.
Just because some Terrorist's are Muslim, doesn't mean that all Muslims are Terrorists.
He can call a whole religion of people, estimated at over 1.3 billion people, terrorists but I am not to call him an idiot? He has no basis to call all of them terrorists. Just a few.
If you start racially profiling "Muslims" you are going to end up falsely accusing a wide range of people.
This is where some problems arise. I agree 100% that—by FAR—most Middle Easterners, Muslims, or both are NOT a threat. I agree that the amount of persons in these categories that WOULD choose to commit an act of terrorism is a VERY minimal percentage.
That said, you have to consider that if even 1% of these groups were to choose to become actively terrorists (I have seen the 1% number used in the past as the potential activated amount, but am skeptical of even how such a number could be derived—but lets use it for illustration purposes only for the moment), they you would be looking at 1,300,000 persons who ARE an active threat globally. That does create a basis for being aware of our current situation. Whether anyone chooses to admit this or not, such a number represents a very disturbing, and very valid threat to our country. So if people tend to have a heightened sense of awareness, this does have a basis. Where this gets us into trouble is when our civil liberties are compromised on the basis of a “what if” scenario. I am probably in the minority when I say this, but I will choose our Rights over our Security EVEN if I were to believe it could result in another terrorist tragedy in the US. I think the elimination of our rights would be a far worse tragedy.
Profiling is assuming that because they are of a certain group/race/religion that they are going to commit the crime.
No. I would not say “Profiling… that they ARE going to commit a crime.” This is where a lot of people become frayed at the edges. I’d say that the assumption isn’t that “they ARE going to commit a crime,” but rather that there becomes a heightened sense of awareness present. This heightened awareness is not without basis in human experience. Repeatedly, I see people even in THIS community relay experiences of raising their awareness around people based upon a “gangsta” appearance, etc. That is part of the survival instinct. Whether you want to admit this or not, we are currently in a conflict involving people of Middle Eastern descent, and are primarily Muslim. The reasoning becomes that if there were to be another attack, the odds favor that the orchestrater of has a significant chance of being a Muslim of Middle Eastern origin. This, in no way, suggests that ALL Muslims or ALL Middle Easterners are going to commit such an act—it isn’t even suggesting that any substantial percentage of those groups would EVER consider such an act. What this does show evidence of is a realization of our current conflict and a sound, if unsettling reasoning process. Where a line is crossed is HOW we deal with a heightened sense of awareness and any actions inappropriately taken based upon this.
In general though profiling is where actual arrest/stop/detaining someone is taking place. If you look at someone and assume that they are a thief because they are black, or an illegal because they are hispanic, or a terrorist because they are Muslim then you are just stereotyping. But profiling is controversial because it requires action be taken on the basis of a stereotype.
I think we are in agreement in this assessment. Stereotyping is largely an internal, mental exercise. It exists in everyone to some degree. Profiling, as you are defining it here, is an external, action-based activity. As I referred to in the last response, this is where the problems develop.
John
