The Profile of a Terrorist
This post reminds us that racial profiling is not only unfair, it’s dangerous.
*Update: Take this story, for example. Is this guy out of his mind? I don’t know of any “taxi driving terrorist.” And even if there was one, it doesn’t mean that “faceless terrorists” driving around in taxis. There is a sub-current of racism here that seems to be infiltrating every pore of this “war on terror.”
September 1st, 2006 at 11:07 am
Sorry Ray, the link appears to be broken?
September 1st, 2006 at 11:34 am
Not to mention ineffective and racist.
p
September 1st, 2006 at 2:46 pm
It looks like the whole site is down.
September 1st, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Looks like it’s back up. Damn Senator Burns.
September 2nd, 2006 at 5:34 am
I think the profiling and racism is a common homefront reaction to war– think about the communism hunt of the Cold War, our little internment camps for the Japanese in WWII, WWI’s prejudice against German citizens… and now Middle Easterners in this War on Terror. To me, it seems that war is a complex, difficult thing to deal with on many levels, and putting a face to the faceless terrorist is one (quite unfair, stupid, and bigoted) easy way to try and simplify things. Years after the war, there will be ‘official apologies’ and various reparations for the cases a few perserverent wronged individuals push through the judiciary system, and we’ll move onto the next life-simplifying enemy to direct our fear-induced hate at. It is, after all, much easier to wrong an innocent person and then apologize than never commit that wrong in the first place.
I think we’re trying to alleviate our fear in a cowardly way. In a war– wait, in LIFE– we run risks every day. We’re probably more at risk when we climb in our cars to drive than from being caught in a terrorist attack. We have diseases that claim lives every day and instead of funding research to cure them we’re pouring money into airport security to prevent a possible new attack. Somehow we’ve made this connection in our heads that if we could somehow stop the terrorist attacks before they happen, we’ll be safe, but the honest truth is that nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. People are going to hurt other people no matter what precautions we take, and race cannot predict who those terrorists will be. But it sure makes us feel more like we’re in control when we believe the lie that we can use race as an indicator.
It’s sad to read the comments people put up on the first site you’ve linked. People really seem willing to sacrifice their fellow man’s dignity for their own personal comfort.
And on a completely different note, a very late congratulations. Sorry I haven’t kept in touch. I hope the family is well.
September 2nd, 2006 at 5:50 am
I think the point was that terrorists are people we bump into everyday. Odd to me that you read it differently.
September 2nd, 2006 at 8:49 am
I think by using the taxi cab inference he was letting his bias out. Stereotypically people believe Arabs are taxi drivers and owners of small delis (Sp?) but he could and should have said they could be in your country clubs, your … That would have done a much better job in getting his point across.
p
September 2nd, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Exactly. First of all, unless you live in New York, a taxi driver is not someone most of us run into everyday. Second, the stereotype of taxi drivers being Arab or Central Asian is so pervasive it’s actually astonishing to see you claim ignorance of the obvious reference.
September 2nd, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Good to hear from you, Anne. I agree with what you said.
September 2nd, 2006 at 7:10 pm
you’re letting your bias show with these comments … while not the biggest taxi customer, I run into taxi drivers weekly. They are from many nationalities and I don’t live in New York.
It may be better to have said exactly what he meant but outside of that, what profession do you imagine he could have referenced that would not conjure up a negative prejudice on your side.
Again, I think the analysis reveals your bias as much or more that of Burns.
September 2nd, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Come on, Rick.
If you ask almost anyone where most taxi drivers come from, they will either say ‘India’ or somewhere in the Middle East.
Of course, in reality, they actually come from many countries, but it’s ridiculous to deny that this stereotype is the most prevelant one people hold to when you say the word ‘taxi driver.’
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:29 am
Fortunately it doesn’t seem to hold true that home grown terrorism hasn’t taken hold like it has in the UK.
While some people talk about profiling being a form of racism against Arabs, I believe they are showing their own racism. Not all Muslims are Arabs, not all terrorists are from the middle east.
It is important, however, that those attempting to combat terrorism recognize the simple fact that almost all acts of terrorism since September 11th, 2001 have been committed by young, Muslim, men.
No other group of people have before or since shown to be a bigger threat by terrorism. Now don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe that profiling (at the expense of checking other possible threats) is wrong and can lead to a more dangerous situation. All it takes is for a terrorist mastermind to figure it out and start recruiting women, old men or some other demographic that the profiling doesn’t check. Still, I believe it only makes common sense to give a little extra scrutiny to those who fit the terrorist demographic.
Once again, don’t misunderstand me, the demographic is: Young, Muslim, and Male. Unless that changes, it would be a mistake to ignore it, and race has nothing to do with it.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:22 am
I am a 31 year old white professional who travels frequently by air. Earlier this month, I was selected for further inspection on two occassions at an airport. Although I was dressed sharply in business casual attire and am not currently planning any illwill or harmful attacks on my fellow humans, I was not offended by the search. I welcomed this search and hope that it was a result of profiling young white males with a certain look in their eyes. I would expect this same type of search in any other corner of the world, especially where other people groups may be suspicious of me. I wish people would be less concerned about having their pride damaged and more willing to work together. I would love to read others’ comments on the results of the political correctness movement in our society.
September 3rd, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Actually, I view the whole airport security thing the same way I view patched software. Everytime something bad happens, they keep adding more things to check.
I think eventually we’re going to reach a point of diminishing returns if we don’t try to look at the whole picture, namely, what causes people to want to blow stuff up and what can we do to change that?
Regarding the whole political correctness question - sure, it feels ridiculous to me everytime I am pulled aside for special screening. It seems that a simple random number system would be the most effective and least marginalizing approach. Assuming more security checks work in the first place.
September 3rd, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Ray, I am surprised you haven\’t yet figured out the motive that Islamic Terrorists wish to bring us harm with extreme prejudice. There are many clues out there but the biggest can be learned by what the terrorists are telling themselves. Chiefly that all the worlds problems can be solved by the west converting to Islam.
Such people are twisting the words of the Koran and Islamic history to support a religious war that hopes to result in nothing less than total world domination for their particular brand of Islam, by either conversion or death.
Like I\’ve said before, you can\’t negotiate with that, unless you feel that giving up your faith is a reasonable trade for your life. I think that even those who pride themselves with being Atheists will find no joy with such a choice.
Also, In case you think of it, there are those in history who have tried appeasement. Such people do survive for a time as second class citizens, people known as the Dihimmi. I don\’t know about you, but that does not fit well with me.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:13 pm
That’s just not a likely scenario, Ron.
Besides, they’ve got Google as competitors for world domination.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:25 pm
This will annoy Ray, but he and I have become comfortable that we will disagree from time to time on minor things and agree on major things.
In any event, of the major terrorist attacks during the past 10, 20 or 30 years, with the exception of home targeted terrorism (such as Oklahoma City, Northern Ireland, or Basque terrorism in Spain) the vast, vast, vast majority of terrorists are Middle Eastern. All, all, ALL, of the terrorists in the 9/11 attacks were, um, Icelandic?, no, Australian?, no, Chinese?, no. They were Saudis. Police, the FBI, the CIA, etc., have limited resources. For them to focus on those who predominently cause terrorism is not racist–it is pretty much common sense. Something which is lacking in a substantial majority of the comments above.
You can stick your head in the sand, or you can just pretty much look at the facts–Muslim Middle Easterners are the predominent purveyors of terror in the world.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:30 pm
By the way, that the politician’s comments in the second story are patently silly does not change the fact of who the people who commit worldwide terrorism are. For what it’s worth, I take taxis quite often, and in quite a few place worldwide. No racial majority has presented itself.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:35 pm
By the way, following the links from the first post became tiresome. Past Timothy McVeigh, none of those muderous thugs have had what one would call a major terrorist impact. I lived in Colorado when Alan Berg was tragically killed. Nobody worried that they might be the next to die in a random terrorist attack following that. Indeed, it’s even silly to call that a terrorist attack. Alan Berg’s death was very tragic, but it was not an act of terrorism. This is an example of so defining down the concept of terrorism as to make it useless. If you change the definitions in any argument to a silly degree, you will win the argument. That does not make you right–just silly.
Ray, You are far too smart to buy into that post.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Let\’s define some terms.
Racism is the systemic oppression of people. It begins w/ a prejudice and elevates from there. That\’s the really short sociological definition.
The spiritual one deals w/ the belief that anyone can use their phenotype to discriminate on another phenotype. It\’s a spiritual power in high places that can never die but it can be broken.
Anywho I bring this up to say that i subscribe to the more spiritual definition. It levels the playing field some and allows all of humanity to be just as broken and offers a stronger solution than the sociological one.
Well considering how well Europe and other places have used screening by behavior… you would think that profiling and other techniques would have been refined by now. The truth is we are deathly afraid of an invasion that will probably never happen. The problem now is home grown threats and they are becoming more and more diverse as time develops. If we have any hope of defending our shores our policies and techniques have to change before them.
That said the idea that we are fighting the terrorists overthere so we don\’t fight them here is stupid. It\’s simply not true if it were we would be safer and not worrying about domestic threats.
p
September 4th, 2006 at 10:20 am
“Ray, You are far too smart to buy into that post.”
Argued like a true lawyer.
This is very similar to a discussion I had elsewhere, so there may be some overlap in readers familiar with this conversation.
I beg to differ on your definition of terrorists. You seem to associate legitimacy as a terrorist with body count. I’m thinking that’s probably not the best metric. Maybe I need you to explain better how the following people / groups do not count as terrorists. None were Middle Eastern Muslim Males.
Theodore Kaczynski
Eric Robert Rudolph
Clayton Waagner
Terry Nichols
George Metesky
David Lane
James Charles Kopp
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
IRA
KKK
ETA
Army of God
Aum Shinrikyo
God’s Army
Lord’s Resistance Army
Nagaland Rebels
Gush Emunim Underground
That’s just a small list. In fact, the majority of terrorist organizations are not Arab Islamist.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Payshun, I believe the fact that we have not had a major successful act of terrorisim on our shores since Sept 11th ought to be proof enough that fighting them over there instead of here is working to keep us safer.
It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That couldn\’t be more truthful today than when it was first said. Just because we have a plan that happens to be working doesn\’t mean we should ever let our guard down. This is not called living in fear but living with the understanding that we are a target of people who wish to harm us at all costs.
Like I\’ve said before, we live in a country that is so prosperous that we can afford to have a volunteer army that can fight our wars for us that the rest of us suffer little to no inconvenience in our daily lives. No time in our history have we been so fortunate. However, we must not be complacent that we will always be as fortunate and we must always be vigilant.
September 4th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Ray, I view terrorism as the intentional targeting of innocents with the intent to shape foreign and domestic policy. One major Symptom is usually a rejoicing in the death, maiming and suffering of said innocents.
That said, I can\’t find one of those terrorist groups that you list that haven\’t mostly ceased major terrorist actions following sept 11th (I could be wrong, I\’m not familiar with ALL of those names).
Keep in mind that almost ALL major acts of terrorism since 9-11 have been committed by young, muslim, males. Ray, please stop referring to Arabs as terrorists. I\’m sure they wouldn\’t be too happy as I\’m sure you wouldn\’t be in their shoes.
We are not at war with Arabs, nor are we at war with Islam (at least the seemingly few who have publicly claimed that they wish to peacefully coexist). We are at war with Islamic Fascists who wish to place the free world under Sharia law and will stop at nothing (Including terrorism) to accomplish those goals.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Ron,
You come across as really intelligent so I find it really odd that you would use that tired rhetoric about there not being an attack on our shores to justify really stupid policies. The fact is eternal vigilance means being aware that they don\’t need to come here to attack us. We have terrorists here. Sleeper cells exist all over the country; they are planning to do us harm. So again how does your point work when we are finding and busting up cells here? That\’s just silly.
We both know our enemy and by that I mean anyone that wants to destroy buildings and bring terror cannot come here enmasse. They lack the money, funding and a whole host of other factors. So they start cells and smaller opporurations using our technology and openness against us. Once that\’s accomplished they act. The interesting thing that you see in England and in Europe and here is that our terrorists are homegrown.
They don\’t need to come over here. we already got them.
p
September 4th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Sorry, Ron. We’re not going to play this game.
Never once did I refer to Arabs as terrorists.
What I did say was this: “In fact, the majority of terrorist organizations are not Arab Islamist.”
The question here is racial profiling.
The victims of racial profiling in America since 9-11 are those that Mark described with this (inaccurate) sentence:
“You can stick your head in the sand, or you can just pretty much look at the facts–Muslim Middle Easterners are the predominent purveyors of terror in the world.”
You can’t racially profile a Muslim.
I’ve had many Muslim friends that resemble nothing near the typical image of Middle Eastern Muslims that are caricatured in our political cartoons.
What all proponents of racial profiling support is profiling people based on certain racial characteristics.
Never mind that most Americans are too ignorant of the cultural and fashion differences between, say, a man from Northern India and a man from Afghanistan to ever successfully carry this out.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Ray, What you said:
\”In fact, the majority of terrorist organizations are not Arab Islamist.”
Why did Arab have to be mentioned at all? I don\’t see the connection, just because some terrorists happen to be Arabs? Perhaps what you are speaking to is some other peoples misconceptions, but I personally feel like it\’s a straw man.
Also what Ray said:
\”I’ve had many Muslim friends that resemble nothing near the typical image of Middle Eastern Muslims that are caricatured in our political cartoons.\”
That\’s very true. I personally can attest to this as I have shared many discussions with a muslim guy who was extreemly fair skinned, freckled and had flame red hair. Not stereotypical at all.
My point has repeatedly been just what you said in your last post. You cannot racially profile a muslim. I feel like we are definitely in agreement on that point. Anyone who says otherwise is definitely showing their racism.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Again, the question here is racial profiling. Do you support racial profiling?
Since 9/11, every time I hear the phrase “racial profiling” it is defined by its proponents as a description matching “Middle Eastern Muslim males.”
Would it make you comfortable if, instead of “Arabs,” I used “Middle Eastern Muslim males”? It’s six one way, half dozen the other to the people who support a policy of racial profiling. My point is that it’s all wrong.
I don’t believe in racial profiling. I think it’s stupid, racist, and useless.
September 4th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
First off, I think the ‘taxi drivers’ comment was both stupid and racist. I’ve lived in Columbus, Ohio most of my life and I understood the stereotype of brown, mysterious, heavily accented taxi drivers. By equating ‘brown, mysterious and heavily accented’ with ‘dangerous and prone to terrorst activities,’ the senator is pandering to his base at the expense of the immigrants who have built, are building, and will always build our country.
As far as I can tell, racial profiling makes us less safe by institutionalizing an already-dangerous blind spot. If, for instance, I know the police are looking to arrest men with blue hats, I’m buying a red one. There’s quite a bit of evidence that Al Qaeda is investing heavily in the recruitment indoctrination of disillusioned Caucasian youths. Reliance on racial proiling opens the door even wider to threats that will be even more difficult to detect and prevent.
September 4th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
John,
You make one of the first arguments that I find to be plausible and worth entertaining against profiling of any nature. The argument being that we are in a cat and mouse game where one acts the other reacts ad infinitum.
Here’s how I see it. We are all hung up over the racial side of this. Let’s use John’s example though of the blue hat and red hat. If it can be established that a statistical probability and/or correlation can be made between an undesired outcome and a shared characteristic (ie: people who are mean to others by cursing at them with the words ‘you sack of crap’ are identified as wearing blue hats 89% of the time) then it may seem to make sense to look for people wearing blue hats if we would like to preempt or influence this type of behavior. This is not saying that all blue hat wearers are offenders, just that an overwhelming statistical majority of the offenders can be identified with this trait. It may be that only .007% of blue hat wearers are offenders. This is a starting point.
John’s point is that the blue hat wearing offenders can now simply change to red hats to throw off our pursuit efforts. This would be a reaction to the pursuers identification of a telltale trait and now it is up to the pursuers to attempt to identify this tactical change in identifiable trait. John argues that it is therefore useless to pursue the blue hats as a means of trying to identify their small violating population because they will adapt. Seems to make sense… if you believe that these change tactics to red hats could not be predicted or discovered. The potential outcome of not acting on the blue hat information is that the offenders may go unchallenged and violate many more times than if they are pursued and have to spend time coming up with new tactics. It would also be unethical to avoid pursuing blue hats if we felt a deep moral obligation to doing our part to curb this behavior.
The nature of the beast is that there will always be action/reaction. That is why we must act as completely as possible with known information in an attempt to impact the actions while we are in the fortunate position of knowing.
Maybe the knowledge of these white (or other than middle eastern) terrorist groups is why I was stopped and searched (mentioned in previous post). It is certainly not an issue to me and although it is seen by many as an inconvenience I am happy to do my part to cooperate with those who have been chartered with the difficult task of looking for the .007% blue hat evil intention jerks. Maybe it wasn’t my white race as much as my 31 year age or male sex. Maybe it was that primitive wild look in my eyes that I get when I feel a little saucy. Maybe it was my short haircut and sharp attire. Maybe it was my height of 6′1″ or weight of 203 lbs. Whatever the blue hat is, I hope they act on it and are able to quickly adapt to the new red hats too.
September 4th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
“We are all hung up over the racial side of this.”
History gives us plenty of reasons to be “hung up” over this issue.
I think the real point is that you can never guess a person’s intentions by any inherent physical characteristic like age, sex, race, height, etc.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Ray, you sound like you haven\’t read any of my previous posts. If you have you would have seen a re-occuring theme. Race has absolutely nothing to do with the demographic of a terrorist. In case you missed it before, here is a choice segment from above:
Ron Merritt wrote:
\”Once again, don’t misunderstand me, the demographic is: Young, Muslim, and Male. Unless that changes, it would be a mistake to ignore it, and race has nothing to do with it.\”
Payshun, I gave you a supporting argument for why this policy is working. I think it\’s poor form to simply attack a policy as stupid simply because you may not understand how or why it is working. The policy isn\’t meant to solve every issue. But what it does do, it does well. That is, keeping the large international Terrorist organizations on the defensive, spending resources and man power fighting a war against our troops abroad, not in our streets against civilians at home.
This also means that home grown terrorists are now lacking in support both in planning and in terms of large sums of money and man power from these large overseas organizations. So while the plan wont be able to completely stop home grown terrorists, it does put a damper on how much damage they can inflict. Keep in mind this is but one plan amongst many in the fight against Terrorisim. I think even in the UK where there is a larger problem of home grown terrorists, it has been shown to be the case. There has yet to be a successful attack that reaches the scope of 9-11.
I believe the evidence speaks for itself on this. Even if an attack were to happen tomorrow, the track record of 5 years is a HUGE win on all our parts.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Ron,
We’ve already agreed that you can’t tell a Muslim by looking at them. So are you suggesting that we start profiling every Young Male that tries to board a plane?
September 4th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Ray, I forgot to mention, in response to your statement:
\”Would it make you comfortable if, instead of “Arabs,” I used “Middle Eastern Muslim males”? It’s six one way, half dozen the other to the people who support a policy of racial profiling.\”
Middle Eastern muslim males is not a race. What race would that be? Arab? Nope, there are many people who populate the middle east who would be offended by being called an Arab and who also don\’t fit any of the racial phenotypes. The two are not interchangeable expressions as you suggest.
Also, there are terrorists from africa, and Indonesia who are muslim but are not remotely Middle Eastern. In fact last I checked, Indonesia is still the largest Muslim nation in the world! It is also the largest population to live under Sharia law. Again, not Middle Eastern.
Now with all that said, according to the report on incidents of Terrorism, 2005 by the National Counter-Terrorism Center does report that a vast majority of terrorists are in fact of Middle eastern descent. Take that for what you think it\’s worth.
http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2005nctcannexfinal.pdf#search=%22National%20Counterterrorism%20Center’s%20“Report%20on%20Incidents%20of%20Terrorism%22
(Link is a larg-ish PDF)
September 4th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Ok, I give up. I think I’m living in a parallel universe.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Thanks to Ron for the link to the pdf, that’s useful info.
I just want to throw in a comment about asserting whether the policy of “taking the fight to our enemies” is working. I’m fairly certain that statistically, the fact that there has been no successful attack by muslims on US territory since 2001 proves close to nothing about the efficacy of this policy, since historically the rate of attacks on US soil by muslim extremists has been very low (2001; 1993 - World Trade Center; are there any others, actually?).
September 4th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Ron,
No I understand what you are saying. I just find it to be ridiculous. Your original premise was that one it was protecting us. Which it is not, regardless of what you are saying. The terrorists are here, like it or not. Not only that but it is disingenuous to claim that they are an invasion force when it is apparent to everyone that the biggest threats in Iraq center on sectarian violence not the fringe groups. Two it is not keeping them on the defensive as much as you claim. If they were on the defensive they would not be adding to their numbers and the violence would diminish. THe opposite is happening.
Why do you keep ignoring that?
Also this issue is far more complex than your policy is allowing a correction for. It\’s like you are blind to the fact that we are loosing Afghanistan and have already lost it, Iraq\’s sectarian violence is horrible and the few fringe terrorist groups in Iraq have to contend w/ interreligious and ethnic strife. They do that and exploit it hoping to turn it into a civil war. By creating that they can hide in the shadows shoring up support or slowly wiping out their enemies (the new government…) Which terrorist groups are we talking about?
Again let me make this crystal clear. They lack the power and resources to launch an invasion into the United States but they do have the power to create sleeper cells that slowly erode our sense of security and undermine our basic freedoms. because we are such a weak culture we turn over in fear and let our goverment act foolishly. They do this by making irresponsible statements that are simply not true ie claiming we are safer for fighting them over there when we are clearly not, claiming we are ending their threat when in reality it is growing and igniting strife in a region where we clearly don\’t need any.
Iraq should have never happened but since it did we are stuck cleaning it up. The problem w/ your premise is the idea that you can trust this administration to do the task. Currently I have very little reason to. You see it differently. I can respect that but please don\’t make claims about our safety when it is very clear that domestic terrorism is a real threat.
They are here and your policy can\’t contain them or stop more from coming to join their ranks. If anything it is giving many youths a reason to fight. That\’s internationally and domestically.
p
September 5th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Payshun, I think I understand your concern as I too share them in regards that home grown terrorism is definitely a threat. This policy is not supposed to be the end game, it is merely one tactic in our playbook in what is likely to be a long struggle. That doesn\’t mean that there isn\’t any hope however. I gave you what I feel is one metric of success, and if you don\’t agree, I\’d like to hear how you would define success of this policy.
I think we will have to agree to disagree that by our actions we are creating more terrorists. There where terrorists before the war in Iraq (9-11 is a good example), and it would seem that because our status as infidels is what they claim drives them to become terrorists, then by our very act of living, we are creating the terrorists by that argument.
What ever happened to people taking responsibility for their own actions? No one can make you want to kill, or hate. You have to allow them to. Others can\’t make me angry, but I can allow someone to anger me. See the difference?
September 5th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Ron,
No one can make you hate, this is simply true. But we can give them excuses. The idea that they hate us because we exist is wrong. They hate us because we bust into their houses, sometimes kill innocents, create policy that hurts their people and don\’t always show respect for what they believe or how they think. That coupled w/ the idea that we are using them for oil and other resources is not exactly helping our stock in that area. I doubt you believe any of the reasons I listed but they do exist and unfortunately they believe them. That\’s why they hate us, not because we exist. Why did you take premise so far? That\’s my real question.
Hope is very real, as one day this stupid policy will end, peace will come and sectarian violence and division will stop. That\’s where I have hope. I am not a slave to fear (nor am I implying that you are) but if I go by what this administration says I would be. I refuse.
But the idea that no one can make you want to kill is wrong. Have you ever been in a situation where someone does something so heinous and so wrong that you wanted the ultimate retribution? I have. You see a former friend raped another friend of mine and had the good sense to confess his crime. I literally wanted to kill him as the woman he raped is one of my closest friends.
I know the rage of seeing an injustice and having it blind you. I chose not to do it but believe me I get it. It\’s a lot more intense there w/ many different opinions about why we should or should not be there. Many are really level headed but then you have the brainwashed folks which take everything we do wrong in the world as reason to want to destroy us. Please don\’t use blind rhetoric to keep you from seeing the very real reasons they hate us. That would be the same mistake this president is making.
There were virtually no terrorists in Iraq now Iraq is a birthing center for new groups, splinter groups… Anywho I got to go.
p
September 5th, 2006 at 8:00 am
One more thing I forgot to answer your question. I don\’t see any real success of the policy. The fact is more terrorists are choosing into it as a means of trying to secure oil and get rid of the infidels among other things. I would measure the success of the policy by diminshing the number of terrorists (which its not doing,) disrupting training practices (not doing if anything they are becoming more complex,) and finally helping to win the people over to our side (again that\’s not happening either.)
p
September 6th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Payshun, you said:
\”There were virtually no terrorists in Iraq now Iraq is a birthing center for new groups, splinter groups.\”
I disagree. After all, Jordanian born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who has been linked to Al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, is known to have been in Iraq prior to the continuation of the Iraq war that removed Saddam.
Many of the other terrorists have been shown to be Iranian and Syrian and they have been equipped with Iranian weapons. Fortunately that type have been dwindling in numbers lately. The others, those who are native Iraqis aren\’t attacking US troops so much as each other in long standing feuds that has been held in check in the past only by fear of the ruthless dictator, Saddam. There was a report recently by the defense department that basically said that there have never been so many complex factions currently in Iraq. Maybe I am an optimist, but this is actually a good sign. What this says to me, is there are no longer large groups of people fighting a common cause and aren\’t seeing us as the enemy so much as each other. While this is distressing in the short term, this does mean it will be much easier to divide and conquer these factions.
As to your argument that we are not winning people over to our side, I believe you are wrong. While we can both find people in Iraq who love us and those who hate us, that is unimportant ultimately to that goal. What we need are people who respect us, and only by being true to our word and fighting to remove bad guys that bring bloodshed and violence to their streets can we hope to do this. Leaving Iraq before we are confident that they can do this for themselves would be a HUGE mistake and only serve to support the argument of the terrorists that we don\’t really care about Iraqis.
Now I don\’t want to get too much more off topic, but it is good that you didn\’t allow that person to make you hate so much that you would throw your life of freedom away to seek revenge. Hate is ultimately a self defeating thing. By hating someone, you are giving them power over you to change who you are. We all have responsibility for how we feel and how we act, regardless of where we are from.
Now, just because you don\’t have to hate someone, doesn\’t mean you should let them hurt you either. Self defense is important and you can defend yourself from an enemy without hate. Aikido is a form of martial arts that teaches that the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend. Use whatever force is necessary to get them to stop hurting you or themselves as quickly as possible, but ideally work for them to see the futility of fighting further or hating.
September 7th, 2006 at 9:26 am
To get back on topic again, and to address what appears to have been a misunderstanding between Ray and myself, and I apologize for my part in it. I think I have found a better way to express my argument that I don\’t believe Senator Burns can be said to be racist only by the taxi driver comment given in the article.
I think the logic I wish to express stems from the concept that \”All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares\”. In other words, if someone where to say, \”All middle easterners are terrorists\” I would say that would be a racist statement against those from the middle east. However, if someone said \”most terrorists come from the middle east\” that would be stating a substantiated fact and not racist.
What I believe Senator Burns was saying in the article, was that \”Terrorists can be taxi drivers\”, I don\’t think he was saying \”All taxi drivers (and by association any racial group) are terrorists\”.
If you find yourself not agreeing with my assessment in that you think it would be racist either way, stop and think about it. It would be like saying \”we can\’t talk about terrorists being pilots because caucasians are often pilots and that statement would be racist against them\”.
I hope I made myself more clear in what I am trying to say. I do feel this is exactly the sort of over political correctness that is stifling important, relevant dialogue in our country these days.
Now, to get a little off topic again and address some of Payshun\’s comments, I submit the following article because it addresses such questions as \”Are we less safe?\” and are we creating more terrorists. Just some food for thought.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015210.php
November 6th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
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