In reply to:


In reply to:

(number6:)
this "racial profiling" policy



Don't make it sound so bad, like there is a higher agenda to rid us of all arabs.



Believe me, it IS that bad, thats the perception that the US is creating - even amoungst your staunchest allies.

In reply to:


We know that there are terrorists from those countries trying to get in to the US to commit terrorist acts. It would only make sense to keep a closer eye on and focus more of the available resources on someone from one of those countries rather than say a mexican born and raised in Tijuana who just wants to cross the border to steal empegs or find a job, as opposed to possibly wanting to kill thousands of people. It may not be politically correct to treat foreign arabs any different than we'd treat an australian or a dutch, but we know what descent our enemy is, just like in the cold war we'd be more suspect of a russian alien than a british alien.



You may think you and the US Government is in the right and that the US authorities are being "clever" with what is being done, but thats where you'd be wrong.

The world sees the Arab round ups and mandatory fingerprinting as exactly that "Racial Profiling" - no more, no less.

Before too long, the next step will be for all Arabs to have wear "Red Crescent" badges, and then ...

...well you know the rest (or should).


Yes, your government can put all the gloss on it, that it (and you) like.

The fact remains that the current policies ARE racially based.

The fact that this policy is flawed in the extreme seems to occur to everyone outside the US, and to few officials inside the US, and to even fewer US citizens.

The likely source for the next terrorist attacks on US soil or US interests is not going to be "Arabs" in long beards wearing white robes on horses, carrying a copy of The Koran in one hand.

It more likely to be more people like Richard Reid (aka The Shoe Bomber), or that nutter in from Western Australia who wanted to blow up all Israeli embassies in Australia. Or those involved with the bombings in Bali or Kenya recently.

These people are converts to radical Islamic causes - they are not "Arabs" by descent, birth or belief.

They would be considered "Western" or "Western allies" by most racial profiles.

They would not be picked up by any current racially based profiling policies of the US government - such as we have today with regards to fingerprinting or visa violations.

In reply to:


[analogy]

If the cops put an APB out on a suspect in a black sedan, it may be 'vehiclist' to only pull over black sedans, but it would be ridiculous, and in most cases impossible, to pull over every single vehicle when it would be more effective to only look for black sedans. It doesn't mean the cops have anything agaist people who drive black sedans, nor does it mean it's certain he's not in a different color car; they just know there is a pretty damn good chance their guy is in one.

[/analogy]



Yes, but a car is not a person.

The more accurate analagy is for the cops to say "Black guy in a Black Sedan" - thats racial profiling.

If, as you say, the cops simply say "Black Sedan" - thats ok.

In an exact way:

If the US governments policies of fingerprinting and visa violations applied to ALL visitors to the US - whether from "Arab" countries or not, no-one would be accusing the US of racial profiling - just making it hard to visit, come to the US or live there.

But thats not the way this policy is implemented (or is being implemented) - now, or for the forseeable future.

In reply to:



The United States' enemies are arabic, but not all arabs are enemies of the United States. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are square.



See my comments above - the US and its citizens (i.e. you) assume - at their peril - that their enemies are simply "Arabs".

As George W Bush said after 9/11 - terrorists have and respect no borders, they have no "single set of characteristics" (such as being "Arab"), they do not even have a single cause - more likely they have a plethora of grievences - (real or imagined), which makes it much harder to simply round up the usual suspects.

And, In doing so (rounding up the usual suspects), the US government is losing much support amoungst its allies, gaining many enemies amoungst the "Arabs" and other countries and is generally not behaving as a world citizen should.

And yes, maybe the terrorists don't fight by those rules, but if the US lowers its standards to the level of the terrorists, with arbitrary justice based on anything but the rule of law (US constitution and UN law amoungst others), in order to beat the terrorists, then the US is, and will be judged by others to be, no better than the "enemy" they are fighting.

In that case, the US will have lost the war - even if the US government and people think they have "won".

History teaches us this lesson, time and time again and those who do not take heed have already lost the "war" they are fighting, before its even started - even if they win a major battle or two along the way.

Remember that "The Truth" is a three edged sword...

(and those edges are not "Truth", "Justice" and "the American way")