the 7/7 bombers in london were south asian and 1 jamaican the 7/21 bombers in london were african those same terrorist training camps in pakistan that the 7/7 bombers went to is full of students from thailand and malaysia, not to mention those from africa and the middle east. The pool of potential terrorists is enormous; they can be Chechens, Uzbeks, Filipinos, Indonesians, Chinese, Malays, white converts, black Americans, red-haired Kashmiris, blue-eyed Afghans.
yeah but that is a bridge you cross when you come to it. that doesn't mean don't try to target the demographic that has committed just about every single terrorist attack in the world. you have to try first and if it fails then you redesign things or expand things.
yeah but what age range are they? and what sex are they? who cares about ethnicity it is a complete non-factor if you are profiling for terrorists of any kind (eg. tim mcveigh).
But trying it sets you up for failure, because it lets your guard down on a particular demographic group. I would argue that doing it that way increases your chance of failure and allowing a terrorist through, in which case you shouldn't try it. And assuming the post above yours is accurate, we may have already crossed that bridge based on the demographics of the London bombers.
If you wait until it fails then that means we've had another terrorist attack. I would rather not wait and cross that bridge when we come to it. As a matter of fact the very first terrorist attempt after 9/11 came from a British man named Richard Reid. You may remember less than a year ago when there were a string of suicide bombings in Israel by women. That was a result of profiling men for security checks. Several years ago the Palestinians managed to get a blond American woman to carry explosives in her backpack. They believed she wouldn't be searched. Basically the bridge has been crossed and it has been shown to not be effective. Why do something we know doesn't work? It is better to keep the terrorists worried and knowing that at any time they could be the ones that are going to be searched, and no matter who they get to carry the bomb or weapon for them, that person stands a chance of being searched and discovered.
But how can you say for sure that it doesn't work? Obviously, nothing is 100%. That goes without saying. But we don't really know how many incidents have been stopped because of profiling. There's no way of knowing because...well, they didn't happen. I don't claim to have the answer to all of this but I don't see the point in dropping 'profiling' all together just because it isn't 100% foolproof. Like it or not, profiling would have prevented 9/11.
that's a pretty bold statement that you have no way to back up. The current system, since some of these guys were on the governmet's radar would have had a shot at preventing 9-11.
How so? Weren't many of the individuals here legally? What in their profile would have identified them as terrorists?
We know it doesn't work, because Israel was doing it, and it didn't work, so Israel modified their approach. We know it doesn't work because it was attempted for drug smuggling, and then the smugglers just got different mules that didn't fit the profile. I disagree that profiling would have prevented 9/11. Had we been profiling the terrorists would have gotten people who didn't fit the profile to carry it out. Profiling is a system that is very easy to get around. It also ensures that some people won't be searched, which is extremely dangerous. What would have had more success at preventing 9/11 was random searches that would have had a chance to check anyone and everyone. No matter who the terrorists would have tried to use the culprits could have been vulnerable to being caught. It seems obvious that only by having the potential of searching everyone will we have the greatest chance of success.
Just for clarification, when I say profiling would have prevented 9/11, I'm only talking about once the planes were in the air. Remember a while back when those musicians were detained because of their middle eastern descent. They were "acting suspiciously" on the plane. What if that would have happened on any one of the 4 9/11 planes? No doubt all 19 of the the hijackers were of middle eastern descent and surely they were acting suspiciously on the planes. FB, I'll reply to your post later. Right now it's 4:00 and I gots ta go!
The real solution is so simple. Everyone has to fly naked and have no carry-ons. You are only allowed to board after a cavity search. That would make it pretty tough to sneak a weapon onto the plane, wouldn't it?
