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I took some heat from my friends for standing up for Obama’s Nobel speech in December. It seemed to me like the war stuff in it was a necessary way of preempting churlish domestic media talk that he’s a peacenik in order to get to its eloquent defense of human rights-based multilateralism. There was even this great line about how we honor American ideals “by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.” Then came Northwest Flight 253, an attempted terrorist attack that didn’t even succeed. And now Obama is putting into place a de facto system of racial/ethnic/religious profiling at airport security points.
We need to call this what it is: a security risk. If you are one of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, a president who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia is sending you the message that you are considered a threat. Not even Michael Chertoff and Mike Hayden think this is defensible. That ought to tell you something profound. al-Qaeda shows every sign of diminishing potency — that is, its ability to attract qualified recruits and have its message resonate among the world’s Muslims — while U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement capabilities increase. Its strategy — its only strategy — has always been to get the U.S. to overreact, overreach and counterproductively lash out and draw Muslims into al-Qaeda’s corner. Usama bin Laden is really explicit about this.
From this perspective, Matt Duss is wrong and Bill Kristol really is correct: al-Qaeda couldn’t pull off a successful terrorist attack on Flight 253. But it’s getting its victory nevertheless, every time a Pakistani family is pulled out of line on an airport and searched. Kristol doesn’t understand why he’s right, of course, and he’s actually doing al-Qaeda’s work for it here, but it’s nevertheless true. And this is happening not while the hated George W. Bush is president, but during the term of the man who stood up in Cairo to say that America and Islam are not at war. If this sort of dangerous hysteria is what emerges after a failed attack, imagine what will happen if al-Qaeda, God forbid, pulls off something at home.
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Hey Spencer,
Glenzilla gave me this link. Great post.
I got a Glenn link? w00t
“I got a Glenn link? w00t”
Yep. ;)
Bill Kristol really is correct:
:(!)
…and the blind squirrels are fat,Hell’s hockey team is on winning streak, & the stopped clock is currently right. :)
I bet you cramped up writing: “Bill Kristol really is correct.” Ha.
All too often the point you raise — that part of bin Laden’s strategy is to goad the West into pushing Muslims into his camp — is ignored by the policy-making/policy-analyzing community and mainstream media.
This new policy won’t prevent further attacks.
1. al-qaeda will use western-looking folks to beat these security measures.
2. This will alienate those with which we must seek alliance.
I keep seeing Al-Qaeda will use western looking terrorists if we profile.
Don’t countries already profile? Is Al-Qaeda recruiting Caucasians as a result of this?
Can someone point to some evidence this will happen and where Al-Qaeda is going to find this great recruitment location where Caucasian people are willing to join Al-Qaeda’s cause? I understand the logic trying to be used but I don’t see the logical link being made that Caucasians will be flocking to join Al-Qaeda to blow up American planes. Until there is evidence they are successfully recruiting traditionally non-Muslim looking people, this argument falls flat on its face for me.
Western looking folks, just like people of any ethnicity you name, aren’t flocking to join al qaeda. It’s been made clear that there is no barrier to radicalization: ethnicity, citizenship, speed of internet connection, education level, and even religion (Adam Gadhan). All is takes is one or two.
I hope that the American intel community is tracking western-looking al qaeda recruits. The only evidence we’ll come upon is when one is caught and publicized or we see pictures of charred aftermath.
Also, there is no such thing as a “non-Muslim looking person” just as there is no such thing as a Muslim looking person. Islam stretches from Spain to Indonesia.
Uhhh, did you see the picture of Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab? Are we profiling every black person that comes into the country now, and only Caucasian are exempt?
I don’t think anybody is seriously suggesting a passenger profile that reads “muslim-looking” (what would that even be?) or even country of birth or country of citizenship being from an identified list of Muslim source countries (too many people to be practical or useful).
Back in the days of IRA bomb alerts you couldn’t pull everybody Irish from the primary line for secondary processing. But you might have a profile something like: country of Birth/Citizenship UK or Ireland; male; history of travel to Lebanon; Syria etc. and travelling alone. Then pull a random-ish sample of those fitting the profile for a closer look.
Would that stop everyone? Not a hope. Would most people referred because of the profile be of any concern? No, hardly any would be. However, it wouldn’t do much damage as long as your officials were reasonably polite and efficient about things.
What it might do is complicate planning and documentation for the terrorist group (giving more opportunities for things to go wrong) and force them to recruit from non-traditional pools (women; non-Irish) which might also raise flags somewhere. In no way determinative, in itself, but part of a “defence in depth” process.
What you certainly didn’t do was ignore the Irish and target the Chinese when on the alert for IRA bombers. (Though there were plenty of people who screamed “racism” if you didn’t.)
Right now, if I dressed like Peter O’Toole in “Lawrence of Arabia”, changed my name to “Achmed Death-to-America Jihad Bin Laden” and walked around with the touchy air of aggrieved entitlement so common in Arabic and sub-continental cultures, well, I’d be immune from challenge. But a Lithuanian grandmother with a set of eyebrow tweezers would be off to the secondary line faster than you can say “body cavity search”.
And that makes no more sense than targeting everybody who “looks Muslim”.
…Mike
I think it’s pretty clear that this excessive airport security has very little to do with Keeping America Safe. That would be simple, just stop alienating the Muslim world. Stop doing the sort of things, e.g. racial profiling, that infuriate those who already have the perception that America is out to get them. This is more a move about the domestic population. This gives Americans the illusion of security.