Gandhi>Bush said:
I thought my argument was fairly obvious. When a black man steals a car with a baby inside it is not assumed that all black men are car thieves and kidnappers. When 9/11 happened all Muslims and Arabs were painted to be terrorists.
I think if something terrible happens again it will be because hatred was not destroyed it was encouraged.
The hatred was already there. I'm going to see if I can find a link to where you can purchase a very telling PBS documentary that dug really deep into Osama Bin Ladan and JUST where his hatred came from, and it came long before George Bush invaded Iraq. It came from, which this is how he was described, as an ever increasing reliance of the "infidels from the west" to protect Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim countries. OBL wanted nothing more than to prove that he and his band of thugs could make good work of expelling Sadaam Hussein from Kuwait, and the Saudi Government told him no, that the American forcers were handling it. Now notice the Gulf War was in 1990-1991... first WTC bombing... 1993. But you do the math. I'm tired of this notion that invasion of Iraq created this hate towards America. When in fact it was there at least 10 years prior. The USS Cole, Embassy bombings in Africa.... all prior to the War in Iraq. All done by Osama's band of thugs.. this same band he wanted to use to stop Sadaam.
I found it... the Documentary was called, "Meeting Osama Bin Laden". And while that does NOT directly address the answers for or against ethnic profiling, you may come to see that Osama is far reaching, and that he has great command of militants and extremists. Keeping a closer watch on one particular group, especially when you know crimes ARE being commited by that group is not a bad thing. One could argue the feds did it with Organized crime, and to a degree still do. However, groups like the Mafia, were at one time, easy to spot, just by their hangouts, their attire, the women, the clubs, etc. You name it, they could be identified, to a certain degree. Could you look at 2 men, a citizen of Afghanistan, and a US citizen of Afghani descent, and tell which was the terrorist? No you can't, and THAT'S why the extra caution. We're facing an enemy that looks very much like our own citizens. That's why the need to focus in more on that particular group. Because you cannot tell. I've heard numerous people in this thread say, when little old ladies start blowing themselves up in buildings, well start searching them too, and I think that's how it should be. Searching the bag of a Muslim in no way paints him as a terrorist any more than looking into my bag, however, having said that, 30 year old women with black hair were not flying planes into buildings, were they?
Fear catapults people into level's of distrust beyond what they're used to.. it is human nature. And yes, many Muslim's were painted as terrorists, because people were plagued with fear. I do not condone, nor will I ever condone the actions perpetrated against Muslims in this country, in the wake of 9/11, as I witnessed many of them within my own community. However, having said that, many of those same Muslims have also said that they understand why American's felt the way they did, because they too were looking within their own communities, and wondering the same things.
I'm going to say one more thing on the subject, then I'm closing for the night. A movie ran on the anniversary of 9/11, documenting what is believed to have happened regarding Flight 93, and it's crash in Pennsylvania. At no time, until the hijackers stormed the cockpit, did the other passengers and crew have any reason to believe it wouldn't be a normal flight to San Fran. And given the big crater that was left in Somerset after the plane went down, I'd sooner err on the side of caution, especially when you are almost 100% certain of the nationalities of known terrorists. As for the ones you don't know of, are you going to check baby strollers to find them?
