Well perhaps this is a good example after all, despite himself.
Well, you can conclude they are arrested and convicted far more often, yes, that would be a valid conclusion.
Well hopefully we can be just a trifle more analytical and, yes, intelligent than that, can’t we.
First, of course, it would be elementary to observe that in the US most minorities have in the aggregate substantially lower incomes than ‘Anglo whites,’ and low incomes has a high correlation with the kinds of crime that typically land one in prison with fair ease. Blue collar type crime. That alone begins to tell you a story.
Now one can add one, with evidence, that there appears to be patterns of punishing minority offenders more harshly than others, in certain jurisdictions, which perhaps tells you a partial input to the difference.
etc.
The short response being, that if one wants to get behind simple minded fallacy of composition type errors, the simple membership in a ethnic/religious group of any size is not explanatory of the actions of a minority from that group.
As to the question of profiling:
I believe this has been dealt with frequently. There is some merit in profiling on a strict basis, e.g. identifying mosques with radical Imams and associations and following its members. Simply profiling anyone one believe is Muslim wastes resources and tends to have the effect of alienating moderates and pushing them into the hands of the radicals.
Collounsbury
I admire your knowledge and rely on your posts frequently for insights (especially into the MENA region). Not all of us have thought through everything we see around us. Which is why we are here, debating, learning etc. ** Airman ** asked something in the interest of discourse and I do not see what you would have lost if you had made your points (solid points, by the way) without any snide remarks.
On preview: Airman, excellent way to be a sport about it.
To add, that is the point I was trying to make about correlation and causation. While poverty is a causal factor in crime, the ethnicity and religion of the poor class are numerical correlations and nothing more.
I gave the example of India. One is exposed to the LTTE, Sikh terrorists, terrorists in the North-East, Naxalites in the southern and eastern parts, but amongst the largely impoverished 120 million Indian Muslims, there is no active terrorist group bombing civilians. Thus, religion fails the causal test, while in the other cases, you will again see the ugly heads of land, poverty, power and government-sponsored oppression.
FYI, just for a little perspective on the State Dept. list: yes, it has a specific political purpose beyond smearing the enemies of our friends. Members of organizations on the list are statutorily ineligible for U.S. visas. I can’t dig up a cite today (I’m home sick), but just wanted to give you that to chew on. Think of it as a bit of an expansion on the ineligibility for visas/permanent residence on those who have engaged in persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or “membership in a particular social group” (a term which can mean many different things, depending on case law and how sympathetic the adjudicator is).
It’s also an expansion on the ineligibility for visas of individuals whose admission to the U.S. would damage foreign policy interests. (Yes, there is a statutory category like that; it’s not just an informal “we don’t like this guy’s politics, so we’re not letting him in.” This ground was once used to deny admission to a rather left-wing Nicaraguan poet who was supposed to give a lecture at my university. The guy had never hurt a fly, but his admission was somehow deemed dangerous to U.S. democracy. Stupid, but true.)
As for the Uzbek org.; I don’t know really anything about them specifically, but Karimov is certainly not fond of any group who he sees as encouraging an Islamic fundie revival, whether they have violent tendencies or not. Ironic for a guy whose first name is Islam.
I’m afraid that there are quite a terrorist “bubbleheads” (I’d use a stronger word myself), of both the Loyalist and Republican persuasion, who are still at large.
Oh, and **Collounsbury, ** depending on how far back you want to go in defining the “current Afghan unpleasantness,” I believe the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was added to the list more recently than most of the other groups, but still at least a couple of years before the events of late 2001. We may well have foreign policy-related reasons for adding them, but I don’t think your conjecture is it. (I remember the press release from State when they were added - I forwarded it to a thesis committee member, pre-defense, so it was definitely more than 2 years ago, since he does work on Central Asia - so I have it buried at work somewhere. )
Cherry-picked?? He asked if there were any non-muslim terrorist groups besides the IRA!! I provided an answer to that question!! How is that cherry-picking? And what um, point are you saying I’m trying to prove, anyway? Besides answering the question, that is!
Not to be too nitpicky here, but given who actually lives in those locations (or in the case of the Palestinians, lived there before being expelled), who else would you expect to be committing acts of terrorism? Notwithstanding 9/11, the vast majority of terrorism is committed by people who are from the country or region where the terrorist acts were committed. It would be highly unusual to have apartment complexes in Riyadh being bombed by, say, Hindu extremists, since there aren’t any Hindus in Saudi Arabia outside of the Indian embassy.
>> I see Muslims flying the planes into the WTC and the Pentagon, I see them bombing hotels in Riyadh, I see them blowing up Israelis, but you tell me that I can’t take a closer look at the people who are quite obviously committing the same crimes I’m seeing, since although they are the ones committing the crimes the vast majority of them are innocent?
Of course, this works both ways. Iraqis see Americans invading their country, shooting at them, blowing up innocent people. They know Americans have done the same before in other places. They know Americans are supporting Israel in killing palestinians. And then many generalize and believe all Americans are suspects and bad people. Which leads to some of them being more fanatical to believe it is a good thing to kill Americans since Americans are killing Muslims and not Christians or Jews.
Sorry, QTM, I wasn’t trying to slam you or your post. Upon first reading, I saw “From the State Department’s list of terrorist groups”, followed by your list, followed by “and that’s the official list”. I know that’s not what you meant. By bad. Mea culpa.
They’re up there near the top of the list ('cause it’s alphabetical).
They’re the ones who did the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway. Basically a pseudo-religious guru-cult with alleged delusions of taking over the government of Japan. Their organization mimicked the government’s right down to the names of “Ministries”. Their leader’s trial is still in session.
Oh, and officially, they’ve changed their name (yes, they’re still active, and actively recruiting) to “Aleph”. There are overseas branches in Russia, Australia, and the US, to name a few.
