London Hit By Terror Attacks (What is the appropriate response?)

Great Debates
261

Steve MB;

Correct. And if we start to be attacked by terrorists by means other than suicide bombers, and the incidence of such attacks points us away from the profile we have, fine. The profile should be based on the reality of the threat. If in the next six months we were attacked by non-suicide bombers who valued their lives, then profiling jet passengers wouldn’t make much sense. If we had a rash of bombings, or shootings by a group whose only similarity was their zodiac sign, profiling based on ethnicity or religion would be stupid. But that’s not the situation where in now.

262

They only do this when there’s already a suspect fitting such a description. ‘6-ft balding white male’ is useless, but ‘6-ft balding white male, in the vicinity of the Springfield Kwik-e-Mart at 9pm yesterday evening’ is useful intelligence.

In the context of this thread’s title (funny how the topic has turned towards only making America safer) - there’s over two million muslims in Britain. If you try and monitor everything, you’ll miss the important information. Long ago, MI5 realised that trying to monitor the actions of Irish people purely because of their nationality was not doing any good - trying to monitor all muslims would be just as unproductive.

263

I wouldn’t say useless, as it is valuable information, But yes, the more information the better.

You are 100% correct. I mentioned the US early on as I have never been to England and don’t know if the same thinking could apply. I am aware of the sizable Muslim population there and readily admit, that even if my position has some merit here, it would be less or may not apply there at all.

But there is a comon denominator: can we, the targets of terrorists, use the rather tight profile of those who seem to want to hurt us to out benefit?

I’m going to bow out fir a while. GorillaMan is right in that this has turned out to be less about England than intended. My apologies for any role I may have played in that.

264

magellan01: But I’d prefer our society be one that is safe rarther than what I’d consider overly politically correct.

But as GorillaMan, myself, and others have already noted, you haven’t provided any evidence that a society that attempts to scrutinize all the millions of members of particular religious/ethnic groups associated with a certain type of terrorism actually would be safe. Or even safer than it is now.

You don’t seem to understand that the Western world contains LOTS and LOTS of Muslims and other people who look like Muslims. Trying to apply some vague “Muslim-ish” profile to all those people is not useful. It just diverts resources away from more focused investigations that stand a better chance of actually finding and catching some criminals.

It’s not helpful just to proclaim that you want a safer society and that you’re willing to put up with some curtailment of liberty (especially other people’s liberty) in order to achieve it. You have to use a little intelligence and figure out whether the curtailments you’re suggesting would be of any practical use in making your society safer.

265

magellan01: * I am aware of the sizable Muslim population there [in the UK] and readily admit, that even if my position has some merit here [in the US], it would be less or may not apply there at all.*

Well, as GorillaMan notes, there are over two million Muslims in the UK, which has a total population of about 60 million. The US, with four or five times the UK’s total population, has somewhere between two and seven million Muslims. (The lower figure applies to American Muslims formally associated with a mosque, but there could be several times that number of unaffiliated or nonobservant Muslims.)

And of course, there are many tens of millions of Italian, Jewish, Hispanic, and other Americans who would easily fit the physical profile of a “typical” Middle Eastern or South Asian Muslim.

So your suggested security strategy of attempting to profile all Muslims and those who could be mistaken for Muslims would be just as useless, and just as resource-wasting and counterproductive, in the US as in the UK.

266

And sorry to sound testy about this, but the issue is an important one. In a democracy, there is a fair chance that an agitated and vocal segment of the population will be able to persuade political leaders to waste resources on half-assed or pointless measures (witness the Congressional sound and fury around the Terri Schiavo case) just because they’re hollering loud enough about them.

It’s our responsibility as concerned citizens to use our heads to figure out what sort of solutions make practical sense, and not try to drum up public support for useless and wasteful approaches just because we think they sound good. The decisions we as a society make about fighting terrorism may be—almost certainly will be—a matter of life or death. Let’s put our best critical thinking to work to identify and advocate the most truly constructive ideas, rather than just boosting whatever harebrained suggestion appeals to us in the heat of the moment.

267

Kimstu;

I wasn’t going to respond here for awhile, for the reason noted in my last post. But you’ve spent a lot of effort responding, so I think I owe it to you.

First of all, I never proclaimed to have all the answers, and in detail, only that PROFILING MAKES SENSE as a general proposition: Given a finite amout of resouces, it makes sense for the governement to focus those resources where the threat seems the greatest.

The fact is that there is a greater potential threat of terrorism tied to mosques than Scientology centers. Can we agree on that? Can we agree to not focus on Scientologists, given that they have not been implicated in blowing anyone up? Or Quakers? Or Menonites? Or Mormons? Or Buddhist monks? Can we scrutinize ANY group less, therefore allowing us to use those resources elsewhere!!! Well, can we?

No one has advocated interviewing every Muslim in the US or in the UK. But the more time spent focusing on Muslims and the less time focusing on eighty year-old Norwegian grandmothers is a more efficient use of those limited resources. Therefore, making it of “practical use”. Wouldn’t you agree?

It is a valid position, and I’ve provided support for that position several times. It doesn’t necessarily make it the right position, but just because it offends your sensibilities it doesn’t automatically make it wrong (ineffective) either. If your position was so right, would four bombs have gone off in England yesterday? Or would 911 have happened. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m searching for a better way and offering it up.

If some things don’t make LOGISTICAL sense to you, why not offer a better way to solve the particular problem you identify? If you help “fix” the logistical problems maybe the position will make sense to you, maybe even a lot of sense. And maybe we wil have come up with a way to make the world safer.

I know the answer. The answer is that you and most of the posters on this thread–and on GB itself–are blinded by political correctness. You look to niggle over tiny details when, in fact, they are immaterial to you and not critical to the position. The general proposition offends your sensibilities and it is therefore unworthy of consideration. And God forbid–evil of all evils–that an idea that might incorporate profiling or another of your untouchable PC bugaboos might actually work. That would be the end. Better to strive to eliminate the possibility of that ever happening than to risk having to abandon the mantra.

The question remains: could we be safer? And wold profiliing, using things like appearance, language, culture, religion–alone or in combination with other things experts mat deem appropriate–help get us there. I think it would.

It is completely disingenuous of you to mandate that I provide “evidence” of a position’s efficacy when you know that it has not been tried yet. It is a way to cut off debate (on the GB!). I’ve offered an IDEA!! I’ve put forth rationale and you ignore challenging it (aside from the # of Muslims in the US, which is easily solved by just going to the mosques themselves). Instead you just write it off as “whatever harebrained suggestion appeals to us in the heat of the moment.” (Imagine the expletive of your choice here. Bold.)

I think that YOU “have to use a little intelligence”. If you want to respond, please go back and look at my rationale. If you want to take the high road of critical debate, take apart my strongest argument, those that go to the reasoning for my position, not the loose details I added quickly to roughly frame out how it MIGHT work.

If you disagree with my position for practical reasons, stick to a scruitiny of them. If your objection is philosophical, stick to a logical refutation of the basic idea, allowing the details to be worked out later.

I’ve pretty much had it with this thread and the whole GD in general. Although some of the posters have been excellent, very excellent, even those that have disagreed with me, the majority are knee-jerk, politically correct, condescending lefties that will never deviate from the hymnal one iota, even if Christopher Hitchens was arguing the point.

I started to participate in GB about a week ago. At that time there was a thread asking whether or SD leaned left, or something like it. I didn’t participate because I, at the time, had very little experience with it. Now, I’m amazed that the question was even asked. This place is more one-sided than my home town, San Francisco.

Sorry if I seem a little testy, but it seems to me that many of you are not interested in truly exploring and analyzing ideas. You’re too busy showing each other how well you can protect the PC status quo.

Have fun.

268

The problem with your profiling is that is doesn’t eliminate enough of the population. You have narrowed it down to maybe 2 million people, which is still far too many to be practicable. And if you procede on that basis alone you are liable to piss off far more people. It may be better to build up links with the muslim community so that you can get to know who are the more radical elements. By basing your profile only on the criteria you mention you are likely to radicalise more muslims. You need to narrow your profile some more, possibly add to it those that have been to the middle east or north africa in the last 10 years as well. Even that may not be enough.

269

The appropriate response is to keep our heads and not foolishly sacrifice the freedoms that we have acquired over thousands of years in order to give us a false sense of security.

270

Profiling the population in the way being suggested wouldn’t even narrow it down to those two million. If muslims were under the scrutiny being suggested, any terrorists could simply pretend to be of a different religion.

271

The appropriate response is to get back to a state approaching normality, and learn to live with it.

I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, where the very real possibility of being blown up was something you just got used to.

Changing your behaviour, becoming suspicious of your neighbours without good reason, none of that helps. You just get on with living your life in the best way you know how. Accept that it’s about as likely as being hit by a bus or struck by lightning, and get over it.

In a way growing up where I did, when I did makes living in a post 9/11 world a lot easier to deal with, because, for me, not much has changed.

272

Once an idiot, always an idiot

273

rayh, +MDI, GorillaMan, irishgirl,

Thank you for your reasoned responses.

You are right, the number of people scrutinized has to be minimized. I suggested those that I did as a starting point, and because they are the ones some people refust to put on the table as worthy of discussion. Trips to to the middle east, multiple identities, those that might have served as demolitions experts in paces like Syria, whatever. The more we can think of and the smaller we can get that population ogf higher risk, the better.

You are simply opining that the idea is foolish. You’re entitled to your opinion, but it doesn’t mean the idea is, in fact, foolish. What criteria do you use to decide it is? If it worked, would it still be foolish in your book?

As I’ve said, I’m all for narrowing it down more–as much as possible. And if Muslims, in order to avoid scrutiny, start pretending to be different religions, at sdome that might make profiling them a waste of time. Meanwhile, it might be easier to then try to find people who are practicing their religion underground., becausE I doubt these religious fanatics would simply abandon the religion they’ve contorted. If they do, wow, the problem might very well be solved.

That must have been terrible. But does that mean that you wouldn’t wish better for the future? Wold you prefer that your children or grandchildren live in a similar reality? Or one where it is safer? And you bring up a good example where racial profiliing would make no sense at all. Still, the authorities no doubt attempted to find ways to narrow the pool of potential perpetrators so they could devote more of their limited resoources on them.

Annie-Xmas, is that link you provided for real? I remember that during the protests in San Francisco similar signs were ked back to an EXTREME left group in Oakland who was trying to portray the religious right as beiing that extreme. Either way, very scary.

274

Of course I want a safer future for my children, but in Northern Ireland we achieved the ceasefire we did through diplomacy and compromise, sending in more troops never helped.

Internment was an absolute disaster for the British, who learned that locking people up when all you have are suspicions (and sometimes less than that) is counterproductive. Pity others didn’t learn that lesson.

275

Phread Phelps and his crew are definitely real, and very very scarey.

276

Who is talking about locking people up based on suspicions, or less? The question is should detectives and intelligence agencies try to find characteristics that are unique to a group that is a threat to us (including but not limited to race, religion, nationality) and use them to shrink the pool of suspected threats?

277

I don’t think you can use enough "very"s. Wow.

278

Those arguing for close monitoring of large sections of the population - what information are you suggesting should be looked for?

279

It’s been demonstrated that it doesn’t include any of those. Religion can be hidden, the muslim world spans from black Africans to the far east (plus white guys like Richard Reid), and nationalities are as equally numerous. Spaniards were involved in the Madrid attack, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it turns out British nationals were behind the London bombs.

280

First, I wold say that I’m for closer scrutiny of the smaller and smaller sections of the populations. But my thinking goes like this:

Do the terrorists share any traits? Well, they all seem to be in a certain age range, say 18-40? (Keep in mind, this is just to explain the position. I’m sure the FBI, CIA, Police have numbers). Okay, so we’ve eliminated a huge section of the population, namely: women and males younger than 18 or older than 40. So the people charged with looking out for our safety can now devote more of their limited resources to a much smaller group. But can we make it even smaller? Well, they all seem to be Muslim. So we can now eliminate more people: males 18-40 who are protestant, catholic, mormon, hindi, buddhist, quaker, etc.

Smaller yet would be better. Well how about those that have visited areas in the middle east that have been kown to have terroist traing camps? Or those that have published screeds calling for the death of the west? Or those individuals who have made financial contributions to grops that sponsor terrorists? I think you get the idea.

My guess is that You’d probably agrre with much of this, but that the racial, religious stuff is off limits. If so, I’d say that it makes no sense to me. The stakes are too high to say that someone’s feelings should be the prime consideration.