Rather than posting on the 48201 blog, I've decided to respond here:
Although I agree it's well-worth the read, I probably don't have the same reaction as you did, Jeanne. To be "snarky" as the writer said, I suppose we should ask everyone who is boarding a plan, "Are you a terrorist?" If they say "no" then we'll just let them on the plane. Heck, let's ask them before going through security. If they say no, then they don't even have to be "violated" nor "humiliated" by a full body scan. From everything I read, once the officers became satisfied that this person wasn't a terrorist she was treated politely and with respect. Yes, someone probably "profiled" this person, not because the person appeared middle Eastern, but because the 9/11 terrorists were middle Eastern. I hope this incident gets wide-coverage in the middle Eastern community. Because it says to potential terrorists: If you look or action suspicious in any way, you'll be taken off a plane, be strip-searched, and interrogated. That's how you stop terrorism. And that's a good thing.
******** In a following communication I wrote...
Please understand that I wasn't angered that you posted the piece. Nor was I really angered by the piece itself. A lot of my perspective, obviously, comes from law enforcement. When responding to a situation like the author's, the first step of law enforcement is to control the situation, which means controlling the suspects. Only after the situation has been defused, and the investigation concluded, will the agents/officers explain everything to the individuals detained. I found the author's attitude - yes, snarky, juvenile and irritating. She'll get her 15 minutes - I'm sure the news and talk shows are calling her now. The ACLU will whine about profiling, and the real terrorists will profit from this.
Here's a late breaking article on this specific incident! http://www.freep.
2 comments:
Tom-Agree with you. Unfortunately, the ratio of these types of terrorist acts is about 95%, performed by people of middle eastern descent/5% not (think Tim McVeigh). That is just a statistical fact. The anti-American Muslim protesters in London who were shown on CNN would be punished in a very violent way in their own lands (the land of an eye for an eye---hence, we could suppose the removal of their tongues for speaking out?? Their leaders live in the dark ages, long before the concept of cruel and unusual punishment was viewed as a bad thing). Our undoing on 9/11---as liberal New York TImes columnist Maureen Dowd pointed out shortly afterwards---was that the terrorists had learned to use our open society and freedoms as weapons against us.
Marla, thanks for the comment. Certainly, there are many more terrorists and criminals for that matter, of every ethnicity and descent. But this was on 9/11, with known threats. Yes, I have to agree with Maureen Dowd that the terrorists have learned to use our open society, our freedom of the press in particular, against us. But I'd still rather have our open society than the alternatives.
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