As with a broken clock that is correct twice a day, sometimes former Vice President Dick Cheney actually says something that isn’t spiteful, arrogant, appalling, counterproductive and wrong. Case in point: He’s been known to advocate for serious profiling when it comes to national security.
We shouldn’t hold a good idea against a bad messenger. Now, in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Nigerian underwear bomber, is not the time for ACLU hand-wringing over stereotypes. Now is the time — actually, way, way past the time — when we should be upping the ante on profiling as one of our critically important weapons in defending ourselves against Islamic terrorists. We are at war and under siege, and we underuse it at our own peril.
Enough of the Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVey references. Enough of the sort of political correctness that resulted in the Fort Hood massacre. When it comes to those radicalized by religion who use planes to kill Americans, nobody else fits the statistical model but young Muslim males. Nobody else goes on suicidal, jihadist missions against the West, most notably the United States. While 99 percent of young Muslims may not be fanatics and terrorists, 100 percent of 9/11 and post-9/11 airline terrorist incidents have involved young Muslim males.
There are obvious reasons why Israel, radical Islam’s ultimate infidel, hasn’t had a terrorist incident in the air. In addition to state-of-the-art screening equipment and information-sharing: profiling that includes pre-boarding interviews of everyone. Some, to be sure, much more in depth than others. Even the otherwise pathological, the sorts who are looking to hook up with 72 virgins, disclose telltale signs of an impending afterlife to the skilled interrogator.
That sort of individualized, en masse approach is not practicable in bigger countries. But neither is sending your skivvies through the X-Ray machines with your sneakers. And it’s downright dumb – and harassing – to be withholding bathroom privileges from airline passengers and monitoring their use of blankets.
Forget — for rhetorical purposes — the Watch List incompetents. But is it asking too much to at least respond to every immediately discernible red flag? One-way ticket. Cash. No luggage. Problematic nationality. No need to be disrespectful or to act like a storm trooper, but how about some common sense? We’re talking lives needlessly at risk.
And if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had taken exception to an airside Napoleonic Code or thought himself unfairly stereotyped when trying to board Northwest Flight 253 bound for Detroit, well, too terribly tough. It was only by luck that he didn’t murder hundreds. And the day is approaching when terrorists will be so sophisticated that al-Qaida will start springing for round-trip tickets and some Samsonite.
Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, the former mayor of San Francisco, concurs with extra scrutiny – even if she’s uncomfortable with the word profile. “I’d rather, in the interest of protecting people, overreact rather than underreact,” said the liberal Feinstein, who now sees things through the lens of her Senate Intelligence Committee chairmanship.
And, yes, Dick Cheney would surely agree. More to the point, so would most fliers, especially those on Flight 253.