December 28, 2009 FOX and Friends
Dave N.: Well, that certainly didn't take long. And as usual, the chief turds -- in this case, the execrable Mike Gallagher -- have come floating to the surface of the punch bowl:
Gallagher: But guys, let's look at the inevitable, the 800-pound gorilla in the room. How about we scrutinize young Middle Eastern men to stop this.
What happens when El Al Airlines, the airline run and operated by the state of Israel, if a Palestinian tries to board that plane? Do you think he goes through an extra degree of security? Well, let's do that with Muslims, let's do that with anybody named Abdul or Mohammad or Ahmed, let's take them and put them in a room and make sure they don't have explosives sewn into their underwear.
...
Brian Kilmeade: Do you think we ought to profile any Muslim?
Gallagher: Yes! I think we ought to do what El Al does. Ask anybody who knows El Al what they do with Palestinians who attempt to board El Al. We should anybody who is a known Muslim and put them in a separate line. Call it the VIP line! Treat them with respect!
Christine Fair: That is so preposterous. One-third of the world's population is Muslim. Trying to treat every single Muslim as a terrorist is simply untenable, it's fearmongering.
Gallagher: Who are you afraid of offending Christine? Al Qaeda?
Memo to Gallagher: Nigeria is not in "the Middle East," and the suspect in this case was not "Middle Eastern" -- he was African.
If you want to profile every "known Muslim," you're going to have a hell of a time in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, considering that their populations are a mix of the world's religions, and any Muslim who wanted to pose as a member of, say, a Christian church in order to fool authorities could do so with ease.
This just underscores how foolish the whole notion of racial profiling actually is, because when you embark on such policies, they actually make you more vulnerable, not less.
That's because terrorists are not that stupid. If you begin profiling for Middle Eastern men, they will find Indonesian or African or European operatives to perform the same task. If you begin profiling for Muslims, they will find ways to conceal their religious preferences.
We know two things about profiling, especially ethnic, religious, or racial profiling: 1) These policies expose the profilers to being gamed by terrorists; and 2) They are always a tremendous waste of resources and inevitably are counter-productive.
Sounds like your classic conservative solution: Hey, let's just make matters worse!
