0703 - Random

Alert Readers are up to date on the crazy doctors who bungled their car bombings in the U.K. You noted that the culprits were Muslim doctors from the Middle East. This once more raises those tough questions about screening and searching international travelers. The attentive CNN interviewed an indignant British Muslim who was angry that such incidents led to suspicion of all Muslims. We have something sensible to say, and it may surprise those few Readers who think the OO Staff is wildly "Liberal". Our Staff view is that the idea of only random searches is stupid. Look you, we scoffed loudly at the Bush invasion of Iraq as punishment for the 9/11 bombings, when Iraq had no connection whatever. But really, Readers, it makes no more sense to demand the de-shoeing of the six year old girl from Little Rock and the 90-ish grandmother from Bangor. If there is a robbery by a six-foot man, we do not conduct a random search of five-foot women. We claim that random airport unshoeings of small girls is stupid, and we assert that it has never resulted in catching any terrorist tots.

Now, "Racial profiling" is often given as the reason for not targeting for search the types who have in fact blown up cars in London, and flown airplanes into buildings, and murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis trying to buy vegetables in Baghdad markets. This is as dumb as the Bushie excuses for invading Iraq. The charge of "Profiling" simply fails to distinguish between a proof of crime and an increased chance of being guilty. Of course not all Muslims are terrorists. Yet, judging from who has been doing all the blowing up, the chances are greater of an angry Muslim doing it than a Quaker. We have the sometimes laudable American respect for freedom of religion. Yet a preacher, some think, has a better chance of getting away with urging crimes than does a layperson. That's wrong.

Here again, there's a simple logical mistake. Yes, we should be free to believe as we wish. But, neither your belief nor your position as a religious leader excuses you from plotting murder, or sending out murderers. So, if you preach murder, then it is proper for the police – with due court approval – to plant microphones in your building, though it be a mosque. That is not prejudice, it is the right of those you would kill to protect themselves. Similarly, you may preach against abortion should you so believe, but you may not bomb clinics. If you are vicious enough to preach that women who do not cover their hair should be killed, a well regulated civil society will make sure you do not carry out your threat. In simplest terms, you may not plot or preach to injure others, or you will be restrained. If you belong to a group that proclaims the right to kill others, you are a logical object of surveillance. Please note, though, that no matter what group you belong to (or are suspected to belong to), you must not be held for years without trial, or tortured. Only the members of the cabal headed by Dick Cheney think that talking about "freedom" justifies behaving worse than the enemy.

That brings us to a Reader request to say something acid about the Bush pardon of Scooter Libby. Of course the excuse for the pardon is transparently false: the penalty for lying under oath was quite appropriate. But Libby was an underling, and there were higher- ups more guilty. Here, our view differs from the usual. Remember what happened. An experienced diplomat was sent to investigate whether Saddam was buying uranium. He reported Saddam was not, and said so in print. This enraged the White House, particularly Cheney, who tried to embarrass him as a tool of his wife who worked for the CIA. So they attacked the wife. You know what that was? It was justification for saying to Cheney, as any Jane Austen character would: "Sir, you are no gentleman." And so he is not.

Next time: Staffing [OO #704]

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