The Right To Be Murdered, Part II

I've denounced the legal and political hysteria impeding anti-terrorist measures employing racial profiling, but WSJ's Dorothy Rabinowitz says it better:

Taking affront at government security measures in wartime is, of course, a choice available only to a free people, as is the right to cavil ceaselessly about the alleged erosion of our liberties, the dark night of oppression settling on us daily, as the NYCLU has so conspicuously done these last years--though not without echoing choruses from its parent organization, the ACLU, and various crank outposts of the libertarian movement.

Lurking at the center of the current struggle, ostensibly about snooping in bags, violation of constitutional rights and such, is the question of racial profiling--an incendiary issue that has set off a rhetorical war to match. . .

Among other lessons of 9/11, we have learned the cost of squeamishness that prevented closer scrutiny of young Arab men entering the country even when their behavior raised suspicions. . . As the admirable Tony Blair is now discovering after announcing his determination that "multiculturalist concerns" will not be allowed to impede the struggle to rid his nation of terrorists, a thorny road lies ahead. Islamic civil rights organizations and others immediately warned that the only result of his efforts would be to "alienate" young Muslims. Translation: cause them to become terrorists. In short, the prime minister must accede to blackmail in his dealing with Muslim communities. . .

Today, a strategy designed to help ensure that such a calamity will not again occur has been converted to a bizarre race-discrimination issue, subordinated to the concerns and ambitions of politicians. This won't, in the end, do much for the office-seekers and -holders now competing for the honor of delivering the most hysterical denunciations of ethnic and racial profiling. What, after all, can citizens (black and brown among them) think of leaders still prepared to argue that young Arab males receive no more scrutiny than the famous 80-year-old little grandmother--and that the people's security lies in measures clearly the least suited to assuring their safety?

As Kobayashi Maru says:

The ACLU and the rest of the anti-sense crowd, (they're against much much more than just profiling), would [outlaw] even carefully vetted institutional 'intuition' that allows organizations (like the police) to do the job we hired them to do. And in that, we have lobotomized ourselves - just as we face a clever and determined enemy. How stupid is that?

Stupid enough to prompt a Clintonian cover-up, perhaps. Stupid enough to kill more unarmed and innocent Americans, probably.

(via SC&A and MaxedOutMama)