Turban is closely associated with Sikhism. Sikhism is the only religion in the world in which wearing a turban is mandatory. Vast majority of people who wear turbans in the Western countries are Sikhs.
Because of the fact that turbans are usually associated with Islam, many people mistake Sikhs for being Muslims.
Many Americans wrongly assumed that anybody who wears a turban is an Arab or a Muslim.
And yes, indeed, there is *some* turban-wearing in Islam:
In Arab culture, the turban (or imamah) has an important place. Ancient Arabs wore them and took pride in them
However:
In modern Persian Gulf countries, the turban has been replaced by the white or red-and-white checkered scarf
So in other words, if you wish to be profiling people as terrorists according to their dress, then you should actually be stripsearching everyone who comes into the United States with a keffiyeh. If you operated a similar policy with a turban, you would basically pick up 99% Sikh, and then whoever had flown in from Oman who was a Sultan.
Which, if you’re trying to combat Islamic terrorism, would seem to be a rather cack-handed approach.
Additionally, if Zarqawi has no influence in Iraq, why are people still resisting? and blowing shit up?
Simple. Zarqawi isn’t some massive resistance leader in Iraq. He’s claiming to be there waging a jihad. However, the Sunnis in Iraq aren’t really bothered about jihad. They’re just a bit pissed off that the country they’ve had a stranglehold over for the last 30 years is now no longer in their grip. Sunni terrorists are deliberately trying to undermine the authority of the government in Iraq in an effort to overthrow them and regain power for the Sunnis. These people are operating independently of Zaqarwi.
Then you’ve got the thousands of Iraqis who regard their government as a US puppet and dislike having foreign troops on their soil. I can point in the direct of one if you like - http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
A common mistake people make is assuming that the ‘insurgency’ in Iraq is entirely fundamentalist in character, and that Zaqarwi is some powerful resistance leader. Firstly, Zaqarwi is merely the highest profile rebel because of his skill in manipulating the media. It has also been highly convenient for certain groups to use him as a bogeyman for all Iraqi resistance. In reality the Iraqi insurgency is a disjointed, unco-ordinated affair of various groups with all sorts of grievances which are by no means limited to some religious ideological purity.
I would beg to differ, and I would like someone to explicitly show me where I stated that Islam has central authority.
Oh good christ, you really do have an MTV memory span.
Islam does have central leadership. Ever heard of Mohammed?
Congratulations, you’re an idiot. How’s ‘My Struggle’ coming along?
That’s all that matters. Blow me. Not unique to Sikhs, as I said limey.
And that’s why I put the qualifier in. You said:
Grandma’s arent blowing shit up, bearded guys in turbans are.
So you were suggesting that we should ethnically profile people for security reason at the airport on the basis of whether or not they wore a turban. Unfortunately for you, I already dealt with this possibility, pointing out that pretty much all people in Western countries wearing turbans were of Sikh origin. So far, no ‘bearded guys in turbans’ have blown up Western targets. Mohammed Atta was neither bearded, nor wore a turban.
The only Muslims who still wear turbans are those in Oman, which is a relatively small Arabic country. The majority of Muslim terrorists so far have originated from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and those in Britain of Pakistani descent - none of whom wear turbans as part of their national dress, nor wear turbans habitually today. Since you were refering to people from the Middle East, as exemplified here:
Who said I was referring to Muslims? I was referring to Middle Eastern people in general.
We can then draw a few conclusions. Firstly, with the exception of Israel and some tiny Christian communities, the nations that make up the ME are entirely Muslim. Therefore if you chose to profile Middle Eastern people, you are effectively profiling Muslims. You then claim we should profile on them wearing a turban, because presumably you believe people from the Middle East wear turbans. Unfortunately, this is untrue, with the exception of Oman, which to date has not been involved in any way in the war on terror as far as I’m aware. So in other words, you have chosen to ethnically profile at an airport THE WRONG GROUP.
Which is precisely why you’re not in charge of airport security, because as I pointed out, you’d check every Sikh and Omani who came through, but sadly leave out every Saudi, Iraqi, Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian and indeed every other inhabitant of the Middle East.
You would also miss out Indonesians and Pakistanis, who have also been known to commit terrorist acts. Oh, and black people too. One of the London bombers was black. So congratulations - your ethnic profiling would do nothing to deter Islamic terrorism and would probably spark off a militant response from Sikhs worldwide.
At this point I would invite you to blow me, but sadly I don’t get off on homosexual oral sex, unlike yourself.
The only successful sort of profiling we could use to capture terrorists is to search all males aged 16-30. I for one cannot place a single act of terrorism that was carried out someone not in this age range. We would then not only weed out Islamic terrorists, but also get rid of white supremacists and all sorts of other nutters out there.
Great. My first plan once I become king of america is to invade britain.
Isn’t it funny how someone who’d probably be the first to defend the Constitution has his eyes set on a completely opposite political position?
Not really. As far as I’m aware, Bin Laden himself has never personally bombed anything. He just pays other people to do it for him - people who don’t wear turbans. You won’t catch a terrorist by dragging in everyone wearing a turban.
Oh, and feel free to read a Sikh perspective on the matter:
Not really. As far as I’m aware, Bin Laden himself has never personally bombed anything. He just pays other people to do it for him - people who don’t wear turbans. You won’t catch a terrorist by dragging in everyone wearing a turban.
So Bin Laden isn’t responsible for the 9/11 attacks because he personally didn’t do it?
I still think my way of profiling people works better - don’t you agree?
I don’t think the way you do anything works.
Nope, not at all. The fact I frequently write sarcastic replies to your opinions masquarading as facts is just a wonderful coincidence.
There’s a difference between being sarcastic, and being a wiseass limey.
I wonder if airport security asks sikh men to remove their kirpan pendants. It would be ridiculous but not any more absurd than confiscating nail clippers.
So Bin Laden isn’t responsible for the 9/11 attacks because he personally didn’t do it?
Well actually there’s some debate over that because we still really don’t know. We don’t know if Atta an the others were acting under orders from bin Laden. We don’t know if bin Laden was even financing the operation. All we know is that bin Laden endorsed the actions and claimed them for al-Qaida. Unfortunately, as we’re all aware, al-Qaida is a decentralised organisation with the capacity to operate independently of its founder.
In any case, we’re dealing with ethnic profiling here, which brings me to this point:
I don’t think the way you do anything works.
Your way seems to be rather dependent on the wonderfully likely possibility that Osama bin Laden would attempt to fly to a civilian airport in the United States without the employ of some sort of disguise. And even then you’d just catch bin Laden - the rest of al-Qaida and all the other jihadis who aren’t even al-Qaida would still be out there. As I said, the majority of actual attacks are carried out by those aged 16-30. The al-Qaida leadership is like those imans who encourage suicide bombers - they stay far away from the action and encourage others to do their dirty work. If we’re using ethnic profiling to prevent terrorist attacks, then we would be doing it to catch those carrying out the actual attacks, since they would be the only ones to put themselves in the position where they could be caught. So therefore our profiling should respect this fact, and thus we should profile all males aged 16-30.
You’ve actually yet to put forward any reason why this isn’t a good idea.
There’s a difference between being sarcastic, and being a wiseass limey.
Isn’t sarcasm regarded as more a British trait than an American one? And sarcasm generally involves being a wiseass - though having said that, what’s wrong with being wise? Sorry that I value ‘knowing stuff’ over being reactionary and underinformed.
I wonder if airport security asks sikh men to remove their kirpan pendants. It would be ridiculous but not any more absurd than confiscating nail clippers.
There are ‘special exceptions’ to such rules on flight travel. As someone with diabetes I am permitted to carry needles and blood extraction devices on flights, so I would imagine that those wearing kirpans would also be treated as a special exemption.
Not really. As far as I’m aware, Bin Laden himself has never personally bombed anything. He just pays other people to do it for him - people who don’t wear turbans. You won’t catch a terrorist by dragging in everyone wearing a turban.
So Bin Laden isn’t responsible for the 9/11 attacks because he personally didn’t do it?
TOPIC: Some people think that because it’s not easy being green, the human race would be happier if we rid the world of green. They propose doing this by getting rid of all frogs.
Soul: Sounds good to me. Or maybe we should just figure out a way to change the color of the sky?
Deus: If we really want less green, we’d have to kill all the grass and trees too…
Soul: But what about the sky?? What would you do about that??
Deus: I wouldn’t do anything because the sky is blue, not green.
Soul: DUH, of course I know that, you braindead limey!
Deus: Then why did you mention the sky?!
Soul: Because, what about if I go inside a place and it’s got a tinted skylight, and it’s yellow tinting — then the sky would be green.
Deus: Well, true, but that isn’t the sky, it’s your skylight, so it has nothing to do with anything.
Soul: Just because the sky isn’t always green doesn’t mean it’s never green, limey.
Deus: The sky is always blue, even if your skylight or sunglasses make it appear a different color…
Soul: But if green is bad, and the sky is green inside this place, I still need to change the color of the sky.
Deus: Maybe you should get rid of the skylight, but not the sky. The sky is blue, it’s never green.
Soul: So just because the sky isn’t green, nothing is green? Green doesn’t exist??
Limey and idiot are both fair game since they have both been applied judiciously in this case.
I don’t see what is so bad about limey. I know it is supposed to be derogatory but it is really just a relic of a time when Britain ruled the seas. The sailors consumed limes to stave off scurvy and since they were the dominant (feared and hated) naval power they were the obvious choice to be selected for disparagement. If I were a Brit I would look on it rather favorably now.
The difference is that Soul earned the title of idiot and moron in this thread. Limey’s don’t choose where they come from. Then again, maybe Soul doesn’t choose to be an idiotic moron, maybe he just was born that way.
The difference is that Soul earned the title of idiot and moron in this thread. Limey’s don’t choose where they come from. Then again, maybe Soul doesn’t choose to be an idiotic moron, maybe he just was born that way.
Just keep up the ad hominems. Are you on the rag? Because you’ve been going off on me a lot lately.
The difference is that Soul earned the title of idiot and moron in this thread. Limey’s don’t choose where they come from. Then again, maybe Soul doesn’t choose to be an idiotic moron, maybe he just was born that way.
Can idiotic morons fall in love ? Go on, prove that they can.
The best thing is I’m not even bugged by ‘limey’. If the Soul Defence against a point of view rests more on the nationality of the challenger than the content of the challenge, then we can rather safely assume he’s unable to actually deal with the challenge. Hence ‘My Struggle’*.
*Sorry, it’s just I’m still far too tickled by my smug smartarse joke.
What a laugh I had reading this thread, I thought it would be rather boring with the first few posts but then it really got interesting.
Deus, I think some of the terrorists involved in the Beslan school bombing were women. Enlarge your profiling to include people of both sexes.
Also it would need to apply to all those flying out of, and internally in the US, as well as those flying into the country as the 911 hijackers took off from US soil on internal flights I believe.
If Ann Coulter thinks going through airport security is anything close to hot kinky/loving sex then I feel very sorry for her, or there are some airport secuirty guys who need to be fired!
