OT: purely political, but of some analytic interest was Re: Legality of bugging mosques

From: Joseph Ashwood (ashwood_at_msn.com)
Date: 06/29/05 

Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:56:39 GMT

"Andrew Swallow" <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:d9shng$p8q$1@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
[on the 9/11 attacks]

> Not all the students went to US universities. In the UK the Muslim
> students were teetotallers so they tended to eat in the refectory rather
> than the bar, which tends to rule out the beer.

So does being a member of a number of other religions, just off the top of
my head and only including the ones founded is the US, Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Christian Science. Both of which consider
it bad to take anything that changes your level of consciousness (suitable
qualifications apply) and both include alcohol in this category. The
profiling of "doesn't drink alcohol" won't work, it won't even limit it to
the mistaken target.

> The USA may be a middle class society but the Arab world is not, so these
> people are way off average.

But you're talking about bugging Mosques in the US (otherwise legality is
not an issue), where guess what, most of them will be middle class. The
people that make there way over, for whatever reason, will be middle class
under the US view of class membership. This profile won't work either.

> They are studying at university so they are above average in intelligence.

Having attended a prestigious private school, I heavily debate that. I knew
more than one person who only got in because daddy donated money.
Considering the financial backing allegedly available to Al Qaeda this is
certainly an option. But profiling those won't work, you'll only be
profiling the rich.

> The ones attending western universities are unlikely to be taking courses
> in Islam.

Of course, just as unlikely that one of them would enter a bar
http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1230/article12256.asp

> For a religious organisation the easiest people to recruit are working
> class men and students of that religion. The suicide bombers appear to be
> neither.

They were not students, and yet many of them entered on student visas.
They were not working class, but part of the reason they did it is the money
for their family.
Neither statement works very well.

> Watching Arab countries may be difficult, the police support the other
> side, but we should be able to hear what is going on at known places in
> our own countries.

And why is that? We have no evidence of these actions happening. Worse if
you look at the actual statistics which I admit are very hard to come by you
will find things very different from the profiling case. If you look at the
number of terrorist attacks that have taken place on US soil, you will find
that the median terrorist is a white, christian male. If you look at the
total number of dead from terrorist attacks, you will once again find that
the median terrorist is a white christian male. The only case where you will
find Islamic men in the lead is in the most dead from a single attack.
Strangely, or not so strangely if you understand the religion, there is one
that you will find almost completely absent, Buddhism.

So under your own arguments would you be as much for bugging every Catholic
church, every Baptist chuch, every Mormon church, every christian church in
the country? Also keep in mind that the attacker always has the advantage,
if we were to bug every X, they would simply go to Y.

If profiling is to be done, it is necessary to build from real statistics,
not simply from a knee-jerk reaction to a single incident. Even then it
won't work.
                Joe

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