The West's medical emergency

Submitted by Lance W. (United States), Jan 7, 2010 at 21:21

Profiling should be considered no different than any medical scan. Terrorism has many of the same traits as a disease, in this case a disease of civilization. Preventing, finding, and removing these infectious cells can be similar to doing it with real cells. We don't cat-scan or x-ray everyone, just those with symptoms. Once a society has been infected by these natural-born killers, it's time to treat the patient: us. Look at all the countries that quickly banned imports from countries with Mad Cow disease, Swine flu, and Bird flu, for example. Russia and China immediately began quarantining travelers with any symptoms, even those that sat within 10 feet of anyone with symptoms. They had fever scanners set up to check body temperature. Russia immediately banned imports of pigs from the U.S. and Mexico.

The list goes on. The point is that diseases scare the hell out of people, and they often overreact. But the result is that the originating country, where the disease started, is the one put under tremendous pressure to deal with the problem, and then prove to the world they are OK. The burden shifted to them, not the importing country. The same logic should, and eventually will prevail with terrorists, which are spawned, bred, trained, educated, and knowingly allowed to walk proudly in their country of origin. When they succeed at their "job," they become martyrs. Those countries should be treated like intentional "carriers" and "breeding grounds" for this new disease. It should become the responsibility for those country's leaders – national, tribal, or family – to find and remove this problem for the survival of their own country. The cost should be shifted to them. Even if it means we cut off all direct trade. If they want our lifestyles or education systems, they will play by our rules.

Any country that condones terrorism in any way, should be blacklisted and their travelers put automatically into a separate screening process. Airlines could share the expense if they want to travel to those countries for profit. Obviously, national origin should be key. Hate to say it, but even the U.K. has allowed itself to also become a breeding ground for terrorists. We know the terms "Londonistan" and "Eurabia" and what they mean: dangerous allies. Nor should we expect our government can handle this alone. Airlines, airports, hotels, taxis, concessions, should all share responsibility. In any case, it's better to implement tough profiling now as a security measure instead of waiting until we are hit with a full lockdown, when the problem becomes an overreaction, harder to fix, and economically much more costly.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".