by Lance Naismith

Created on: March 21, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

When one discusses how to recognize a terrorist, in today's world, it will usually focus on what some might call the Muslim or Islamic problem. Now, don't get upset and, please don't start strapping on the bombs because I am not blaming all Muslims for what is going on. Like our Christian faith, we have our extreme believers who will do any thing to please their deity. It's just that Christians don't strap on explosives and blow their way into heaven. We tend to like meeting our virgins here on terra-firma and buy them a forbidden drink.

Soon as you discuss this problem, the more vocal start screaming "racial profiling" at you in an attempt to make you slink away in fear of being labeled something approaching a Nazi or sex pervert. At the very least, I would think it was more "religious profiling" but it doesn't have the same sting. But, if you are to at least recognize a potential problem, one aspect of figuring out who is who will probably involve some type of profiling. How you do the profiling and what you do with the information though, is very important in ensuring we do not sink to the level of the terrorists.

If you went back in history to WW II, we had some "country of origin profiling". For those of German or Italian background, if you were an active supporter of Hitler or Mussolini, you could expect a visit by the police and maybe a trip to a camp of sorts. Just to take you out of circulation for the wars duration. But, you see, Germany and Italy were at least waging an acceptable style of European warfare. And, at the first, the horrendous Jewish solution conceived by the Nazi's, was not widely known. But, when the Japanese decided to spring their surprise attack that, combined with a lack of knowledge and trust of things from Asia, allowed the rounding up of Japanese (homegrown and imported) and their incarceration to ensure they could not do any sneaky stuff against us in our own country. We might not accept it now but, at the time, it was perfectly acceptable and with just cause in the minds of those living then.

Now, the problem between western Christianity and Middle Eastern Islam has been going on for awhile. We've had our wars (Crusades, etc) and they were fought over land as well as religious dogma. And, as in Christianity (Protestant vs Catholic), there are differences within the Islamic faith (Shiites vs Sunnis). And, these wars aren't necessarily over the conquering of land from other countries but wrestling control of internal politics

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