False information. Not true. The last guy — I mean, we don’t have to go far. The last guy that tried to take down a plane was a young African. And in the past, prior to that incident, we were looking for Middle eastern-looking men. Next time it could be an Asian guy.

You can go to war against a people or an entity and that is where Al-Qaeda comes in. So President Obama was correct in stating that we are at war with Al Qaeda, and I would add other imitation groups like Al Qaeda.

“I’m concerned about national security here, not civil liberties per se, and that’s why I oppose racial profiling. Because from a national security prospective it will not work neither logically nor scientifically.

This guy seemed to have left every clue short of raise his hand and proclaim, “arrest me, I am a terrorist!”

2010-01-07-umar_farouk.jpg Can someone explain to me how he managed to purchase a one way ticket, pay for it in cash, board the plane with no luggage, have his own father report him as a radicalized threat to a CIA base in Nigeria, be denied a visa to the UK where he previously lived and worked, and on top of that be on an active US terror watch list for two years, yet still not be flagged by the system as a security threat?

And can someone explain to me how after those six glaring red flags were missed - not to mention the explosive material in his underwear - the debate today is not about why and how they were missed, but about whether he could have been flagged for being of a certain skin color, hair texture, place of birth, faith, or namesake?

The racial profiling argument is lazy and unimaginative; most of all it is irresponsible because it evades the real problem starring us in the face: a fatal breakdown in communication between our intelligence units. Ironically, this is a problem so troubling that an entire new department, the National Homeland Security Department, was created with the sole mission to address it.

The core of the problem is that Muslims are seen as a Monolith by the media and so when one Muslim commits and act of terror or error, all Muslims are brought to bear for that Act.

CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab talks to Shari Elliker about the failures of racial profiling and the outspokenness of American Muslims in condemning acts of terror.

All terrorists that we have come to know of, who have performed or attempted acts of terrorism on a plane, have actually not been engaged in outward Islamic behavior.

“There are so many indicators in every instance of a potential bombing or an actual terror act that we always have knowledge of. The question is do we act upon it? Are we competent enough to be aware of that or not? In the case of the 19 hijackers of 9/11, we had files on every one of the 19. Condoleezza Rica had those files. Those files were not properly scrutinized. Its not for a lack of intelligence its for a lack of acting on that intelligence in a timely manner.”

“To me, the lesson learned from the potential Christmas Day bombing is that we missed clear red flags and we can’t ignore that and start talking about new measures while the existing measures could have work had we actually implemented them,” says Ahmed Rehab.

“The problem is if you try to hone in on those who look Muslim and I don’t even know what that means in the first place but lets assume were somehow able to figure that out — you are really honing in on 1.4 billion people around the world,” says Ahmed.

According to the police, Professor Gates greeted the cops with a “belligerent” attitude, refusing to show them identification when asked, and refusing to step outside when asked. He was angry, rude and offensive. He eventually showed them his Harvard ID and eventually stepped outside where he was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken to the Cambridge police station. Professor Gates contends that while he was testy, he did show them two pieces of ID when asked: his Harvard ID and his driver’s license. He claims that the cops had it in for him, that he was a victim of racial profiling.