What Next? Body Cavity Searches at Airports?

Look: I’m no military strategist or historian. I have spent no time in any standing army or paramilitary organization. But, as a citizen civilian I have some questions.

First, what next?

Are we all going to be subjected to underwear checks before boarding our flights? If so, Al-Qaeda will soon secrete explosives in body cavities. Will we all be searched there as well? Will the time it takes to travel coast to coast or continent to continent soon approximate medieval travel times?

Is there another, easier way to deal with global terrorism in airports, on trains, and on ships? Might that way involve “profiling?” If so, is it still more important in terms of western values and law that we continue to seriously inconvenience or endanger the majority in order not to collectively punish the presumably innocent-until-proven-guilty minority?

What minority? Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion in the world and currently comprises 1.2-1.3 billion people. I guess I’m talking about the Muslim minority in the West most of whom are not actively involved with terrorism or with known terrorist groups. Or are they? Does anybody really know?

C’mon: The minute I heard that someone had attempted to blow up a plane over Michigan on Christmas Day I did not think: “Oh, the Buddhists (or the neo-Nazi right-wingers) are at it again. We all knew that it was, without doubt, a Muslim terrorist.

So, here are some questions.

Why are we still allowing Muslims from non-western foreign countries to fly into Western countries? Please note: I am not talking about “race” but about a highly politicized “faith.” And, what shall we do about the West’s own homegrown Islamist terrorists? Ground them all? Why not?

Why are we trying Muslim Islamist terrorists who have been captured in battle against us as if they were American citizens, fully entitled to the protection of the American constitution? Why do we want the American taxpayer to fund the care and feeding, not to mention the expensive legal talent for all the obviously guilty Gitmo graduates?

Why does Israel imprison rather than execute Muslim Islamist terrorists who have serious blood on their hands? These men and women live more grandly in an Israeli prison than they do among their own—and then they are ultimately freed at the ratio of 1000:1 when an Israeli (like Gilad Shalit) has been captured and held for ransom. A hundred or a thousand terrorists are swapped for one Israeli soldier or civilian. Why does Israel give such terrorists this kind of incentive?

Why doesn’t the Church rescue or stand up for the Christians who are being persecuted by Muslims (who are not necessarily terrorists) all over the Islamic world? What kind of fear, apathy, defeatist diplomacy is going on here?

But how can the West economically and ideologically afford to take on an Islamist cult of death that is trans-national, which operates from caves and in shadow—and in the hearts and minds of one lone individual after another? It is important to note that many jihadic martyrs come from educated and wealthy families; they are not all the sexually repressed sons of poverty.

How can the West not afford to do so?

Why are the mullahs who rule Amadinejad still alive?

P.S. “Carl in Jerurusalem” just wrote to tell me that earlier this morning he suggested doing body cavity searches on male Muslims between the ages of 18-50. He describes the kind of security that Israel has and recommends it to all. In his view, based on who has actually hijacked planes, this is the likely target group. He ends his blog by writing: “Discriminate or die.”