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You also seem to forget there is another potential factor - not only the visible one (ethnicity), but also one that isn't obvious to visual evaluation - religion. There is a significant black minority that inclines to Islam, some of them potentially radical. Do you want to suggest banning blacks from flying too?

Seen any black suicide bombers?

OK, let's just say it outright. In this case "Ethnicity" is just pure camaflauge for "People who don't agree with my right-wing American Century politics". Just to remind us of the basics: Afghans and Iranians are not Arabs. Sub-saharan Africa has tens of millions of fully black Muslims. Arabs are Semites.

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Black Muslim radicalism tends to express itself by mugging Jews and stealing television sets. Strapping dynamite to one's chest just does not seem to be a black thing.

Uh...what? If you're talking about the Nation of Islam (in the US), you almost NEVER find members in good standing "mugging Jews or stealing TV" sets here in New York, and any other location is going to be a statistical blip. Let's also remember that we don't have US-backed/paid-for tanks rolling through black neighborhoods every day. If we did I suspect Black Muslims might start fighting back. Let's just state the obvious: September 11th occurred not because we had a few "crazy Muslim fundamentalists" out there that decided they "hate our freedoms". The struck us because we've been fuckin' over a large swath of the Muslim (not only Arab) world for 100 years or so now. They're tired of us being there and muckin' around in their politics, and they want it to stop. The "fundamentalist" part is sort of a 'strengthener', let's say...here's people who know they're probably going to have to kill large numbers of civilians to get their point across, so how can they justify this? Well, a nicely-tuned Wahabism will do just nicely thank you. Seems fairly predictable, really. -TD _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar  get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/