[ExI] Terrorist? Who can tell?

[BillK]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 3:15 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Below, BillK exhibits an MI5 report on terrorist "types".
>
> Not a single word---not one!---is mentioned concerning
> *the* most salient characteristic of the so-called terrorists
> who have been convicted of crimes related to mass public
> bombings and other terrorist activity in the UK.
>
> Not a single word about this salient characteristic that
> any six-year-old would instantly be able to identify and
> would instantly attempt to articulate (provided that
> someone has not already gotten to him or her and
> has already inflicted today's common Orwellian removal
> of certain phrases and words from his or her vocabulary).
>


I presume you don't mean nervous, sweaty people wearing a large
rucksack with wires hanging out ?  :)


Unfortunately, I did not quote the full article. I only quoted
highlighted points that I thought might be of interest. You need to
read the full article I linked to, to get more information.

What MI5 were looking for was a list of criteria, a,b,c,d,e, that
would enable their computers to extract a list of suspects that they
could investigate as likely to be involved in terrorism. They were
unable to do this.

Quote:
British-based terrorists are as ethnically diverse as the UK Muslim
population, with individuals from Pakistani, Middle Eastern and
Caucasian backgrounds. MI5 says assumptions cannot be made about
suspects based on skin colour, ethnic heritage or nationality.
-----------------

It might be that the terrorists were Muslim to some degree, with a
dark skin, but that is not enough to select them out as terrorists.
In some areas of London and some cities, that is over half the
population.

There is an enormous difference between
1) characteristics that terrorists have, and
2) characteristics that ONLY terrorists have.


BillK