More on the Most Recent Flying While Muslim Incident

As I wrote yesterday, a group of six Muslim clerics were kicked off an airplane after they did their evening prayers in the terminal and were overheard by a nervous passenger talking angrily about the United States’ Iraq policy.

Apparently, there was also some other suspicious behavior on the part of the men that was not previously reported. According to USA Today, three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked luggage. They also asked the flight attendant for seat belt extensions, even though they clearly didn’t need them.

Obviously, there are a lot of opinions on racial profiling at airports. I’m not going to get into it because it’s a complex issue, and I’m pretty ambivalent about where I stand on it at this juncture.

But one thing is pretty clear, if these guys had been terrorists. They wouldn’t have been making any overt displays of their faith. They wouldn’t have been clustered together at the gate or openly discussing their anger at US policy in Iraq. They would have been doing their best to blend in. They probably wouldn’t have been talking to one another at all.

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