Here is how the General explained how we need to “be very serious and harsh about the profiling:” “If you are an 18 to 28-year-old Muslim man then you should be strip searched. And if we don’t do that, there’s a very high probability we’re going to lose an airliner.”
I think that the General has the right thought but the wrong conclusion. What does every airline bomber have in common? Clothes. No clothes means by definition no shoe bombs, no underwear bombs, no explosive vests. People could appear naked at security points and be given those paper gowns used by hospitals.
Of course, Osama Bin Laden could still fly without stripping as would Richard Reid. It would delay things for such athletes as Ramzee Robinson (Cleveland Browns), Abdul Raheeda Hodge (Cincinnati Bengals), Usama Young (Saints), Husain Ibn Muhammed Abdullah (Minnesota Vikings), Kareem Brown (Jets), and others. Congressman Keith Maurice Ellison and Elias A. Zerhouni (Director of the NIH) made it over the line and can keep their clothes on.