Sorry, this irritates me so much I hardly know where to begin. Unfortunately, I'm not retired so I don't have time to make this as coherent as I'd like.

Well, apart from what you already pointed out about the lack of elderly non-Muslim grandmothers in terrorist attacks, how about the multiple instances in history in which racially-profiled groups have faced discrimination that came essentially to naught? Asian-Americans during WWII (even if they weren't Japanese). German-Americans, like my great-grandfather, during WWI and WWII? And yet there were few instances of treason. The fact that just because someone is a follower of a given religion or has a given ethnic background doesn't mean the identify with any other country more than the U.S. (I have a German surname and some German ancestry but I'm not German. I don't speak German and I don't identify myself as a German national. I'm American. Third generation plus. My religion originated in England but I am not British.) Some of us were dumb enough to come here thinking it would allow us to preserve our freedom of religion because we disagreed with the stances of our native countries. I wish George W. knew that.

Appearances can be deceiving, so what exactly does 'racial profiling' involve, and how can it be applied effectively? I had a Jordanian-American coworker who looked more "white" than I do, and I look pretty damned white. My best friend is African/Mexican/white but could be taken for Middle Eastern. Another friend is Mexican/German but also could be taken for Middle Eastern. Racially profiling any of them would be a waste of time, and there are a whole lot of people in the world who are equally ambiguous in appearance.

I attend church with a naturalized American of Palestinian origin. She has an Arabic name and speaks Arabic but has never been Muslim, and neither were her parents or grandparents. They were all Christian pacifists. Nevertheless, she's been hassled because of her "ethnic" appearance (which is a stupid term--everybody looks like SOME ethnicity), name, and accent. Because of course a terrorist wouldn't tell you that he or she was a terrorist, right?

On the other hand, almost all of our friends with Arabic-sounding names have gotten recruiting letters seeking their help as translators. If the government thinks they're a bunch of terrorists, why are they sending them chain letters?