Gauging People by Appearance

I would like to thank Charles Krauthammer for the categories of people he recommends for exclusion from passenger security screening ["Give Grandma a Pass; Politically Correct Screening Won't Catch Jihadists," op-ed, July 29]. If his policy is adopted, my family will go through largely unnoticed.

My wife is a blue-eyed WASP. My kids are blue-eyed and blond, thanks to my blond Palestinian mother (the Crusaders wreaked havoc on the Holy Land for hundreds of years).

I, however, am a bit more problematic: I have been recognized as an Arab, but I also have been mistaken for an Argentine, a Guatemalan and an Israeli.

My recommendation? Start by frisking the disastrous American policy in the Middle East.

SHARIF S. ELMUSA

Washington

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Colbert I. King's column

["You Can't Fight Terrorism With Racism," op-ed, July 30] seemed to ignore the fact that most mass-casualty terrorist attacks -- whether in Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Britain or the United States -- are committed by Muslims of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin between the ages of 20 and 40. In a world of scarce resources, profiling is not racism but represents a sound allocation of resources based on the probability of the identity of our next terrorist attackers.

Let's depoliticize the tools that our security officials will use to prevent the next mass-casualty terrorist attack. Do we want security officials checking elderly white women while Middle Eastern-appearing gentlemen with backpacks walk by?

We need to stop hyperventilating about profiling.

ROBERT BREITBEIL

Washington