New travel rules questioned

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New security screening procedures ordered by President Obama focus on passengers travelling from high-risk countries. Many countries on the US list are predominantly Muslim. University of Michigan professor Juan Cole tells anchor Marco Werman why he doesn’t think that’s such a good idea.

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MARCO WERMAN: Airline passengers bound for the U.S. could be facing more new security measures soon.  President Obama said so yesterday. Travelers have already been experiencing new procedures ordered by Mr. Obama since the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day. The new rules mean enhanced screening for passengers traveling from nations that the U.S. considers to be high risk. One of those nations is Nigeria, where the would-be Christmas bomber came from.  Most of the other countries on the list are predominantly Muslim.  Juan Cole is with the History Department at the University of Michigan.  He’s not convinced that publicly targeting travelers from those countries is a good move.

JUAN COLE: I think this is a blow to U.S. relations with the Arabs and Muslim worlds and, you know, you could argue that well it’s a blow but it needs to be done for security reasons. But then, it seems to me such an arbitrary step that I can’t imagine that it improves security.  First of all, they announce the list.  Do you think that if Al-Qaeda wanted to get up another airline attack, they won’t have the list in front of them. So the next guy they choose is going to be, God forbid, a Tunisian or Moroccan or somebody that’s not on the list.  So it’s poor counter-terrorism and it is a form of profiling.  Frankly, it’s racist.

WERMAN: How do you deal with the reality, though, that air travelers from some countries may pose greater risks without alienating those populations from those countries?  Is it possible?

COLE: Well, it’s not a proven premise.  Al-Qaeda is not an ethnic group. It is a radical ideology that is attractive to all kinds of people. So it’s not that kind of organization where it’s useful to profile it by ethnicity. And it’s terrible counter-terrorism because if you put your efforts into profiling by ethnicity, then you’re going to miss the warning signs. You know, good counter-terrorism is always like police work, detective work. You look for how people are behaving. This recent bombing attempted over Detroit Christmas Day is a textbook case. The guy bought his ticket with cash. It was a one-way ticket with no return. He didn’t have any luggage. He was a young single male. I mean, if he had been Belgian and done that, he should have been pulled aside. So those are the kinds of things you want to look for, not country of origin. So I think it’s a huge step backwards and it just makes traveling to the United States from those countries a hassle.

WERMAN: I mean, you call it a hassle, but it could also be very humiliating for the countries involved.

COLE: It is humiliating and people get their backs up, but it is also just a hassle. When you get pulled out for an interview, it can sometimes be an hour and it’s always the same interview. You know, “What do your parents do? Where were you born, etc.” And I know people who already have been subjected to a certain amount of this who just found it so excruciating that they simply started declining to come to the United States. One of the countries on the list is Saudi Arabia. There are large numbers of peoples in Saudi Arabia with a lot of capital who like to invest in the U.S., and who simply won’t because they won’t subject themselves to this procedure every time they come in.

WERMAN: Do you think that’s a consideration for the White House that they might be losing capital from places like Saudi Arabia when they enact measures like this?

COLE: I think it should be a consideration, and not only do they lose financial capital, but they also lose cultural capital and soft power.  In most Middle Eastern countries there are technocrats and politicians who were educated in the United States. And since they know the country well, they have ties to it, it benefits us in our foreign policy that they become minister of justice or whatever in Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon. And people will be a little more reluctant to come to the United States for studies if every time they go back and forth they’re going to be hassled. And that’s a loss, and if they go to China or Russia instead down the road, you know, it is a weakening of American soft power.

WERMAN: Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His most recent book is “Engaging the Muslim World.”  Thanks very much for your time.

COLE: You’re very welcome.

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