[irrascaft]

Yep. Profiling people who look Arab would have stopped the Christmas "bomber."

It's not as simple as that. Profiling includes more than how a person looks.

Nation of origin, nation of birth, stamps on passport, stated purpose of trip, whether or not they are on a watchlist based on their father telling authorities that his son is dangerous, etc.

More than that it's psychological profiling. Observing physical mannerisms and watching the way people respond to questions as much as what their answers are.

I was detained one time for extra questioning simply because I had a Jordanian stamp on my passport from a self-guided weekend trip. If I had not offered a reasonable explanation for it or acted all nervous I fully expect that they would have done further questioning/checking. And If I was from Saudi Arabia or Yemen instead of the United states, they probably would have had a few more questions for me.

It's not base racial discrimination, it's being rationally discriminatory towards a collection of suspicious flags (based on previous incidents) of which gender and race are a part.