Historical purists tend to disagree but, truth be known, America is now involved in another world war in which we likely will be engaged for a long time. True, this war lacks the defined boundaries and battles one can find in World Wars I and II, but the United States at least since 9-11-01 has steadily been projected into a conflict that is worldwide in scope and goes beyond uniforms, front lines and D-Day-style confrontations.

Terrorists are attacking nations and peoples in many categories and there is not a country or region that can be considered secure from the onslaughts of what appear to be Islamic-inspired criminals who have no regard for the lives of innocents.

Countless efforts are being organized to heighten security of potential targets, but there is no foolproof way to prevent killers from rampaging if they have no regard whatever for personal safety. That means that societies, the United States included, must impose stricter measures to discover and weed out such people. That includes security checks for various forms of public transit, as well as high-population activities.

The end result, of course, will be inconvenience and harassment for many people who have no connection whatever with the war at hand. It also means some aspects of “free” life in places such as America will be, to some degree, compromised.

With all this in mind, civil and human rights groups are laboring hard to make it appear America has embarked on a vicious campaign of ethnic and racial profiling under the guise of homeland security. Although people need to be trained to minimize the indignities of the search process, some type of discretion is reasonable.

Nobody has put the need for acceptance of the “profiling” process in better perspective than Star Jones, a television personality who holds a law degree.

“If there is evidence that hippy black women may be involved in terror tactics, then heavier-set women of that race can expect to be profiled and subject to some special security checks. We are in a situation where we cannot leave anything to chance, despite hurt feelings,” said Jones, who fits her own category of black and heavier-set.

People with certain appearances are going to be given extra scrutiny in the best interests of the law-abiding society and when they have a Middle Eastern or Islamic “look” about them, they can expect that.

We are, indeed, in a war, different though it may be from the traditional type of national conflicts. Part of that war involves ferreting out people eager to do harm, getting them out of the mix. It is unfortunate, but there are bound to be hard and hurt feelings and mistakes.

But the process of “profiling” is with us, as it should be, and is likely to be with us for years. If it saves lives and prevents new tragedies and atrocities, it is more to be pitied than censured.