Are SUVs the root of all evil? A new ad campaign debuting Sunday hopes to convince Americans that they are. The ads attempt to link gas-guzzling SUVs and the people who buy them to terrorist activities.

While this argument may have some remote validity, the way The Detroit Project, a nonprofit group headed by columnist Arianna Huffington, has gone about it is wrong. The ads should be pulled from the airwaves.

The ads are based on one fact related to SUVs: They are not fuel-efficient. While this is true, the parallel the group is drawing is that terrorists, who are assumed to be any Middle Easterner, supply the United States with oil. This oil, which is eventually refined into gasoline, costs money. Americans pay the money that gets back to the suppliers, who are presumed to be terrorists.

In an era when Americans are more likely than ever to believe any propaganda relating to terrorism, these ads are the latest attempt to pander to the nation’s frightened mentality.

Huffington, a syndicated columnist, and founder of The Detroit Project, stated Wednesday that the idea of the ads isn’t to demonize SUV owners. Well, be that as it may, that is what the ads will accomplish.

How long will it take for Americans to start throwing eggs at SUVs? Or dousing them with red paint, like some of PETA’s more fanatical members do to fur coats?

Post-Sept. 11 has become a descriptor to illustrate a lot of things. The suggestions made by the mention of that date in history are varied and many.

One of those connotations were the crimes committed against those Americans who happened to be Arab or Middle Eastern. With the release of these ads, another post-Sept. 11 backlash may be vandalized SUVs and Americans afraid to drive their cars.

This is not part of the freedom the War on Terrorism is supposed to be defending.

In fact, it has no place in a democracy.