Posted on 09/25/2004 8:46:16 AM PDT by yoe
"I've been trying to say this since 9-11 but you worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country.
But you don't blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me. I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand their grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers.
The Palestinians Celebrated, The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help.
As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Musli terrorist.
How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim-Americans and the Arab/Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter same goo neighbors and children?
The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"?
Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy...I am only interested in action. What will you do for America - our great country at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action.
Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.
If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up.
What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance?
It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion.
A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire Middle East?
And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us?
If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE!
> We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion. We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us:
Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world.
I want to know where every Arab/ Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family.
I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand." "Until then ... you worry me" ""
So, then you're saying there are thousands of brave muslim americans dying, fighting FOR america?
If I remember the numbers correctly, there are less than 4,000 muslim soldiers in all of the U.S. Military at present..
And at least one of them rolled a grenade into his commander's tent..
Another "disappeared" and was supposedly "kidnapped", and then ended up in.. Lebanon??
Weren't there some at Gitmo? Wasn't one of them (or was it 2 ? ) caught taking classified material out of the prison facilities there? Didn't one of them take classified docs to Syria/Lebanon on a CD?
It seems that even those who are "willing" to serve america and "defend" it's freedom have some serious issues as to where their loyalties lie..
Their enlisting seems to be more for an opportunity to act as a double agent than a defender of freedom and democracy..
I may be wrong, but I don't quite see the parrallel between Muslim-americans and German/Italian/Japanese-Americans..
Like you said, they proved their loyalties by fighting and dying for this country...
His headline was written poorly, I agree, but throughout the article the author clearly is referring to Arab-muslims, not Arabs in general. I would hope nobody on these forums would discriminate based on the birthplace of ones ancestors.
The question is not if, but to whom.
Still is. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/112/22.0.html
Probally the reason Lebanon is mostly muslum today, the Marinoities immrigrated here.
Not to generalize myself right under a pile-on, but back in the early 20th century, America was a melting pot and everyone understood that. People came here to become Americans. Nowadays there's something unsavory about that. Ethnic pride (ie, transcendent tribalism) demands that an individual resist assimilation. For many immigrants today, America is a network of troughs---and sewers.
"Until fairly recently tha majority of Arab Americans were Christians. These included Lebanese and Syrian Maronite Catholics , Iraqi Chaldeans, and Egyptian Copts. Immigration has changed this"
Excellent point. So why do we still have these politically correct immigration policies on the books?
No.
1. It is the liberals and Democrats who want to judge people based on the groups they belong to rather than the individual content of their characters. If you agree with the sentiments of this post, then you should go join them. They love to hate (or love) people based on their belonging to a group. Conservatives are supposed to respect competence, character and the rights of each individual. Whether someone belongs to a group should not matter.
2. I am not a Muslim, but, being of Arabic descent in America, I have known a few. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of Muslims in this country support the war on terror and want nothing to do with radical Islam. They are helping our government covertly, turning in strangers who show up at their mosques and otherwise lending a hand where they can. The fact that there have been no terrorists attacks in the US since 9/11 is somewhat of a tribute to American Muslims being willing to do some housecleaning. The reason they are not more public with their condemnation is that THEY ARE AFRAID. It's not because they hate you or are rooting for the terrorists. We may wish they were more public with their outrage, but we are not faced with the cultural pressures they are, and so maybe we ought to cut them a little slack.
There have been many condemnations of terrorism in the Muslim American community, but they usually fall on deaf ears. Bigots often get hard of hearing. Maybe their blinders end up covering their ears as well as their eyes.
Exactly my thoughts.
Many of us here have had immediate family and ancestors who made the sacrifices that these newly arrived Muslims/Arabs are benefitting from.
Are we being played for suckers ?
The question should have read "Muslim Americans" vice "Arab Americans." I believe that one in a thousand Muslim Americans, regardless of their ethnic background are loyal to a particular country. Their loyalty lies with Islam.
That statement was totally wrong. To lump all Arab-Americans in with terrorists or even Muslims is ignorant. I dont think a majority on FR think that way. But I have to admit that I mostly agree with the article about mistrust of American-Muslims. Its hard not to. Theres just to much misunderstatnding on both sides. And to feign trust, just to be nice and PC doesnt fly with alot of Americans. Unfortunatly some people have a hard time keeping that mistrust from spilling over on to others that dont deserve it.
Even if he is, he is still overreaching. How many American Muslims were on the planes that attacked the WTC? How many domestic terrorist events have Arabic American Muslims been responsible for? None that I know of. And yet, this author wants to paint them with the same brush as Osama Bin Laden.
Our allies in Iraq are MUSLIMS. Our allies in Pakistan are MUSLIMS. The blood they are shedding in this struggle is just as red as ours. It is folly to think we can exterminate the whole religion and make ourselves safe. That's the way our enemies think. We stand for civilization, and so we hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. The kind of rhetoric in this peace only alienates our friends and emboldens our enemies.
Some aren't, most are.
Don't bet on it. My experience during the first Gulf war...based on direct contact within arab Christian parishes...indicated that a significant percentage of arab Christians in this country opposed our intervention against the "ghoulish" Saddam to save Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Their ethnicity seemed to trump their Christianity.
Unless, of course, one is an Arab American. Then it's OK to take their rights.
Absolutely! I mean it's not like they're people or anything, I mean the dress funny, eat funny foods and sound different.
First they came for the Jews. But I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists. But I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists. But I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
And then they came for me. But there was no one left to speak out for me.
- Pastor Martin Niemoeller,
I believe that one in a thousand Muslim Americans, regardless of their ethnic background are loyal to a particular country.
Proof please.
Today's arab-and-muslim bashers remind me of my maternal grandmother, a real Archie Bunker type who nontheless worshiped Danny Thomas (real name: Muzyad Ahoob). They probably think Spencer Abraham is either Jewish or Scots-Amish and that "Sunnunu" is a Swedish name.
There is alot of ignorance concerning American-Muslims, but what can we expect? Do Arab Muslims that come to this country really understand American culture? The problem is that we just just dont 'get' each-other. Muslims tend to be very private. That is their right, but it breeds mistrust.
You say there have been many condemnations? I have heard a few, and God bless them for being brave enough to speak out. And maybe the word isnt getting out. But also, we have heard alot of equivicating and parsed words from the Muslim community. My ears are not deaf to such things. I love to hear the truth, good or bad.
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