Posted on 09/19/2001 8:34:09 PM PDT by Antoninus
An insidious, monstrous criminal atrocity has been committed against our country. There's now little doubt that this barbaric act was committed by fanatical Muslims as part of a jihad against the 'Great Satan' America. In the aftermath, we are treated to platitudinous and largely unnecessary calls for Americans to exercise 'restraint' and not take out our anger against other Americans who happen to be of the same religious extraction as the maniacs who perpetrated this act. These calls for restraint could be made unnecessary if American Muslims would simply do the following...
Convene a very public, nationally televised 'town hall' meeting of Muslim clerics and high-ranking officials with in their communities around the country. Within this public forum, allow presenter after presenter to state unequivocably that they:
1. Decry the dastardly attack on the World Trade Centers in no uncertain terms.
2. Declare to be false and pernicious the notion that a murderous, suicidal death leads one's soul to heaven. State in no uncertain terms that this teaching is contrary to true Islam.
3. Renounce the use of terroist violence to achieve political ends, and call for ALL foreign governments to do the same.
4. State publicly that they support the right of the United States to wage war against those nations and groups which harbor and abet terrorism whether they be Muslim or otherwise.
5. Put forth a dire warning to the terrorist cells that may be in their midst that Muslim-Americans will not think twice about turning these perfidious scoundrels over to the US government.
6. Mention that any public celebration of these attacks by Muslim-Americans is a deplorable act which harms not only the Muslim community, but America as a whole.
What I don't want to hear in relation to this is one single word about:
1. How this would never have happened if the US didn't support Israel.
2. How our 'imperialist' oppression of Arab nations brought on this attack.
3. Any kind of justification for terrorist barbarism.
Individual statements along these lines have surfaced here and there, but until the Muslim community as a whole does this in a very public fashion, I will have to view them with some suspicion. The mere fact that we haven't seen more of these kinds of statements indicates to me (and I hope I'm wrong on this) that there is decent amount of clandestine approval of the attack within the Muslim-American community...
I think people are sick and tired of their flag burning on campus and their hate speeches against the US. If they intend to stay in the US ---since they were not born here, YES they should take loyalty oaths.
Would signed loyalty oaths and a blood sample be sufficient, Mr. McCarthy?
After the 7 or 8 speakers had finished their spiels, there was a Q&A session with the media. After a few questions, it became apparent that the media wasn't too impressed with the various condemnations of this attack put forth by the speakers. A question came up regarding a comparison of the beliefs of extremist Muslims vs. non-extremist, which caused one of the speakers to grab the microphone and forcefully condemn the actions of the terrorists minus any "buts...". Clearly, that one speaker realized that they hadn't done a very good job of distancing themselves from this attack, but I'm not sure the rest of the Muslims had a clue.
This tragedy has brought a number of Jew-haters out into the open.
Pollard is a traitorous criminal who first tried to sell our secrets to the highest bidder. He is a criminal who should never see the light of day except from behind bars. I don't hate Jews, but I sure as hell hate traitors. As for Mossad operating freely in our country, that is absolute madness. They are not US citizens and they have no allegiance to our constitution. Maybe this was a parody post and I just missed something.
"Muslim Americans make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country," Bush said. "They need to be treated with respect."
Touring a Washington mosque, Bush said, "the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam."
He also quoted the Muslim holy book, the Quran: "In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil."
The president's comments underscored a Muslim group's reports Monday of scores of attacks against American Muslims, South Asians and Arabs since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last week.
At a press conference, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it had received reports of harassment of Muslim women and obscenities shouted on the street; bombings, car rammings and arson attempts at mosques; and beatings, death threats and possibly even killings.
"We cannot count the amount of calls that we are getting of the general atmosphere of hatred," said CAIR's Joshua Salaam.
"Many people are calling in, giving us the incidents of them driving down the street and people trying to run them off the road, people shouting at them, obscenities, foul language," Salaam said. "We're getting calls of people getting fired from their jobs without any reason. And this is what we're concerned about is now we're going to have a future of discrimination that is more subtle."
FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday that "vigilante attacks and threats against Arab-Americans will not be tolerated."
The FBI and Justice Department, he said, are committed to investigating and prosecuting violations of federal hate crime laws.
'We are Americans, too'
The agency has launched 40 hate-crime investigations against individuals and institutions after reported attacks against Arab-American citizens and institutions, Mueller said. The FBI is reaching out to leaders of the Arab-American community in each FBI field office across the country, he said.
CAIR, at its press conference, passed along this message: "We denounce the terrorist attacks. They don't reflect the behavior and thoughts of the majority of Muslims. And ... we are Americans, too."
Nahid Awad, the group's executive director, said, "There is no place in Islam for acts of terrorism and violence against innocent people."
Awad called Muslim firefighters in New York, Muslim volunteers donating blood and performing relief work, and the Muslim doctors treating victims "the true face of the community."
Awad said the majority of Muslim scholars throughout the world condemn the attack.
"We cannot allow the acts of the few to determine and take over the debate of important issues. Unfortunately, the tragic and harsh reality that's coming out of this horrible tragedy is that many Americans do not know about the beautiful religion of Islam," he said.
Two killings investigated
Police in Dallas, Texas, are investigating whether the killing of a Pakistani grocer was racially motivated.
In Mesa, Arizona, an Indian immigrant who practiced the Sikh faith and had a beard and wore a turban was gunned down Saturday at the gas station he ran.
Members of CAIR say Sikhs are bearing the brunt of hostility because of their appearance, which is not unlike that of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.
"We had another report of a Sikh man being pulled off a train, I think between here and New York, just because of his looks," said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR national communications director.
"And we saw the other case where a Copt, an Egyptian Copt, a Christian, was probably killed because he looked like he could be a Muslim. So bigots are never brain surgeons. I mean, when they do these things it's based on ignorance. So their targets always aren't the right targets in their own minds."
Awad said: "We should not be judged on our looks, our last names, the way we dress, the way we talk."
Many Americans have rallied to Muslims' support. Awad said there have been statements of support and sympathy for the community from Christians and Jews.
Muslim-Americans must start a long-term project to educate Americans about Islam, one CAIR representative said at the press conference.
"We all came on different ships," Awad said during the news conference. "But we are all in the same boat."
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Happy now, Antonius? Is this enough to end your witch hunt?
"We are here today in solidarity with people of other groups and other faiths in order to say that the bias attacks must stop," said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council.
The groups held a news conference in Union Square Park, where one of the largest memorials has sprung up to victims of the attacks. Candlelight vigils there have drawn hundreds in the past week.
"As in the turmoil of the Gulf War, we feel an upsurge of anti-Arab racism," said Lorne Lieb of Jews Against the Occupation.
The FBI said this week it has initiated 40 hate crime investigations into alleged murders, assaults and arsons </font size>directed at Americans who are Muslim, South Asian and Arab -- crimes which have climbed since the attacks. Osama bin Laden, a radical Islamic Saudi exile who has declared a jihad, or holy war, against the United States and its citizens, is the prime suspect in those attacks.
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"Few and far between."
"Nothing more than verbal confrontations."
What are your sources of 40 murders? I only read of one murder of a non-Muslim, I did not read that one single Muslim has been murdered. As far as threats to mosques, apparently every Jewish synagogue is hiring security guards for their holy days (I don't think it's because of Christians or atheists possibly killing them). Doesn't that trouble you in the least? Or for some reason is it only threats to Arabs that bothers you?
Try again.
And do those other threats concern me? Absolutely.
But this thread's author claims American Muslims need to denounce this attack (they have) and
that the attacks against American Muslims have only been a few instances of verbal harassment (they have not.)
Start a thread on the threats to synagogues and I will denounce those attacks, too.
... was more right than wrong ... ... you are wrong.
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