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Open Letter from an Arab-American Student (Worthwhile reading)
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | June 2, 2003 | Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar

Posted on 06/02/2003 5:49:02 AM PDT by SJackson

A Syrian Muslim reminds spoiled academics what it's all about

On May 9th, a Saudi student at Arizona State University, Muhammad Al-Gurashi was arrested for direct connections to terror. He personally drove convicted terrorist supporter Faisal Al-Salmi on numerous occasions to President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch apparently on a pre-terror reconnaissance mission. This April, the home of Hassan Alrafea, president of the ASU Muslim students' association was raided by the FBI for suspected terror-links, confiscating their computers. But the left-wing political orthodoxy of our university prefers to stay silent on the matter.

In fact, we are not the only university in this country that has problems with its Saudi students covertly supporting terrorism. Sami Al Hussayen a former president of the Muslim Students Association in his college in Idaho was arrested by federal officials for his role in raising funds for Al-Qaeda's terror network. Academics rallied to his defense.

At the same when ASU radical Muslim student Ahmad Saad Nasim faked a "hate crime" on himself, on two separate occasions the university's president held a press conference the same day denouncing the alleged hate against Muslim Americans that that 9-11 had supposedly inspired. Yet, the ASU administration was silent about the Islamist hate that led to 9-11 attack itself.

When I, a proud American of Arab decent and Muslim faith, took a stand on behalf of the liberation of my oppressed Iraqi brethren, the ASU Muslim Students' Association personally attacked me for not being a real Muslim and announced to the ASU student body in editorials in the student paper that I Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar was a hater of Arabs and Muslims. There was no press conference by the president of this university or anyone else in his administration in behalf of this Muslim victim of Islamist hate.

We didn't land on terror, terror landed on us. But our professors tell us America is to blame, our universities sponsor "educational" programs designed to install in the American student a sense of shame for being American, and yet here we are on the cusp of a great struggle in human history between the forces of decency and democracy and tyranny and terror. Yet we are told America is to blame for terror.

We are told America's foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism, we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us. We are told that multiculturalism and diversity classes are the bridges to world peace and an end to terrorism as we know it. We are told this even though the Saudi terrorists who slaughtered our fellow Americans that September morning were able to manipulate our generally open environment of tolerance to achieve their evil designs. Despite all the all too evident signs of their malevolent intent, the murderers were given the benefit of the doubt by INS agents too wary to make judgments and leftist university officials who preferred to turn a blind eye to the danger emanating from their own campuses lest they lose their precious Saudi tuition dollars and donations or incur the wrath of the ACLU and other leftwing "civil liberties" organizations. We are told that despite evidence to the contrary most Saudi students are peaceful and accepting of our American culture.

Our radical professors tell us that the war on Iraq is racist, while the radicals on campus Show their contempt for this proud Arab people and its liberation. In our history classes We are told to despise our founding fathers and traditional American principles; in our political Science classes we are taught to to fear our president and our own armed forces. We are told to hate men in women's studies and to hate white people in African studies. In Chicano literature courses we are taught that Arizona is Mexico and in Gay and Lesbian studies that the Bible is hate-literature.

America is the principle adversary of Islamist terror and whether by choice or birth we all inhabit the same danger zone. But our professors never teach us the truth -- that the war on terror protects all Americans, white, brown, black, Asian, Arab, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, straight or gay from the despotic hatred of Islamist terrorism, which seeks our extermination. That's right, OUR extermination.

In sum, we are taught to hate everything except that which seeks our annihilation.

The frontlines of this war stretch across the entire globe and into our classrooms, our homes, our places of worship, into every aspect of our everyday lives. But don't tell this to our tenured terror appeasers who hide behind the intellectual credentials that have been bestowed on them by the anti-American university system.

They have never known the humiliation of living under the iron rule of an Islamic despotism. I have. They have never tasted the cruel bitterness of forced silence in the shadows of a dictatorship. I have. They have never seen the face of evil. I have. For I was born and raised in Syria, the country enslaved by Hafez El-Assad. I was one of the fortunate victims of this tyranny because my family was able to emigrate to American a land of freedom. Yet in the free universities of this country legitimacy is bestowed on the very forces that oppress my former countrymen and I am instructed to be compassionate towards my own oppressors and to be hostile to the country that has liberated me.

I have had to witness the post 9-11 "teach in" sponsored by our university president's "Campus Environment Team" entitled "Understanding the 'other,'" which sought to place moral equivalency between America and the terrorists who attacked us. I have had to listen to inanities about the attack like that of a member of the university-sponsored Diversity Awareness Programming Board who said, " we must remember that 9-11 was about diversity too." I have been subjected to the humiliating prospect of the university's anti-American, anti-war poetry reading, sponsored by our English Department last April. I have had to watch our unversity president, Michael Crow, provide a platform for the former Swedish Ambassador so he could spill his anti-American bile before a university audience. I have had to listen to the Administration's guest Mary Francis Berry denounce the most tolerant nation in the world as a racist oppressor. I have had to walk daily by the mural plastered on the Memorial Union and sponsored by the university's "progressive coalition" and funded by the university itself which features a map of the United States with "Racist Nation" and "Bush is Racist" and "What about the Arabs" written across it.

This August I will be heading to Israel to study counter terrorism under a program hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. I, a Muslim Arab was able to attend this program largely due to the gracious sponsorship of David Horowitz, a Jew. No multicultural sensitivity class made that possible. I will not stand idly by as our professors and our universities pave the road for terror's long march into humanity's last sanctuary of freedom.

What contribution will you make to the cause of liberty, to our nation's security?

I am a Muslim American Arab and I am willing to fight for my country. How about you?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
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1 posted on 06/02/2003 5:49:02 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
2 posted on 06/02/2003 5:49:49 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: phasma proeliator
PING.
3 posted on 06/02/2003 5:54:46 AM PDT by Xphantasos
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To: SJackson
When I, a proud American of Arab decent and Muslim faith, took a stand on behalf of the liberation of my oppressed Iraqi brethren, the ASU Muslim Students' Association personally attacked me for not being a real Muslim ...

That statement says a lot, doesn't it?

Oubai is quite a remarkable fellow.

If anyone has contact information for Oubai and will post it, so that I and others can reach him with a message of support, I would appreciate it.

4 posted on 06/02/2003 5:57:45 AM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: SJackson
Bump!
5 posted on 06/02/2003 6:03:04 AM PDT by The_Victor
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To: San Jacinto
His E Mail from the ASU directory appears to be:

Oubai.Shahbandar@asu.edu

Another article of his from a few months ago

Fighting Anti-American Hatred on Campus

6 posted on 06/02/2003 6:03:30 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson; Alamo-Girl; belmont_mark; rightwing2; ALOHA RONNIE; maui_hawaii; TLBSHOW; kattracks
Bump.
7 posted on 06/02/2003 6:18:44 AM PDT by Paul Ross (From the State Looking Forward to Global Warming! Let's Drown France!)
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To: SJackson
Thanks. I just emailed him with my letter of support. I hope a lot of other Freepers do the same.
8 posted on 06/02/2003 6:20:40 AM PDT by Buggman (Stephen King has forgotten the face of his Father)
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To: SJackson
THANKS!
9 posted on 06/02/2003 6:20:44 AM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: SJackson; MeeknMing
"America is the principle adversary of Islamist terror and whether by choice or birth we all inhabit the same danger zone. But our professors never teach us the truth -- that the war on terror protects all Americans, white, brown, black, Asian, Arab, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, straight or gay from the despotic hatred of Islamist terrorism, which seeks our extermination. That's right, OUR extermination."

"In sum, we are taught to hate everything except that which seeks our annihilation."

Amazing how the elitist Democrats, Hollyweed maggots, and RADICAL COLLEGE PROFESSORS (who are the norm, not the exception) dis this Muslim American.

This guy can stay at my house on a rainy night anytime he wants.

EXPOSING POLITICAL TRUTH (for a change) BUMP! ! !

10 posted on 06/02/2003 6:21:25 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (LIBERTY has arrived in Iraq - Now we can concentrate on HOLLYWEED!)
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To: SJackson
But our professors never teach us the truth

This comment, along with others in the piece, really make you wanna mortage the farm to send the kid to "college".

If I had it to do over again myself, I'd opt for 2 years of tech school.

11 posted on 06/02/2003 6:21:25 AM PDT by banjo joe
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To: SJackson
When I, a proud American of Arab decent and Muslim faith, took a stand on behalf of the liberation of my oppressed Iraqi brethren, the ASU Muslim Students' Association personally attacked me for not being a real Muslim and announced to the ASU student body in editorials in the student paper that I Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar was a hater of Arabs and Muslims.

Perhaps his opponents means that a real muslim must be of sunni faith and not have an Iranian name.
12 posted on 06/02/2003 6:22:04 AM PDT by AdmSmith
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To: SJackson
My, oh, my, this guy "gets it". What a beautiful indictment of academia.

Bump!
13 posted on 06/02/2003 6:24:50 AM PDT by FreedomPoster
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To: banjo joe
"This comment, along with others in the piece, really make you wanna mortage the farm to send the kid to "college".

Dunno how recently you attended college, but from what I've seen last year, white men can not only jump, but they are the root of all evil since Adam fertilized Eve (assuming Adam was white).

Gays, fringe groups, Islamic terror groups, socialists, communists, liberals are all welcome (and dominate) Modern American Higher Learning Institutions.

White, conservative, moral, ethical, straight, family-loving males need not apply.

14 posted on 06/02/2003 6:27:16 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (LIBERTY has arrived in Iraq - Now we can concentrate on HOLLYWEED!)
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To: FreedomPoster
One of the most accurate descriptions of academe that I have read in years.
15 posted on 06/02/2003 6:29:55 AM PDT by gaspar (`)
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To: SJackson
But don't tell this to our tenured terror appeasers

I liked this phrase.

16 posted on 06/02/2003 6:30:06 AM PDT by vbmoneyspender
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To: SJackson
Outstanding!!! May more - many, many more - Americans of Arab/Muslim ancestry find truth as Oubai has, and come forward to fight for - and claim!!! - their place among other Freedom loving Americans.

17 posted on 06/02/2003 6:30:33 AM PDT by CGVet58 (I still miss my ex-wife... but my aim is improving!)
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To: Paul Ross
thanks for the ping over

18 posted on 06/02/2003 6:32:38 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
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To: SJackson
Bump and bookmarked!


There really does need to be more for this sort of thing to counter the non-sense coming from CAIR.
19 posted on 06/02/2003 6:49:46 AM PDT by Valin (Age and deceit beat youth and skill)
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To: SJackson
This August I will be heading to Israel to study counter terrorism under a program hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. I, a Muslim Arab was able to attend this program largely due to the gracious sponsorship of David Horowitz, a Jew.

Thank you Mr. Horowitz.

20 posted on 06/02/2003 7:04:12 AM PDT by tictoc (On FreeRepublic, discussion is a contact sport.)
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