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Posted on 12/02/2006 12:10:44 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters)- When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.
The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."
Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."
At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.
"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL (http://www.wmal.com/), which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland
"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting.
"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."
The show aired on November 26, the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday, and Klein said in an interview afterwards he had been surprised by the response.
"The switchboard went from empty to totally jammed within minutes," said Klein. "There were plenty of callers angry with me, but there were plenty who agreed."
POLLS SHOW WIDESPREAD ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT
Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
A poll carried out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group, found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as "war," "hatred" and "terrorist." The war in Iraq has contributed to such perceptions.
Klein's show followed a week of heated discussions on talk radio, including his own, and online forums over an incident on November 22 involving six Muslim clerics. They were handcuffed and taken off a US Airways flight after passengers reported "suspicious behavior" that included praying in the departure gate area.
The clerics, on their way to a meeting of the North American Imams Federation, were detained in a holding cell, questioned by police and FBI agents, and released. Muslim community leaders saw the incident as yet more evidence of anti-Muslim prejudice.
IGNORANCE SEEN AS KEY PROBLEM
Several American Muslims interviewed on the subject of prejudice over the past few weeks said ignorance was at the core of the problem.
"The level of knowledge is very, very low," said Mohamed Esa, a U.S. Muslim of Arab descent who teaches a course on Islam at McDaniel College in Maryland. "There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and some people think they are all terrorists."
Hossam Ahmed, a retired Air Force Reserve colonel who occasionally leads prayer meetings for the small Muslim congregation at the Pentagon, agreed. "Ignorance is the number one problem. Education is of the essence."
There are no hard figures on how many Muslims have been subject to harassment or prejudice and community leaders say that ugly incidents can prompt spontaneous expressions of support. Such as the e-mail a Minneapolis woman sent to CAIR after the imams were taken off their flight.
"I would like to ... help," the e-mail said. "While I cannot offer plane tickets, I would be happy to drive at least 2 or 3 of them. My car is small, but at least some of our hearts in this land of the free are large."
And optimists saw signs of change in the November 4 election of the first Muslim to the U.S. House of Representatives, which has 435 members.
Democrat Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old African-American lawyer, did not stress his religion during his campaign for a Minnesota seat, but said his victory would "signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."
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Here you are, 60 years after the fact, judging the consequences of war, a war in which a lot of American mother's son were killed. And every mother of a soldier stayed at home waiting for that telegram.
You had better believe that any little action that could increase the chance of her beloved boy returning home would be done and she'd be behind it 100%
Who knew which of the resident Japanese wouldn't pass information or coordinate a population attack? It's real easy for you, in hindsight, to know there were no attacks on this country, but the people then certainly didn't know.
Your ignorance of threat conditions in the past makes you incompetent to hold an opinion of another probable threat today. 
"You forgot this: < / sarcasm > LOL"
Didn't think that'd be necessary, given the conclusion of my statement. ;)
"We, a nation of 300 million people, are not going to wipe out 1 billion Muslims."
I would hope that's not necessary. In the end, we no more have to kill every Muslim than we had to kill every Nazi party member or follower of the cult of the emperor in Japan to destroy those respective ideologies. Many Muslims don't even know what their book says. Some, when they find out, convert to Christianity.
"Do you think that would actually help win the war? No, it wouldn't."
Of course you wouldn't think that. It's not NICE. Of course, no one ever won a war being NICE in the history of mankind.
"It would drive the vast majority of the 1 billion Muslims into our enemy's camp."
They're just as much in the "enemy's camp" as the German civilians were.
"As long as they aren't doing something criminal, they have the same rights as any other American."
Kerry, again.
For starters, let's accurately use the language. Japanese weren't interred, they were deported. Americans of Japanese descent were interred. It stings a helluva lot worse when you drop the facade that we interred foreigners (we did not) and state unequivocally that we locked up American citizens for being born of the wrong ethnicity.
Here you are, 60 years after the fact, judging the consequences of war, a war in which a lot of American mother's son were killed. And every mother of a soldier stayed at home waiting for that telegram.
Your point is? Or rather what does this have to do with suspending the constitutional rights of Americans for having the wrong skin tone? For the record, my father, now departed was off fighting that war. It was he, a decorated veteran and purple heart recipient on Omaha who first taught me that what did to Americans of Japanese descent was criminal. So don't hide behind the flag, it won't wash with me, I know better.
Your ignorance of threat conditions in the past makes you incompetent to hold an opinion of another probable threat today.
Oh please, your rubbish only sounds competent to you because you simply don't know any better. Genuinely moral ideas are just beyond your ability to grasp so they only seem incompetent to you.
Quibble. To Americans a Japanese was a Japanese, and they were killing their sons. You're 60 years from the event.
Your point is?
There were women who breathed a sigh of relief when Japanese were interred. You could have polled the women who has sons in the Pacific theater and I doubt you would have collected more than a dozen who were against the interment.
Don't blame it on your father. The American President had war powers, and they were used. You had better believe that he would have been skinned alive, along with the Japanese individual that was left rooming the country.
Your father was in the vast minority. It was decades after the war that liberal groups started this bleeding heart whining about the interment of Japanese peoples. It didn't start sooner because Americans still remembered the commonsense of the act, like the bilge about dropping a nuke on Japan.
It's awful handy to be safe to criticize six decades ofter the event, yes?
I'm all for sharia islamic gov't, only if it is contained in NYC, LA & SF. (Sorry, sarcism only) Might add Boston to the list, and throw in Austin, since I live in Texas. That would at least eliminate the females from voting.
Lol, surrender? Hardly. I'll continue on voting my conscience at the polls and supporting those ideas which seem anethma to you with my monetary contributions. So, no pal, there is no surrender. I am however ceasing to toss peals before swine in this discussion.
Re your taxicab drivers -- you must work in DC. Taking a cab to/from Dulles Airport is such a joy (sarcasm) -- you can feel the hatred. If their dirty looks could kill, most of their customers would be dead.
Post No. 47 answers your question very well.
Gee and they haven't done a helluva lot to correct that impression have they?
Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."
And the definition of "improvement" is ??????
...is their absence.
Nonetheless, it is another example of media resources being produced out there that are starting to encroach on the hegemony of the MSM and the America hating Left's territory.
Which is good news. 
Klein is a jerk. He is still fighting the Nazis and now he is alienating his audience.
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