Posted on 11/04/2001 10:18:19 PM PST by hawaiian
The following letter was published in the Gazette, Hyattsville, MD, October 11, 2001, on the Community Forum page.
"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 anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.
"I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, and 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 nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.
On Sept. 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. 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 have 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 differentiate between you. 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, ... [edited for brevity]... while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children? The answer to my own questions that it is past the time for me to try to determine this. The events of Sept. 11th changed the answer. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, if you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation that He will protect and prosper it? 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? Are you willing to preserve this freedom with the spilling of your own blood? Do you love America? And 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 religion to protect the United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the "innocent" (I worry who you regard as "innocent") and condemnation of "unprovoked" attacks (I worry what is "unprovoked" to you.) I am not interested in any more sympathy; I am interested only in action. What will you do for America-- the country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America." I want to see Arab-Muslim young men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money and 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. Deliver them up, 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 reprisal.
The few Arab-Muslim representatives that have appeared on the media are defensive and equivocating. They seem more concerned with making sure the U.S. prove who is responsible before they act, and protecting their own people from any violence directed toward them, here in the U.S. and abroad.
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.
Because even if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true, it matters little if large numbers of current Islamic practitioners interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion.
I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is within 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.
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."
I don't trust liars.
Afghans lost two million people in events leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. People opposing the Taliban have lost more. Some of Abdul Haq's surviving relatives live in this country. Now you're talking about going after them en masse. Are you going to condemn attacks on them with the same intensity as you expect them to condemn attacks on us? How much more do you expect them to give for this country?
BTTT
Submitted 2001
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof with the sole exception being that Islam is declared to be an evil cult, and unlawful; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Ratified ????
How else to do lawfully, what we morally must.
Then leave them in the sun to dry and tighten, and after a few days when they suffocate, bury them with their posteriors to mecca's black rock.
I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is within 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.
I am also worried about our own, such as a President of a national American TV station who states he has no opinion on the WTC bombing. No opinion and your "supposedly " an American ??? Not to mention the spokesman of the Black Muslims gets on national TV and blames " his " own county , the USA for the bombing and will not condemn the terrorists. If you ask me this is what is called TREASON ! I also demand that "they " make their allegiance known PUBLICLY !! Worry ? Yes, I do worry,but not only about the ones mentioned in this article. Like our President said,"your either with us or your with the terrorists".
Fact: lots of our wonderful "moderate" moslems knew the hijackers very well, even living with them. However, all of them today claim that "they didn't know a thing".
Fact: it is impossible to tell the "moderate" moslems from the covert terrorists waiting for their mission.
Fact: we are in a war, and in a war you don't permit your enemy to shelter in sanctuaries, whether it is a mosque full of soldiers in Khandahar, or an "islamic center" in Trenton which produces jihadists like a factory.
What is the morality of accepting "collateral damage" in our war on terrorism in Afghanistan when our enemies shelter near the innocent, but refusing to go after the "sanctuary" of the terrorists in the USA while they make their final preparations for the next 9-11?
There is 1000 times more justification for the internment of arab moslems from named countries who have come to that USA in last ten years than there ever was for interning the Japanese.
| The few Arab-Muslim representatives ...are defensive and equivocating. They seem more concerned with making sure the U.S. prove who is responsible before they act, and protecting their own people from any violence directed toward them, here in the U.S. and abroad. |
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No, that would be CNN, PMSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, L'il Katie Couric, Matty Lauer, etc., etc.... |
(A) There is no "islamic community" in this country. Any more than there is a "white community." The affiliation is by national origin and religious sect - e.g. Shia, Sunni, Sufi - and is not a monolithic bloc. They do not communicate with each other. They don't have time to. They have jobs, families, taxes, and relatives back where they came from.
(B) Even the 9/11 terrorists did not advertise "I am a terrorist" nor did anyone, anywhere, think their actions would lead to what happened on that day. This of course includes our "counter-terrorism experts" subsidized by the US taxpayer.
Fact: lots of our wonderful "moderate" moslems knew the hijackers very well, even living with them. However, all of them today claim that "they didn't know a thing".
(A)The hijackers did not mingle too much with anyone, Islamics or non-Islamics. The idea that there were hundreds of people out there who knew and did nothing is absolutely, totally, false.
(B) Again, none of these people advertised "I am a terrorist" to anyone, anywhere. Did the US government have any alerts out to the Islamic community to be on the lookout for terrorists? No it did not. Hindsight is 20/20. The Al-Queda manual had explicit steps to tell their people how to avoid suspicion and there was no reason to suspect them at the time.
Fact: it is impossible to tell the "moderate" moslems from the covert terrorists waiting for their mission. Fact: we are in a war, and in a war you don't permit your enemy to shelter in sanctuaries, whether it is a mosque full of soldiers in Khandahar, or an "islamic center" in Trenton which produces jihadists like a factory.
You can't. I can.
There is 1000 times more justification for the internment of arab moslems from named countries who have come to that USA in last ten years than there ever was for interning the Japanese.
Most of the 9/11 attackers were not legal residents. Some of them even had immigration violations at the time they carried out their mission. But I'll put you down as a vote to intern and deport. You do this because I'm sure you think it will make you feel safer. I'll put myself down as a vote not to. I'm not going to die many times before my death.
there is reason to be racist and paranoid. the silence of the american muslim leaders/people gives us this reason.
Good post.
If they're moving here with plans that are detrimental to our freedom and way of life, it's not migration -- it's an invasion.
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