posted on September 20, 2001 08:23:52 AM new
WASHINGTON (AP) - South Asian, Arab and Muslim Americans
rallied near the Capitol Wednesday, imploring an angry nation to stop
avenging last week's terrorist attacks on those who merely ``looked like
the enemy.''
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington,
said hate crimes only add to the long list of victims created when suicidal
hijackers crashed jetliners into the twin towers of the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon (news - web sites) and a field in western
Pennsylvania.
``Maybe 5,000 have died. We don't know, the numbers may grow
higher,'' Zogby told about 200 people gathered under a brilliant midday
sky. ``Enough death. Enough hate. Enough violence. Enough. As
Americans, we must say it should end.''
posted on September 20, 2001 10:57:56 AM new
We're having almost the opposite here where I live. I live in a town that has a major university. Many of the Muslim students here have been wearing t-shirts that say on the front "It's only the beginning." On the back is a jihad flag.
posted on September 20, 2001 11:52:48 AM new
That may be protected political speech but it is awfully close to advocating violent overthrow of the government and it is simply rude as a guest to distain your host.
I would be afraid to be that "in your face" as someone may burn that t-shirt. They might not even wait until it is off to do it. These kids may have gotten so used to being able to say anything that they don't display any common sense.
posted on September 20, 2001 12:36:58 PM new
Should think that the statement on the Tshirt would imply a threat and isn't that illegal - free speech or no free speech?
buyhigh
posted on September 20, 2001 12:39:06 PM new
That's what I was going to ask Zazzie. Are they American? I agree with you gravid. In times like this when anyone could be a terrorist, they're only setting themselves up for ridicule, or worse. Freedom of speech is one thing but to openly display "non-unity" is something altogether different.
If the message hasn't gotten out yet that the U.S. is fighting terrorism and nothing more, then maybe they need to be properly educated.
posted on September 20, 2001 01:03:53 PM new
I assure you that I am not a troll.
I am not sure if these are American or International students. I was just told that these students are Muslim.
edited to add: Sorry if I upset you krs. I just find it hard to believe that someone could wear a shirt like that. If they are so against the US, then why did they come here for schooling anyway? I believe in what was said in the article that you posted. We should not take out our fear and hatred on anyone because of their looks or religion. If only those who rallied in DC knew that there were those acting this way (tshirts) here in the US.
[ edited by bh010296 on Sep 20, 2001 01:07 PM ]
posted on September 20, 2001 09:08:49 PM new
I'm sorry that I don't have a URL to post. I have not seen this info in the local paper yet. I just heard about it today from a couple of students that attend the University. If it appears in the paper, then I will post the link to their website.
posted on September 21, 2001 10:58:22 AM new
I attend Eastern Kentucky University. Our foreign students are mostly Asian, but there are a few middle eastern. Never had any problems with them.
However, some people in my neighborhood are middle eastern. They had an American flag outside until the day of the attack. The day of the attack they tore the flag down in celebration and got drunk, happy about the attack. Made me sick to watch.
They have mysteriously moved out now and no one knows where they've moved to. I don't think they were college students, no one really knew what they did or where they got their money.
posted on September 21, 2001 05:29:28 PM new
Muslims don't drink. These must have been the drunken, dancing, no-visible-means-of-support, suspiciously moving, non-Muslim, Middle Eastern, Kentucky variety of dastardly non-flag-wavers.
posted on September 21, 2001 07:33:48 PM new
bh010296- "students" like those come here for the schooling, the flying lessons, etc. and possibly to learn more about how to assimilate so as to be less conspicuous if they are to do anything subversive.
posted on September 21, 2001 10:36:44 PM new
Perhaps the problem is not that they "look like the enemy" but rather they have as yet given no indication that they will indeed not, when bullets begin to fly, quickly dissipate their avowed affection for their adopted country.
Instead of their spokesmen bewailing any real or imagined insult or suspicious glance and insisting that a few score of incidents are the moral equivalence of our thousands of dead, I would wish to see the following:
A noted Muslim cleric declare in stentorian tones, "Shame! I call out to the Great Allah that He would show the force of His All Powerful Wrath to these Blasphemers and Violators of Islam and toss their worthless souls into the lowest fire pits of Hades!" Still waiting...
I assume the protestors began with a momemt of silence and then recited the Pledge of Alliegence with hand over heart in fevoured unison? No telling from the article but I don't feel that I am remiss in believing I think not...
Have you heard the phrase "I love America" spoken tearfully in a Middle Eastern Accent?
I'm not up on the teachings of the Koran concerning ornamentation but I assume Allah in his great wisdom would not frown upon a small pin or patiotic ribbon attached to one's tunic. Seen many?
It's hard to believe that men who pray together 5 times a day would not have heard an occassion shout of "Death to the American Insects" resound through the mosque. Perhaps one could show evidence of their patriotism by placing an anonymous tip to the authorities to point out the more suspicious in their midst or the ones that they know would not stand up to close scutiny by the F.B.I. or INS.
If the American Mulim community wishes to dispel the notion that they "look like the enemy" mere talk will not suffice. They must also walk the walk...
posted on September 22, 2001 06:06:50 AM new
Just goes to show that you can't always believe what someone tells you just because they claim to have 'seen' it. I received the following email from one of the news reporters at our local paper concerning the tshirts being worn (or not) by Purdue Muslim students:
Everyone is talking about it, but Purdue and our sources here have no concrete evidence that it happened or is happening....
I must say that I am glad that the information I had was wrong.
posted on September 22, 2001 08:21:17 AM new
"Just goes to show that you can't always believe what someone tells you just because they claim to have 'seen' it."
No, it just goes to show that people are all too eager to believe any foolishness that taps into their already present prejudices. Now we justify our ignorance by calling it "prudence," or "patriotism," and proclaim our ugliness a virtue.
posted on September 22, 2001 09:41:17 AM new
An Afgani-American writes:
"Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone
who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that
the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering.
A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their
houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide.
Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people.
Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by?
You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
posted on September 22, 2001 10:25:21 AM new
I just received that same email this morning. Thought provoking to say the least. Personally I think sending in ground troops would assure a lot of deaths and I'm not convinced it would have the results we want in the end anyway. I keep thinking that there must be a way that this can be accomplished through cutting off funding to certain groups/countries and increasing funding in other areas. The only problem with that idea is that while we're manuevering funding - they're still free to continue killing innocent people. Is it possible to erradicate the terrorist threat without innocent people dying?
posted on September 22, 2001 02:09:38 PM new
Whats wrong with this statement !!!
"You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin Laden does. Anyone else?"
Bottom line is Bin Laden Does not have the Belly for this he is a hideing terrorist leading coward..
When the moneies gone so is his so called belly for this because inless he can poison minds and pay others to do his dirty work there will be no dirty work caused by him..
