A PILOT'S EDITORIAL-- "YOU WORRY ME." ************************************************************************* I've been trying to say this since 9-11. I guess I will be labeled as a bigoted American, but so be it. By: American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco ************************************************************************ "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 in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me. I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, 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 that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks. On September 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 has 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 tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist. 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, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of it's religions, with ALL of it's different citizens, with all of it's faults. It is time for every Arab-Muslim inthis country to determine it for me. I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to it's flag? Do you proudly display in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"?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 who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America?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 as a religion to protect the United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy I am only interested in action. What will you do for America -- our great country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of war? I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young Arab-Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation asa 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. Hand them over to us, 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 reprisals. The very few Arab-Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States prove who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. 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.What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance. It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members defended Johnny Cochran and O. J. Simpson after the latter butchered his wife and murdered an innocent friend. A form whose members (some as young a five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam. Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful *****? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire middle-east?And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability?Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs.I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE!We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion. We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is 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 who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. 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 wonder which fine newspaper this open letter was published in. Hmmm. I hope we didn't just cut and paste from an email a bored internet buddy sent us. [edit] Here is the supposed original letter to the editor: http://www.gazette.net/200141/princegeorgescty/letters/75236-1.html Regardless of authorship, which remains in question, what a tool. [/edit]
I've said it before and I'll say it again....in Detroit, the Arab and muslim population have been the biggest American flag wavers around. Arab Americans, for the most part, were just as horrified and disgusted with the whole thing as any of us. Stupid letter. It's like saying white people need to prove they aren't terrorist because of what happened in Oklahoma.
Exactly. Arab Americans in Queens apparently didn't get the memo telling them to "disappear from the streets". And how dare they speak out against anti-Muslim violence? The nerve! But of course, wave the flag a couple of times and mix in the Pledge of Allegiance in your prayer and you're free of suspicion. Riiiiight.
Um, I think you guys missed the point. The guy doesn't have a problem with Arabs and Muslims who prove themselves to be loyal to the US, it's the ones who passively sit on the sidelines that he has a problem with. Alex
Um, no. I see the point very clearly. You might want to tell us why Arabs/Muslims have to prove their loyalty in the first place.
DFB, come on....a muslim and/or arab person doesn't have to prove anything. they shouldn't be assumed to be bad just because some people from another Country did some horrific stuff. And who does they have to prove thier patriotism to? Everyone they meets What if one day he forgets to wear his red-white-blue socks? Are you gonna assume they are a terrorist?
> The guy doesn't have a problem with Arabs and > Muslims who prove themselves to be loyal to the > US After them, who is going to have to prove their loyalty? Intellectuals? Liberals? I get the feeling that there is going to be some kind of national emergency that will allow Bush to remain president indefinitely. For the stability of America.
spejic, what does this have to do with Geroge Bush? It's just as bad as when the right wingers take shots at Bill Clinton in subjects unrelated to the Presidency.
I have an idea. We should register all Arab-Americans under a program, let's call it "AmeriPoints". No, we'll make it voluntary - that way, we know if they don't sign up, they must be terrorists and want us dead. Under this system, Arab-Americans collect points for showing their alleigance to America. They would get 5 points for putting a flag sticker on their car, 10 points for wearing a Stars & Stripes sweater, 20 points for saying patriotic things like "God bless America" and "Let's turn the Middle East into one big parking lot", 100 points for ratting out a suspicious neighbor, 200 points for capturing Osama Bin Laden, 300 points for going to a strip club and so on. And at the end of the year, AmeriPoints members who accumulate enough points will get a "Not a Terrorist" certificate, plus bumper stickers, buttons and t-shirts. With AmeriPoints, everyone wins. Arab-Americans have a chance to prove their loyalty to their nation, show that they're not terrorists and experience slightly less bigotry. Non-terrorist-looking Americans can tell which cab drivers and gas station attendants are good Ay-rabs and which ones are out to kill us all. Condemning everyone with a diaper on their head just seems wrong and un-American. But with AmeriPoints, we can tell our children with a straight face, "See Johnny, that man isn't wearing any American flag or 'Not a Terrorist' clothing. It's okay to blame him for the events of 9/11 and look down on his culture." This idea is so crazy it might just work. Someone get the President on the phone.
Better yet, let's round them up and put them in concentration camps, even while some of them are fighting terrorism with the American military. Then, in 50 years or so when they sue the government, we can compensate them. This sound like a familiar scenario?
Look here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12644 It's Britain, not the US, but the point remains the same. Where are the moderate Muslims speaking out against this kind of thing?? Yeah, there's one or two here and there, but if there's a unified, moderate Muslim voice denouncing this I haven't seen it (and I really hope someone can post a link and prove me wrong). The fact remains that, with the exception of Oklahoma City, every single major act of terrorism against the US has been committed by Muslim radicals. The Beirut bombings, the Pan Am plane that got bombed over Scotland, the explosion in a disco in Berlin that killed American servicemen and innocent Germans and Turks, the first WTC bombing, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, September 11. Yet, despite all this, I've never heard a consensus of senior mullahs and imams denouncing this. Like I said, you get a few, but there's never a loud, near-unanimous denunciation (and again, I'd be very happy if someone could post a link to prove me wrong). Alex
We didn't miss the point at all. This is a step away from McCarthyistic "prove to me that you're not a communist" b.s. It's like if you don't have a flag waving from your car, suddenly you're un-American.
First off, most of the events you described were carried out by one group. Along the same lines, I could say all Americans should have to speak out against church bombings because the KKK has blown them up. Or all Irish should have to speak out against terrorism because of the IRA. Do almost all people oppose these things, yes, but they don't seek out attention to clarify how much they hate them. Do you distrust white people because they haven't spoken out against these things, or do you think that the overwhelming majority are good people? The average Arab-American or Arab living in the US probably hasn't spoken out against these attacks because they are in NO WAY responsible for them. Why would it even dawn on them that they have to defend their race or patriotism? They didn't do anything. Should you have to defend your race because of slavery or OKC? In the case of immigrants, it should be enough that they chose to live in the US to show their belief in this country. In the case of Arab-Americans: I'm white and haven't flown a flag prior to or since 9/11 (nothing political, just not something I feel a desire to do), do you question my loyalty to the country? if not, why should Arab-Americans be held to a different standard?
That's not what some people are saying now. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/9/111622.shtml
There is a Muslim memorial service being held in London tomorrow to commemorate those who were killed. I saw this mentioned in a long column in the Sun which spent one sentence on this worthwhile event and the rest of the column (half a tabloid page) on the other offfensive event. When this kind of balance in reporting is being used it's not surprising that you think that there are no Muslims cindemning the events of September the 11th. I also agree with those who say that a Muslim shouldn't have to condemn these events in an outward manner. I would assume that everyone I meet is horrified by the events of 911 unless they state otherwise.
For people (or a single BS poster) with conveniently selective memory: http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01091232.htm Of course, all those flag waving Arab-Americans I saw at post-9/11 rallies could be a figment of my imagination.
> spejic, what does this have to do with Geroge Bush? Any president will take whatever power is given him. A large number, if not the majority, is willing to give the current president dictatorial powers. He is going to take it.
Funny how none of that came up at the trial for McVeigh or Nichol, even when they postponed McVeigh's execution for a month. They've been trying for a year to connect Iraq to 9/11 and the best they've got is "Czech officials have insisted the meeting took place."