In a message dated 9/18/01 2:50:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > . I > fear that the Muslim community will take much abuse and that their faith > and way of life will be lived in fear of retaliation by ignorant people, > but I am not going to say that I am surprised or shocked by this > backlash, because I am not. I am not the most politically correct person > in the world and the open door policy of our government has been too > willing to let people into this country that intend to harm us. The very > fact that family members of Osama bin Laden own a condo in Boston is > enough to infuriate me to no end. The fact that some of these hijackers > were allowed into our country, into our school systems, only to use this > against us is horrifying, yet it went on right under our noses. Until > last Tuesday we all felt safe, dare I say invincible, to such types of > attacks yet in the course of an hour four planes were hijacked, and 6,000 > people lost their lives. Is it fair to say that from this day forward I > will never be able to look at a young Muslim man and not think that he > was sent here to kill me because I am American? Maybe it is and maybe > it isn't, but that prejudice is now instilled in me and will never go > away. These followers of bin Laden-the Al Qaeda-want to kill us, they > hate everything we stand for, everything our country stands for, and will > stop at nothing to do so. I agree there are many Arab-Americans who unfortunately will suffer abuse because of the terrorists, and many of them are Christians, not Muslims. But to say that all the Muslims who are not terrorists are blameless is also not true, because either by unintended financial support or mere benign neglect, they have allowed the extremist faction to flourish. I could be wrong here, but I believe that if they truly wanted to, the overwhelming majority of Muslims could keep in check the terrorists faction. But I think this "war" is as much a battle between mainstream Muslims and the radical Muslims who do not like the acceptance by the mainstream of our Western culture. The fact that Iran and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan, want to join in on our side, tells me that this war isn't so much about the U.S. support of Israel as it is a growing rift between the Muslim factions. I see now where Yasser Arafat wants to join the coalition the U.S. is forming to move against bin Laden and his supporters. Either Arafat truly has decided his people's goals cannot be reached through terrorism or he realizes that terrorists striking against the heart of the United States gives the rest of the terrorist world a bad name. ;>) Paul I
