Thread: You Worry Me

Here's a good email I received today. No link to the article, but it is a good read.

This pilot hit the nail on the head in his open letter. He needs to be
Awarded a Medal for having the TESTICULAR FORTUITUDE to say all this in a very profound way.

The paper stated today that some Muslim doctor is saying we are profiling
him because he has been checked three times while getting on an airplane.

The following is a letter from a pilot. This well spoken man, who is a
pilot with American Airlines, says what is in his heart, beautifully....
Read, absorb and pass this on.

"YOU WORRY ME!" By American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco

I've been trying to say this since 9-11, but 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.

The Palestinians Celebrated, The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. 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/Muslim terrorists 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 these 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 its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this 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 its flag? Do you proudly display it 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 also 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. 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 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 right now 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 proves 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 huge 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 (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after a
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.

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!"

Bravo! Bravo!

Well said!

Originally Posted by sippy

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 huge 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 (some as young as five years old) are seen day
after day, week in and week out, year after a
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.

The problem is that the terrorists are interpreting Mohammed's teachings exactly as he intended, but it so politically incorrect to say so!

Pretty much all religions that began before our modern concept of civil rights and secular society (separation of church and state) have old doctrines "on the shelf" that are incompatible with life in a country like ours. In most cases, modern members of these religions compartmentalize the history and relegate it to a historical past, without trying to reenact it. This excellent piece focuses on one of those within Islam: Jihad. Although it's not one of the five pillars of Islam, it is called the sixth.

The vast majority of modern, educated Muslims in the West follow the modern definitions of jihad: that it refers to struggle on behalf of Islam. It can refer to Islamic evangelism, or even the internal struggle of character to stay on the right path against temptation. However, in recent years we've seen the phenomenon of 'sleepers' who immigrate (or are even born and raised in the West) and who appear for many years to be assimilated, cooperative members of our society, but are merely waiting to carry out some ghastly plan.

The question of how we are supposed to tell in time to deal with these threats is valid, and there is not a good answer yet. What seems to be happening in some of these cases is that assimilation was not a ruse at least for a while - but that the individual fell in with associations that converted him to a radical path. There is speculation about social cliques recruiting at mosques, for example.

There's lots of potential for mischief in all religions (note: I'm not some atheist critic, I'm a Protestant. I believe that the best critics are those who have love and compassion for what they are examining, otherwise it can become a hatchet job). Mormons, for example, have been haunted by their past of polygamy and violent enforcement (dating from an early era of Mormonism when they were hounded from state to state) that occasionally spills over into modern times. Evangelical Christianity is witnessing a rise in "theonomy" or Dominion theology that has raised some hackles. And the Catholic church has had to revisit the management of their priesthood, which structure dates from a time when they had much more power and authority than they do now. Islam will need to have an internal discussion: if they want to immigrate and live in the West, what does that mean to some dearly held traditional doctrines of theirs?