»This is a forward of a forward and the following response.

NONE of this is mine, i wanted to repost because I, as my friend put it

—felt the need to respond to because of its fear mongering… I felt it was too important to just leave it with the people in the email list—

» First the Letter:

“This American Airlines pilot ‘hit the nail’ right on the head in his open letter.

The paper stated 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 911, 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, ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to dea…th 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 Jihad’s? 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 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!’

CANADIAN COMMENTS:

Canadians should agree with this sentiment and forget all about the ‘political correctness’ mandate we’ve had rammed down our throats, and see if this doesn’t ring true in your heart and mind.

For Canada , with all the multiculturism we’ve been told is so important….why should we not, as Canadians, expect that the millions of new people immigrating to our country will show their love for our country, their allegiance to our country, their willingness to obey the laws of our country, and acceptance that we are a Christian country? Just because they are able to enjoy exercising their own religion, they should not expect us to be ashamed of ours. They knew Canada was a Christian country when they came here. Why are we erasing Christianity because immigrants who are unwilling to adopt our way of life expect us to? There is just too much insanity in the world, and we have to start taking a stand.

I hope you will forward, so others will feel they are not alone if they are starting to feel the same.





»And now the Response

 First off I would like to say that I disagree completely with the message presented in this article. 

…

Have we already forgotten World War 2? Just a quick reminder in case you’ve forgotten: After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Americans were rounded up and placed in internment camps. They did nothing wrong yet they were singled out, forced away from their lives, businesses, friends - just because they “worried” the other American people. And just why did these American citizens get singled out? Because they looked different. They were an easily identified group. Were there any Germans or Italians rounded up? Did the general American people “worry” about German insurgents infiltrating the country as citizens? Whats worse is that even non-Japanese Asians were persecuted because they looked “Japanese.”

By singling out an easily identified group of people and forcing them to “prove their allegiance”, either by requiring them to do arbitrary tasks that :Don’t prove anything and The majority of American citizens would be offended at if they were required to do in order to prove their allegiance to their country. This didn’t help the Japanese Americans. They did all they could to prove how much they loved America. Many of them did denounce their homeland, even going so far as destroying their Japanese flags and other cultural paraphernalia.

This is called racial profiling and there are many reasons it’s bad.

Now I know you may be afraid and confused. But one thing to keep in mind - when humans get scared and confused they tend to make irrational decisions. We tend to rely on prejudice and stereotypes and fall for logical fallacies.

Here’s a short excerpt from an article about racial profiling:

—But even if stereotypes reflect some “kernel of truth,” it is a dicey strategy to try to make judgments about individuals based on what we think we know about some group to which they belong. When we make stereotype-based judgments, even if our stereotypes are “accurate,” we are likely to commit the logical error of “affirming the consequent.”  

—For example, if we know that all pregnant people are women, we can conclude that someone pregnant is therefore a woman. But it would be “affirming the consequent” to conclude that someone who is a woman is therefore pregnant. Likewise, if criminal justice statistics suggest that criminals are likely to be black or Latino, it would be affirming the consequent to conclude that blacks and Latinos are likely to be criminals. In fact, only a very small fraction are.

Falling into that trap is dangerous. We are a country built on freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of race… And another quick history reminder - One of the main reasons we have this country was because of people wanting to get away from religious persecution.

I hear the complaints about hiding behind churches, women and children… don’t forget that during our American revolution we did much the same. We won that war, not because we had superior strength or numbers. We didn’t have the training or the technology of our enemies. We won that war through sheer determination and being sneaky bastards.

Remember the Delaware? The sneak attack that George Washington led on Christmas day? We used guerrilla warfare tactics - shooting from the cover of trees.

Such methods of winning a war have proven successful. Remember Vietnam? If you’re facing a far superior force, that has really been the only effective method of fighting. We pioneered it, and now you’re complaining when someone uses it against us.

The article states: 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.

Here it suggests that unless the prejudiced group can prove their innocence that the writer will be “consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice”… now I’m no psychiatrist, but the last time I checked, the only person that has control of your emotions is you. Not some general easily identified group.

It’s times like this that we as a country have to prove that we’re up to the task that our founding fathers have set forth. It’s times like these, where instead of giving in to fear, hatred and intolerance we must prove that we will rise above base human instincts and be better then those that would instill fear and hatred.

I am not afraid of Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans, Iranian Americans, Saudi Arabian Americans, or any other Middle eastern ethnic group that has made their home in America.

What I’m afraid of is people that agree with this article and then send it off to spread the fear and hatred.

Those people worry me because they are giving into fear and anger.

They are singling out innocent people and requiring them to “prove” their love of the country.

They are advocating taking the rights away from American Citizens just to make themselves feel more secure… and what’s worse is that it doesn’t help at all.

If we start letting these people to take the rights away of a group of citizens just because they’re uncomfortable with them, where does it stop? At what point do we say its enough? When we have everyone in a in ethnic group in concentration camps? We tried that once before… it wasn’t right then and its not right now.

If we give into the fear and hate, are we any better then those that attack us? If we give into terror, don’t the terrorists win a moral victory? They may not win the war, but they do validate (at least in their minds) their war against us. If we strike back in fear and anger against the only visible target we see… an innocent target no less… what do we accomplish? We show the terrorists that we persecute Muslims and Middle Easterners. Is that how we’ll win this war? By showing them that we’re as bad as they think we are?

Or do we rise above the challenge and don’t give in to fear and anger and show them one of the reasons why America was founded: To be tolerant of different elasticities, and religions. To have freedom be paramount.

It’s not the innocent that I fear, it’s the people spreading fear and terror in the guise of “reason” that I fear.

Go in Peace.