Received in an email.



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 t o 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. Inotice 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 will 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 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 ar ms 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!"

LilJoe

Guilty until proven innocent in this guy's mind...

EDIT: Apparently this is a slightly less bigoted version of the original, which can be found here.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/worryme.htm

Undetermined.

Aside from the question of authorship, this is not an item that can be branded "true" or "false," because it's merely someone's expression of his opinions. Thematically, it's a more overt expression of the feelings conveyed by such (apocryphal) September 11-related legends as the claim that no taxis were to be found around the World Trade Center the morning of the terrorist attacks: the fear and unease generated by the knowledge that the perpetrators were people who had been living among us undetected for months; people who, although they may have been foreigners, were not out of place amidst the cultural diversity of America. How, then, do we now distinguish friend from foe? Wouldn't it be so much easier if — as advocated here — we could simply assume all ARAB-MUSLIMS to be guilty and demand them to demonstrate otherwise?

But such an approach is not only inimical to many of the principles America stands for, it is also logically flawed. What terrorists bent on the destruction of the USA would hesitate to camouflage themselves by hypocritically waving American flags or professing a false love for the USA? We cannot judge people by outward appearances alone, and that realization leaves us feeling scared and powerless.

The sad thing is that that mail, and countless others like it, are read, approved of, and forwarded en masse by peabrains throughout the country. Slowly infusing this insipid way of thinking into the "debate."

LilJoe

Actually I was not referring to you. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you posted it to stimulate debate. If you posted it because you believe it, then I will have to reassess my reasoning.

You too?

Don’t let our lily-livered, tongue-wagging braggart annoy you.

I am sure some cases can be found.

They can be found for Christians as well.

This tripe that Lil Joe posted is an example of truly pathetic bigotry. I wish I could see through him as well as he can apparently see through me. Then I would know if he actually believes this or not...

I meant on the hijacked planes which is the way that it reads.

Ah, sorry. I didn't go back to read for the passage. Laziness has its price..

If I recall correctly stewardesses were supposedly killed to entice the pilots to open the doors to the cockpits.

But regardless, these actions say nothing about anyone except the exact individuals who committed them. I can come up with actions carried out by individuals of proabably every country and faith on Earth which are equally reprehensible and carried out in the name of some cause.

I am amazed that any American would pick apart the statements in the letter, whether it is authenic or false, and disagree with its sentiments. It should be a worry to us all that we,and other nations, have been infiltrated with the aim of causing us graet harm by these people. It is time to stop being polotically correst and call a spade a spade.

So far, in America, you are fortunate that there is not the depth of animosity toward you among your domestic Islamic community that is being experienced presently in Europe. A fearful diatribe of this sort serves no purpose other than to feed division and resentment. Good people don't appreciate being tarred with the brush that should be reserved for the enemy.

That airline pilot, apocryphal or real, needs to put a governor on his emotions and grow a spine.

Thanks for the post Joe" I consider you one of, if not the most level headed members of this forum. Johnny Reb,on the other hand seems to be a chain yanker. I also agree with Dons post # 10,if that makes me a pea brain ,so be it.

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Another pea brain here.

Just to stereotype them is a small thing vs the loss of innocent American lives.



In memory of Whipat and Tuff

YOU WORRY ME?

Since 9/11 you Americans have murdered each other more than one-hundred-thousand times. You should worry one another!

You stand a greater chance of being struck by lightning on a sunny day in January than of being killed or injured by a terrorist. You should worry one another!

You are willing to sell the very soul of your nation to the fear-merchants who tirelessly poke at an open wound of suspicion and distrust to further their own self-serving agenda. You should worry one another!

The Nazis “stereotyped” six-million Jews into extinction. Remember????

You should worry one another!

You sure as hell worry me!

Les

Gee, Bob. You are so insightful! I am a true chain yanker. Maybe if I stop actually thinking about things and react in a knee-jerk manner like you and a few others on the forum then I will be accepted?

Sorry that I think that individuals have rights that trump those ascribed to their "group" by weak-mided fools.

And Troy614, your statement worries me. You would have fit in well shipping Japanese-Americans off to camps during WW2 or promoting racial segregation. If you still hold those beliefs after you think about what you said then I pity you. You seem to have misunderstodd everything that the United States is truly about.

I have to come in on this one. To compare organized armies of terrorists with common criminals is not right! I know there have been some individuals like the Unabomber and the Oklahoma City bombers, but to compare common criminals with organized, trained terrorists is not right.
You are right that in the Bible God ordered annihilation of entire peoples, man, women, and children. During the Crusades and Inquisition, Christians did horrible things in the name of the church. More recently organized religion sits by as entire populations are murdered as in Africa or forced to move as are the Christians in Lebanon and Bethlehem. I could easily go on and on.

At this time we are facing an organized attempt from the Islamic world to wreak mayhem in the West and even in Africa. The recent statements by the Muslim Council of Britain are a step in the right direction.
Reality though is that organized armies of Muslims have been attacking our cities, our civilians.
It doesn't help to have lunatics like W and Dick in the White House.
The PROFILE of the Organized bombers is Muslims, mainly Asian young men, Muslims that have been recruited in their places of worship and trained around the world.
I’m sure most Muslims are good neighbors; I know that in my neighborhood, I have nothing to fear from the families that are living here. On the other hand a Moslem came into my neighborhood a few months ago and Martyred himself with a bomb killing 3 people working in my bakery.

The terrorists have succeeded in the US, besides killing thousands, they have allowed Bush to infringe on the rights that American find so important and have in the past fought for. They have given Bush “reason” to invade the heart of the Muslim world making it easier for them to show other Muslims the Western Devil.
In the end though, I still have to profile to protect myself. I have to ask the young Arab getting on an airplane a few probing questions that I don’t have to ask your grandmother. Even with the profiling, people that walk and talk like me and you may slip through, like the attempted shoe bomber, but others may be caught or dis-couraged from their crimes. Profiling though should be left to professionals that know how to do it in a dignified manner.

More organized Moslems need to be brave and state and show their allegiance for the countries they choose to live in. They are aware though that they are putting their heads on the chopping block of those that will accuse them of being quislings and some will be murdered for that by their co-religionists.

Life is not simple


Ethan

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
"Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took it all from them." - Edward Filene

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
"Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took it all from them." - Edward Filene

You will not find many Sioux Indians pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America...we did not "choose to become citizens".

DavyWavy -

Thank you, Ethan, for the sage overview. Certainly, your unique perspective, among those of us here at PCQ&A, of the conundrum of the fine line we tread between exercising a common-sense defense against a fanatical and well-camouflaged enemy and a situation that could easily deteriorate into an unconscionable persecution of those guilty only of cultural association, is invaluable.

But, apparently as evinced here in this microcosm of thought, all too many of us see things in absolutes. There is good and there is evil. There is bliss and there is gloom. There is safety and there is freedom. And these persons seem unable or unwilling to look past those dangerously narrow parameters. And, because of that, they have become unwitting soldiers in the service of self-serving demagogues who treasure power above all else and who hold agendas which wish well to nothing which does not feed their already porcine egos.

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that we do not preserve the “good” if we abandon the virtues we espouse make us what we at least consider ourselves to be -- a reasonable civilized people -- and in so doing, ourselves become inevitably a mirror image of the indoctrinated desperate who have come to think at the core of their being that suicide and indiscriminate mass murder, if not a solution, is at least a furtherance of their cause.

It seems to me that there is hope for none of us if each of us continues to wall up our own garden against our neighbor. No bunker, no matter how well-stocked with self-righteousness, is safe against the ignorance, intolerance and fear that breeds incestuously within that wall.

Anyhow, I'm buying a six-pack and going fishing.

Well stated,Ethan.

Funny how I became a racist,bigot and want to kill everyone

You guys are masters at twisting things
But after Ethans post at least I get rewarded by seeing the back peddling






In memory of Whipat and Tuff

"I did not mean to offend you personally. Just those who think as you."

Now there's a subtle nuance!! If you were talking to me, I wouldn't buy it.

Ray

The letter showed me the feelings of the author, I feel the fear and hopelessness of it, a sort of cry for help to Muslims. I believe he was more than likely trying to find a way to prevent such things from ever happening again. I seemed to have heard between the lines that he wishes that those that are not like the terrorists to stand apart from them so that he can find someway to make a judgement. I do not think he was saying that they are like them it is that he is not learned enough to tell from just seeing them. I think we all want an easy answer, it is one thing to say something and another to live it.

We have to ask the great sacrifice from everyone involved here, any and all americans. Really from all citizens of the world. I can and have put my own self interests to the side and risked my life for strangers, this is not based on what the strangers will do for me it is based on my own belief system. It becomes much more painful to place the lives of others at risk for my own beliefs. If someone pointed a gun at me and threatened me with death I would feel fear but not as much as if they pointed it at a little child. People I know lost family in 911 too, my heart aches for their losses.


Individual solutions differ than solutions for groups or states and countries. It seems the longer I live and the more that I learn the less I can pull an easy answer out of my mind. I try and place myself in the shoes of all the others I make judgements about. The more I do this the more I realize that I should not make judgements against others that do not directly have a bearing on my immediate life, because my accuracy is never 100%.


I try and practice love and tolerance with all I come in contact with, when I am lacking I ask myself why, I then pray for those people that I have problems with. I ask that they receive the things that would make me happiest, healthy family, peace in thier hearts ...etc. In doing this it seems to help fuel the fire for the love that I need for my fellow humans. I find that whenever I let go and do not practice these things in my life I do not end up always behaving my best.


We as people have to bet our lives on the very best we ask of our country for it is our legacy to whatever faith we hold dear. It is like that story of a girl on a beach seeing starfish littered upon it dying, she begins to throw them back into the water one by one. A man tells her she cannot make a difference to the masses of them dying. She pauses, then picks up another and throws it in and says, "To that one I made a difference." You can be assured that one day at a time I will practice the best principles in my life and if that should cause my death may those that I have touched wipe the tears from the cheeks of my children.

Very nice post! Welcome to the forum!

Just a helpful suggestion: maybe use carriage returns a few times to separate the thoughts. I enjoyed reading your post, but it was difficult, since the text was so densely packed together!

Nevertheless.... welcome

Great post, welcome to PCQ&A.

Wlcome to the forum!

Frankly, I rather doubt that any airline pilot actually wrote that letter. Airlines have a penchant for dumping pilots who make public statements like that and the pilots know that, and keep a low public profile.

Shelly

Shelly, you old son-of-a-gun, his words touched me deep down to my bones, now you have ruined it for me with your “who done it” proffer.

One of the first things they tell you on every flight is the pilots name. I can just envision some guy with a laptop and nothing to do for a few hours, creating one of those venerable e-mails and appending the captains name to it for authenticity.

Shelly

someone wrote a letter to the editor asking where are all the arab ghandi's and martin l king's.

Good on them!

Sarcasm can be hard to control.
Ok. Let’s say it is one of my semi-original thots (unless you heard Rush say it, then I deny everything).
As you say, folks who speak of peace are usually denigrated. If they become well known for non-violence…they are killed.
Considering the thread topic, there are muslims, mostly from the middle east area who think it’s OK to kill anyone who does not share their religious beliefs.
I doubt if every muslim in the US were to do as the original post suggests, that it would have much influence on folks like Osama. Also, bad guys can wave the American flag and pretend to be all-American, and then feel no guilt when they do whatever dirty deed they can imagine.
No one likes my analogies, but…
America has stepped in dog doo-doo and for some reason we are blaming it on the cat.

The attitude of the Muslim fundamentalists is not in any sense limited to the Middle East. and your analogy is awful.

Shelly

QUOTE:
The attitude of the Muslim fundamentalists is not in any sense limited to the Middle East. and your analogy is awful.

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If "Rush" said it, it's accuracy is without doubt, however nobody's analogies are ever as good as Shellys.

QUOTE:
If "Rush" said it, it's accuracy is without doubt, however nobody's analogies are ever as good as Shellys.

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