Your Jihad Is Getting Old

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader called on Muslims to launch a holy war to break Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. This is news?

Blah blah blah, jihad, blah blah, America is evil, blah blah. If I had a dollar for every time I heard this song, I'd be rich.

Newsflash: Nobody cares. You assholes declare jihad against everything. What's next? Death to the West because you think they're responsible for your ingrown toenail? Jihad!

Ayman al-Zawahri says that the "salvation of the Muslim nation is through the march of its sons on the path of jihad."

I tell you what, Mr. al-Zawahri. Rather than send your sons to their deaths, how about you get in on the act. I have the perfect first assignment...mapping a mine field.

We get it. You're pissed. And you've probably got some legitimate gripes. But guess what, I have problems too, and I'm growing tired of your incessant bitching. Now shut the fuck up.
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Chances Of Americans Dying In Terror Attack Minimal

In the May 12, 2008 issue of Newsweek, there is a large article adapted from the new book The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. You may have seen the author on various news programs or Sunday morning political talk shows. I find him incredibly perceptive and unaffected by political parties. In other words, he's a reporter, not a pundit/talking head.

In the run-up to the election, count on the Republicans to stoke fear in the American public to win in November. But as he points out, the world has never been safer! Why this disconnect between perception and reality? I would say it is the current administration's propaganda campaign. He attributes it to the 24-hour news cycle.

We didn't watch daily footage of the two million people who died in Indochina in the 1970s, or the million who perished in the sands of the Iran-Iraq war ten years later. We saw little of the civil war in the Congo in the 1990s, where millions died. But today any bomb that goes off, and rocket that is fired, any death that results, is documented by someone, somewhere and ricochets instantly across the world. Add to this terrorist attacks, which are random and brutal. "That could have been me, " you think. Actually your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are tiny—for an American, smaller than drowning in your bathtub. [Emphasis mine.] But it doesn't feel like that.

We need to keep perspective and soothe our fears with the facts.
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Random Thoughts On The Muslim Community

In the July 30th issue of Newsweek, there was a feature article on the status of Islam and Muslim communities in today's world. The article looked at how various populations/enclaves of Muslims have integrated (or not) and tried to understand this groundswell of angst and explain how terrorism grows from these fertile grounds.

Before I go any further in this post, I may be guilty of some (maybe even a lot depending on your own views) of prejudice. I also realize that this prejudice is not from any first hand experience, rather from what I see and read. I'm not saying my prejudice is right but I do acknowledge its existence. And I also realize:

• I would hire or rent or sell to anyone if they were the most qualified. My prejudice, perhaps more dangerous, resides as a gnawing in my subconscious.
• If I see an overtly Muslim person on my flight, I get a little nervous. I pay a bit of extra attention to what they're doing. I'm sure they probably feel that from a lot of people and it can't be pleasant. Perhaps a bit of a 'win' for the terrorists and a 'loss' for the rest of us particularly 'regular' Muslims who just want to live the American dream and be left alone.
• Living in Orange County CA for 20 years afforded me the experience of a VERY DIVERSE culture. In my neighborhood we had folks from Mexico, Britain, Vietnam, Australia...black, white, and all shades in between. At work, it was even more diverse with the majority of our factory workers from Vietnam and our engineers from the Middle and Far East.
• The city of Irvine has one of the largest Iranian communities outside of Iran. The person who cut my hair for years was a 50-something woman from Iran and we had interesting conversations about life in Iran. I often felt as though she treated me like her son. She insisted she was Persian, not Iranian, a way to separate herself from the current government.
• The cities of Westminster and Fountain Valley are home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations outside of Vietnam. (Insert bad driving joke here.)
• I know, based on personal experience, that not all Muslims are violent or inherently evil. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, NONE of the Muslims I knew are violent or inherently evil.
• One of the founders of my former company was a devout Muslim immigrant from Pakistan that prayed five times a day — and he is one of the nicest and most thoughtful men you'll ever want to meet. He embodies everything positive the 'good' Muslims espouse that Islam is all about.
• Not all Islamic cultures are violent. Case in point is Indonesia which is the largest Muslim country in the world.

With all that being said, why was I suspicious of the Muslim family that lived in the apartment next door after 9/11? Why did it bother me that as I reached the top of the stairs I could look in their window and see that they were watching Al Jazeera on a big screen television? Prejudice is based in fear and ignorance and I need to constantly remind myself of that.

So back to Newsweek. The Letters to the Editor regarding the aforementioned article on Islam appeared in today's August 13th issue.

I want to comment on one letter in particular:

"Left unchecked, negative stereotyping of American Muslims will have dire consequences. Their growing isolation and embitterment will deprive the nation of a valuable human resource. And terrorists will inevitably exploit the situation by recruiting the oppressed. Bias is a two-edged sword."

Okay, here's where I get really pissed.

• Why does this writer imply that oppression is in any way a justification for anything violent, let alone terrorism? Murder and terrorism are NEVER okay. Not because someone didn't hire you and not because someone made a snide remark about Allah.
• Why doesn't the illegal Mexican community resort to terrorism given that they work like dogs but get no rights? After all, there are 11 million of them here. What is it about the Muslim psyche that makes them furtile ground for suicide bomber training but Mexicans just work harder to improve their situation?
• Why doesn't the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community resort to terrorism given that they are one of the few minorities where it is still legal to fire them from work, bash their heads in, deny them a place to live, and keep them from their sick partner in a hospital? What is it about the Mulim psyche that makes them think, according to recent national polls, that it is okay to kill your enemy but GLBT people turn that inwards and kill themselves (without taking a crowd of people with them) in astonishing numbers?
• Why don't the disaffeced Bangladeshis brought in to Middle Eastern countries to serve as cheap labor resort to suicide bombings because the local oil-rich population treats them like shit?

Say what you want, but there's something different about the Muslim community's psyche. I don't pretend to know what it is, but it doesn't do anyone any good to try to justify it.
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Feeling Safer Now?

First, let me get a little more anger off my chest regarding Mr. Tuberculosis. He's crying now that he's "sorry" that he may have put all those people at risk. Yeah, sorry his ass got caught is more like it. He says he didn't know he wasn't supposed to travel. Really? Then how come your sorry ass went to another European country and flew to Canada so you could drive into the country? Because you knew you were on no fly lists, that's why. And why do you suppose you were on no fly lists? Because you were a potential danger to passengers and not supposed to fly. Sorry, Mr. Lawyer, maybe you can fool a jury full of dumbasses (which, by my estimation, is about 75% of the population), but you can't fool me.

Now on to the meat of this post.

What is up with Homeland Security? A customs agent lets him pass into the country despite knowing that the man was being sought by health authorities. The guard decided that Mr. Potential Contageous "did not look sick" and so let him go. So now these guards think they are doctors and can make diagnosis on visual inspection? What if he was a terrorist on his way to New York City that had been infected with bubonic plague or something worse and was driving in while still asymptomatic. Gee, he didn't look sick? Gee, he didn't look like a terrorist?

We're screwed — and not in a good way.
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United 23

On Thursday, I watched a program called Grounded on 9/11 on The History Channel. The show details the FAA's response to the attacks on September 11, 2001 to order all planes out of the air.

Almost as an aside, the show's narrator mentions United 23 — a 767 headed for Los Angeles that morning. Apparently it was going to be another hijacked airliner. I did some searching on the web and the amount of info is limited and I had to do quite a bit of surfing to find much at all.

I did find a site about a book called Stand Down by Will Thomas. Here is a copy/paste from that linked site:

UNITED 23 TO LA THWARTED
United Flight 23, prevented from pushback by Norman Mineta’s emergency grounding orders. Onboard the fuel-heavy airliner three angry Arabian passengers loudly demanded that the flight proceed to Los Angeles. Kicked off the plane, the would-be hijackers vanished before police showed up.

The incident is mentioned on the site of U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk of Illinois...only it says the flight was going to depart from Newark to Los Angeles.

It is also mentioned on a site called Cooperative Research.

I can't find it now, but somewhere along the way of researching this I read that it was mentioned in the movie United 93 which I didn't see.

United.com now shows United 23 departs JFK to Los Angeles. They may have changed it but I doubt it. This is the second airport this story now involves as the point of departure.

Is this an urban legend?

Is this unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

Why is this the first time I've heard of it?

Have any of you, my gentle readers, ever heard of this???
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