An Open Letter to Juan Williams
Dear Juan,
Sorry to hear you got fired by National Public Radio for saying on Fox that you get nervous when you see Muslims on a plane with you. It was dumb to say such a thing, but I don't think saying one dumb thing should be a firing offense. (I do think an NPR journalist wanting to take money from Fox News to be a regular commentator should be a firing offense, but that's another story).
But there's more to this -- and some important things that everyone is missing.
For instance, what you said about Faisal Shazad, the Pakistani immigrant who wanted to bomb Times Square. When he was being sentenced this month, he claimed, according to you, that his attempted attack was just "the first drop of blood." We can't let political correctness blind us to this, you explained.
I guess Shahzad made a big impression on you, because after being fired you went back on Fox and told them, "You can't ignore the fact what has recently been said in court with regard to 'this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war against America.'"
Sadly for you (and this is also why you shouldn't be working for a real news organization like NPR), Shahzad never said that. If you were a real journalist, you would have quoted him accurately. What he actually said was that he was the "first droplet of the flood," not blood. But I know how easy it is to mishear things when scary Muslims are talking. And I guess it's not a huge difference anyway.
What really matters is that you're 100% right: We shouldn't let political correctness stop us from paying close attention to what people like Shahzad say. The problem is you just haven't taken it far enough.
So Juan, I'm asking you to join me on a crusade -- whoops! scratch that, let's call it a "mission" -- to publicize these statements by Faisal Shahzad as widely as possible. Because most of the media have not spent much time on what he had to say.
Here's what he said at his recent sentencing (after talking about being a droplet in a flood):
[Saladin] liberated Muslim lands... And that's what we Muslims are trying do, because you're occupying Iraq and Afghanistan... So, the past nine years the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S., except for it has waken up the Muslims for Islam. We are only Muslims trying to defend our people, honor, and land. But if you call us terrorists for doing that, then we are proud terrorists, and we will keep on terrorizing until you leave our land and people at peace.
And this is what Shahzad said when he plead guilty back in June:
I want to plead guilty, and I'm going to plead guilty 100 times over, because until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.
Then there's email that Shahzad sent to a friend in 2006:
Everyone knows the current situation of Muslim World... Friends with peaceful protest! Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows? In Palestine, Afghan, Iraq, Chechnya and else where.
And then there's what Shahzad was telling friends and relatives even before that:
Mr. Shahzad had long been critical of American foreign policy. "He was always very upset about the fabrication of the W.M.D. stunt to attack Iraq and killing non-combatants such as the sons and grandson of Saddam Hussein," said a close relative. In 2003, Mr. Shahzad had been copied on a Google Groups e-mail message bearing photographs of Guantánamo Bay detainees, handcuffed and crouching, below the words "Shame on you, Bush. Shame on You."
So what do you say, Juan? Now that you have a new $2 million contract with Fox, let me come on with you for some in-depth discussions about the terrorists' real motivations. We can't let another day go by letting the PC brigade stop us from telling the truth: Terrorists aren't trying to kill us because they hate our freedom. They're killing us because we're in their countries killing them.
Yours,
Michael Moore
P.S. If you want to understand suicide bombings, be sure to read the new book that studied every instance of it for the past 30 years. It's been used by many groups of many religions, not just Arabs and not just Muslims. And almost all such terrorism has one motivation in common: occupation by foreign militaries.
P.P.S. Here's something else that I'd sincerely love to talk about with you: what do you think when you see rich middle-aged white men talking on TV about how they get nervous around African Americans on the street? And then they explain that we can't let political correctness stop us from talking about black-on-white crime?
Does it drive you crazy that they say this without even being conscious of the history of far greater violence by white people toward blacks? And do you maybe understand now how those middle-aged white guys get it so wrong?
UPDATE: Juan, you probably remember in 1986 when the Washington Post Magazine ran a Richard Cohen column defending jewelry store owners who wouldn't buzz in young black men. It caused such a big controversy that the New Republic ran a bunch of responses to it, including one by you. You might find it interesting to go back and read what you wrote then -- for instance, "Racism is a lazy man's substitute for using good judgment... Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me."
Follow Michael Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MMFlint
Your discussions will be very helpful Michael.
Mr. Moore says: "Terrorists aren't trying to kill us because they hate our freedom. They're killing us because we're in their countries killing them."
Let's analyze this: Terrorists (such as Shahzad) aren't trying to kill us (civilians and Times Square tourists) because they hate our (civilians and Times Square tourists) freedom. They're (people such as Shahzad) killing us (civilians and Times Square tourists) because we're (civilians and Times Square tourists) in their countries killing them (people such as Shahzad).
This raise a number of questions. Why is Mr. Moore so wiling to cede ownership of entire countries to terrorists like Shahzad? Why does Mr. Moore conflate the civilians and tourists in Times Square with the U.S. military? How are the civilians and tourists in Times Square responsible for the actions of the U.S. military? And isn't good to kill people such as Shahzad? Is Mr. Moore suggesting that if the civilians and Times Square tourists and the military they're responsible stop killing people such as Shahzad that they will cease attempting to murder civilians and Times Square tourists?
This HAS to be acceptable to the comment moderators.
Since Shahzad see's an attack on his country, religion and countrymen, he is responding in kind to demoralize our people and the government.
You see it as we're over there, knights in shining armor, fighting the good fight against evil and terrorism. The real of it is we're there fighting the good fight to further our own self interests. We've killed tons of civilians, accomplished nothing and the civilians on the receiving end are getting pretty tired of being bombed, shot at, forced to move, etc.
If we just left well enough alone, we would not be "ceding ownership of entire countries to terrorists." We would actually see a pretty sharp decline because all the religious fanatics wouldn't have a real enemy to whip up fervor over. As it stands now, they don't need to whip up an zeal because we're doing a fine enough job of it on our own.
If we left them alone, those wanting to get us out of the country and wanted the death to stop, would turn to rebuilding...at the least, there would be no one for them to focus
IF Mr. Moore really cared about getting out of the Middle East, he would have voted for or supported Ron Paul, the ONLY candidate we could have been certain to have gotten us out of the ME. There simply was no more important issue in the last presidential election.
In fact, Obama has EXPANDED the war that isn't a war to Pakistan and Yemen.
Shame on Democrats!
Terrorism continues because Obama keeps us in the Middle East. This is because terrorism has become a jobs program for Democrats and they need jobs! The more terrorism (or the hysterical thinking that there might be more) the more jobs created battling it. The money money security industry via government makes.
And the police-state grows, courtesy the Democratic Party.
Oh, and by the way. I never was violent to blacks and I don't appreciate that as a white woman I'm more of a target to black men than white men. Blacks may feel they have the right to attack me because some whites attacked their relative in the past, but that is NUTS.
It doesn't make it right and there is NO excuse for it. NONE
If anything we need to have a national discussion, air out all our opinions positive or negative, so we can move on and bridge people together.
http://covert2.wordpress.com
Keep marching with the right wing in this country that insist that they just hate our freedom or hate us because we don't worship their God. It has NEVER been about that.
And that is also the conclusion that Juan's rational mind eventually reached because he did not say something to any airline personnel.
The question is that ....after... your mind's low-level pattern recognition ability alerts your hi-thinking centers that some "unconnected dots" are giving you deja vu about another passenger....
and ...before.... your rational mind reaches the logical conclusion that if it really was OBL our 100% reliable (well, less than 100%) security would have read the man's passport and if it said "OBL" the computer would have said "arrest him; he is on the #1 most wanted list."
So how many seconds pass between those two points in time? 0.5? 1.0? 2.0? what?
And during that measurable moment in time your emotion centers are "dropping deuces."
see p2
So even after your rational mind reaches that conclusion, your body has already pumped adrenaline and it takes another 30 seconds for those chemical levels to drop. It's the old 'fight or flight response." It is wholly independent of the rational mind.
Also, like you said, if it is someone , not obl, just someone dressed like obl, on what grounds would security have for not letting the person through?
And if it was obl, how hard is it to get a fake passport for a multi-millionaire guy deep into the terrorist world where everyone has a valid fake passport?
Most likely the whole time you are flying until you are out in the parking lot at your destination your conscious mind will float up another "What if?" and your body would repeat the whole fight or flight scenario.
If you have a pre-existing heart condition, you could actually go into cardiac during the 2 hour flight.
So hey, maybe it IS a threat to see someone in those OBL costumes.
123anon 14 hours ago (10:49 PM)
43 Fans
Thus speaketh the Wiki
Government
Main article: Federal government of Iraq
The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution as an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as numerous independent commissions. Aside from the federal government, there are regions (made of one or more governorates), governorates, and districts within Iraq with jurisdiction over various matters as defined by law.
This is a reply to thread:
start:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/VermontTraveler/juan-williams-is-right-po_b_772766_64995179.html
Dan's last reply (no reply button):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Dan_Same/juan-williams-is-right-po_b_772766_65222945.html
My last reply:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/123anon/juan-williams-is-right-po_b_772766_65268122.html
Pure poetry. Fav'd. This is the tyranny the Founders fought against.
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I'd mark that abusive but the abusive button here has spotty results when it is used to flag a liberal abusing something conservative. Almost ends up counting against the flagger.
Perhaps they need "abusive to conservatives", "abusive to liberals," "abusive to all."
Might also do the same with "favorite."
Check out links from 12:17 AM
Meanwhile, according to Pew, half of Egyptians and more than 80% of Palestinians think suicide bombing is often, sometimes, or on occasion, justified.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1338/declining-muslim-support-for-bin-laden-suicide-bombing
If a foreign country was occupying OUR country with military force that has cost the lives of thousands of innocent people and you were asked if it was justified under some circumstances to kill the people doing it... What would YOU say?
Is that the truth of what is going on, maybe not... But that is the way they see it. They want to defend their country and way of life from a FOREIGN MILITARY FORCE!
If a foreign country was occupying OUR country with military force that has cost the lives of thousands of innocent people and you were asked if it was justified under some circumstances to kill the people doing it... What would YOU say?
Is that the truth of what is going on, maybe not... But that is the way they see it. They want to defend their country and way of life from a FOREIGN MILITARY FORCE!
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"What would YOU say?" No. In no scenario should you suicide attack. In no situation should you intentionally target civilians.
WW2 was fairly extreme however when we bombed Germany, for several reasons we aimed just at industrial works.
When we bombed Japan it was weird because Japan is tiny and crowded and ww2 weapons were blunt and huge.
Even in Japan, both with the fire bombing and the nukes, it can be said that we never sought out pure civilian areas and avoided military areas.
Yes there were huge numbers of civilian dead. At the end of the day we have to remember that if Japan or Germany's excellent scientists had invented the nuke... just let your mind wander.
But to reiterate, No.
1) Do not suicide attack. (throwing your body over a hand grenade to immediately SAVE life is heroic).
2) Do not intentionally attack pure civilian targets.
I didn't think so.