Penjihad's Blog

"To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"

Thoughts on Muslims arrested in Florida

“Florida Imams Arrested for Aiding Pakistani Taliban”

The imam of a Florida mosque and his two sons, one also a Muslim spiritual leader, were arrested on Saturday on charges of financing and supporting the Pakistani Taliban, U.S. official said.”

Like most Muslims, when I first read this news, I was stunned, “Not another one!” I thought to myself…Imams at that! I read that the imam exulted when he heard the news of five US soldiers killed in Afghanistan and said he wished they were 50,000 more and I was completely disgusted, “Put him in the deepest hole you can find!” I thought to myself. I wanted to hide my face before someone might ask me what I thought about the three arrested in Florida, what could I possibly say to them?

It took a day before I was able to think clearly and not react and reject the Florida three out of conditioned reflexes. Six people, including these three, were charged with, ““supporting acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming in Pakistan and elsewhere” carried out by the Pakistani Taliban“.

We need to calm down and not join the group-think of condemnation simply because the accused are Muslim and we represent the institutions of “Freedom and Democracy” that no right-thinking person should abandon. Group-think seldom results in Justice being served, but group-think often results in egregious miscarriages of Justice as the enforcers enforce the “law”, their supporters scream loudly for more blood while the majority gapes in patriotic silence; regrets only follow years later. We need to be certain  that the serving of JUSICE is not overcome by mob-politics.

Terrorism is a terrible thing, no matter whether it is conducted by our enemies or, by our friends (as it often is). However,” terrorism” has become such a fast-track to self-promotion for law-makers and law-enforcers, by laymen and faith-leaders and everyone in between. The targets of the “War!” on “terrorism, are Muslims…”out there” and right here.

The line being promoted is that Muslims in this country are all or, at the very least, “twenty percent” (according to most “experts” ) of all of us Muslims are waiting for “THE” signal that will turn us all into mindless killers,. out to destroy America. With an approximate population of 4 million Muslims in the US, that makes about 80,000 murderers loose among the righteous…enough to set all the bigots and the gullible in America, bug-eyed with fear and ready to do anything to us as long as America is kept safe.

Suddenly any act of bigotry against Muslims becomes an act to preserve America and therefore, becomes a very patriotic thing to do. Who is to argue? Do righteous ends not justify the means?

Before we rush to condemn the three in Florida and the other three in Pakistan of supporting the “Pakistani Taliban”, we must insist on proof, incontrovertible proof, that these people actually committed acts that would support the Taliban in a material way, that they actually gave the money they are supposed to have given, to the Pakistani Taliban. “Trust us” from our protectors, is not enough, we must insist on proof.

Muslims have been on the receiving end of many a kangaroo court in America where secret evidence and indirect linkages have sufficed to sentence them for years at a time. This in spite of Article IV of the constitution and the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the constitution.

After 9-11, the constitution became a nuisance in the interest of “keeping America safe”, we needed a fast-acting pill to stop the relentless attacks on America by people who “hate us for our way of life“; it is amazing how many good and sincere Americans still believe this ridiculous line. The USAPATRIOT Act was born, created by US Attorney-General John Ashcroft, just as Dr. Frankenstein created his monster.

This act does many things that wipe out constitutional protections…without amending the constitution. Somehow, our lawmakers have deluded America into believing that any law is just and constitutional if it is passed by our most conscientious law-makers; the Golden Gate Bridge is still up for sale too. Among many other ways to define “terrorism”, the USAPATRIOT Act defines support for terrorism as including support for the families of people who were associated with “terrorism” and families of those who died in the acts of terrorism because this would lend “aid and comfort” to the other “terrorists”. Even the children of people associated by us, with “terrorism”, must suffer.

This, of course means that if someone gives money to a shelter that may have provided material support to orphans and widows of ANYONE “suspected” of “terrorism”, then the donor can be indicted for supporting “terrorism”.

In effect, our need for control and vengeance has turned us into terrorists..

Adapted from The New Yorker:

While listing cases of false imprisonments of Muslims could take a book to write, we can just list a couple.

 Dr. Sami Al Arian, who was imprisoned for years and even after the courts exonerated him, the Gordon Kromberg, vengeful prosecutor in Florida, moved Dr. Al Arian to a Supermax prison where he was kept in sensory deprivation for almost a year. Today, Dr. Al Arian still rots in jail in testament to the force that can be focused by the anti=Palestinian, anti-Muslim groups in America.

Abu Ibrahim Sheikh Mohammed, a Somali cleric in Seattle was first tried for support of terrorism and later reduced to “lying on his visa application” because the terrorism charges became farcical. This was made into such a huge terrorism trial that when he was in court and Somali families came to have picnics on the court lawns in support for their imam, armed guards and snipers were positioned on rooftops to watch. Finally, when the “witnesses” were proven to be lying and it came out that they were paid $300,000 by the FBI for “expenses”, the charges were changed to visa filings.

We can go on…

The latest case of the three arrested in Florida, may have merits or, if it is at all like the many other cases against Muslims, it may simply be a case of federal fantasies gone crazy. We need to control our impulse to appear as the “good injuns” and supporting everything that looks like it is “protecting America” because in most cases involving Muslims, experience informs us that it is not.

Proof; clear, incontrovertible proof.

Before we lynch more “Muzlems“.


1 Comment »

  1. They are supposed to have sent $50,000 to support ‘terrorists’ over several years. If they were talking of $50 million it might mean something. This amount is so paltry it is ridiculous. How cheap do they think Pakistan is? And most of the weapons used are western anyway. It costs the US a few thousand dollars for a gallon of gas for their troops in Afghanistan. Would 50,000 be enough to equip one soldier with his battle gear including night vision glasses? Talk of the absurd and you have procecutors in Florida doing just that to get promotions, more money and maybe electoral victory from media induced paranoid mobs. The small amount of money was used to support some dirt poor girls receive Quranic education in Swat. Now could there be a bigger act of terrorizing ordinary law abiding folk across the ‘civilized’ world?


    Comment by Khalid | June 2, 2011 | Reply

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: