Posted on 05/12/2006 7:28:59 AM PDT by Houmatt
A Washington-based Islamic lobby group is spreading word of an incident it says raises concerns of a backlash against Muslims prompted by the first-run film "United 93," which recounts the hijacked flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9-11.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said a middle-aged couple in Scottsdale, Ariz., who had just seen the movie approached three young Muslim women wearing head scarves Apr. 29, reported the California Aggie, the campus newspaper at the University of California, Davis.
The young women, at the Desert Ridge Marketplace, said the couple asked them if they were Muslim. The couple, indicating they had just seen the film, hurled abuse, the women said.
"Take off your f-----g burqas and get the f--- out of this country. We don't want you in this country. Go home," the couple allegedly said.
One of the women happened to be Bushra Khan, office manager for CAIR's Arizona chapter, who sent a message out to all 31 of the group's offices nationwide.
Khan told the campus paper she's concerned "United 93" -- which some critics say comes too soon after 9-11 -- is prompting the kind of anti-Muslim anger seen immediately after the attacks on New York City and Washington.
"People's emotions are getting flared again," Khan said. "The couple's verbal abuse had obviously been prompted by their associating all Muslims with those who took part in the 9-11 terror attacks."
The spokeswoman for CAIR's Sacramento Valley office, Dina El-Nakhal, says the incident in Arizona has affected Muslim communities nationwide.
"It certainly got us concerned," El-Nakhal told the UC Davis paper. "People feel a sense of fear. You feel like you are being painted by a general brush."
The images in the film of terrorists as devout Muslims misrepresents the majority of Islam's followers, she said.
However, CAIR itself, and some of its leaders, have known ties to terrorism. The group is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a "front group" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
CAIR's leaders also have provided evidence the group has aims beyond civil-rights advocacy.
As WorldNetDaily reported, CAIR's chairman of the board, Omar Ahmad, was cited by a California newspaper in 1998 declaring the Quran should be America's highest authority.
He also was reported to have said Islam is not in America to be equal to any other religion but to be dominant.
Hooper himself indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants to see the United States become a Muslim country.
"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the paper. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."
However, "The images in the film of terrorists as devout Muslims misrepresents the majority of Islam's followers, she said," is the article's biggest lie.
According to Thereligionofpeace.com, Islamic terrorists have carried out nearly 5,000 terror attacks after 9/11. That's a lot of attacks in four and a half years. If you are going to tell me only a minority of Muslims committed nearly 5,000 attacks in four and a half years, I am going to put a dunce cap on your head and sit you in the corner.
Good for that couple.
My question is - what other religion espouses and carries out terrorist actions at even a fraction of what Islam carries out?
We can barely get Americans upset at Mousssoui for killing 3,000 of us, I don't think many Americans are randomly yelling at Moslems. I like Moslems.
I say, Good for them! My reaction on seeing any woman in the hijab is 'what an idiot!'
However, since this incident is reported by CAIR, one must treat it with the appropriate skepticism.
I doubt the incident of harrassment recounted in the article even occurred. If it did, it was probably staged. Even if not, harrassment or poor manners cannot be equated to acts of terrorism.
My comment , exactly
Who the heck is "Hooper"?
Maybe if more of "them" spoke out against the terror, we might believe them.
Red flags! Alarms sounding! Sirens ringing! Hip waders alert!
Let's hope these emotions never cool off! Everyone needs to see the movie and everyone needs a picture of the planes exploding inside the twin towers stuck to their refrigerator or home bulletin board.
Hmmm... for some reason, I'm having a really hard time giving a tinker's damn about that.
Why is this organization in our country? I think the answer - the truthful answer - would send chills up my spine.
Regular Muslims or main stream Muslims? (aka the MSM)
"CAIR is made up of bald-faced liars "
This is a very tired tactic. Public hand wringing about backlash fears to pre empt backlash. CAIR attempts to charge the environment, and sensitize the left. This has the effect of bringing severe repercussions for any real backlash.
Unfortunately, tired or not, it works. The left is easily led, that is their nature.
Obviously, I have a bias, I wouldn't mind seeing a little backlash.
So? For now, this is still America and citizens can speak their mind.
Who should fear it most the Muslims or the Liberal Democrats? That should be the real question.
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