Letter to an American Muslim

#111 by tahmed32
Tahmed Saheb, I think you understand better that there are some worst loonies like UrsTruly and Grand Jehadi Strategists like General Romair who are willing to provide more than intellectual support to the Al-Qaeda brand of Islam. These are OUR guys who are willing to shout the hoarsest and meanest and are OUR Problem- because the white guys sees them shouting and thinks that WE are silent because we implicitely aprove and agree to whatever profanities they shout as muslims about the whites. It is important that such guys must be NOW considered as ``Dangereous`` who are constantly trying to MARGINALIZE our voices.
WE have to SPEAK and not let these loonies drown our voices in their gun fire.

``.....Like it or not, the Islamists are an integral part of Pakistan. In the event of a war, ONLY these Islamists will sacrifice their lives for Pakistan, whereas America will suddenly develop dyslexia ....``

#155-157 by HisExcellency

``But let`s not deprecate the larger role played by Hekmatyar, Sayyaf, Dostum, Rabbani, Khalis, Qazi and Fazlur Rehman by calling Masud the ``leading figure in the anti-soviet struggle``.

``Silent Soldier: The Man behind the Afghan Jehad. (Akhtar Abdur Rahman was Zia`s ISI chief and died with Zia in the Bahawalpur crash).

Jami`at-e-Islami (led by Prof. Rabbani), Hezb-e-Islami (led by Hekmatyar), Ittehad-e-Islami (Sayyaf), Jamaat-e-Islami (led by Qazi Hussain Ahmad), Jami`at-e-Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman, Sami-ul-Haq and Sattar Niazi factions), etc.

So now you are defending the most despicable characters of Pakistan History. These scumbags and bachaa Baaz are responsible for drugs, Kalashnikov, and Jihadi culture, and sectarian violance that exist in Pakistan now. They are the master killers and the friends of the thugs from Tora bora. Anybody who supports them and still lives in the US must insure that he/she has a good defense of this support. I need to protect my family and I will do whatever necessary to do that. Let the chips fall where they may. I am taking screenshots of your posts.

“Like it or not, the Islamists are an integral part of Pakistan. In the event of a war, only these Islamists will sacrifice their lives for Pakistan, whereas America will suddenly develop dyslexia (like it did in 1971). Spurning our true friends for the sake of an unreliable ally is not really a good policy in the longer run.”

Here it is obvious that you are suggesting that the Jihadi, the scumbags, the supporters of your friends in Tora bora, are the true friends of Pakistan.

Did you say in the event of war? We had a war in 1965 and then in 1971. In ‘65 they never left their caves and in 1971 they were busy killing Bengalis in Bangladesh. They were the first one to disappear when the Indian Army showed up. Now don’t explain to me the difference between the JI and JUI they are all the same. They are Traitors and destroyer of Pakistan. These money grabbing scumbags are a curse for Pakistan.

Taking your arguments apart on educated level would be degradation of the education.

If somebody defends these scumbags I doubt that he has any education at all.

#111 by tahmed32

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The anti-US demonstrations by these mullahs has not been cost free to Pakistan
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The demonstrations broke out only after the Americans started bombing Afghanistan without building a coalition first (most unlike the Gulf War of 1991 when the war didn`t start until 5 months after the invasion).

In addition, the American troops and Northern Alliance resorted to gross war crimes against Afghans, many of whom were neither Taliban nor combatants. Remember the 40 odd Afghans who were killed at a wedding party? Remember the dozens of Taliban prisoners who suffocated to death in a container while being escorted by Northern Alliance troops? Remember the hundreds of Taliban prisoners who were executed in a Mazar-e-Sharif jail by Dostum? Remember the mass graves found in Herat by Amnesty International?

There is a difference between a just, multi-national war on terror... and a trigger happy American crusade against poor Afghani Muslims. The Mullahs were demonstrating against the latter, not the former.

Maybe these demonstrations discouraged US investment in Pakistan. But we should also keep our priorities right. National cohesion and unity is more important than foreign investment in the longer run. Pakistanis should not let any country ``divide and rule`` them by economic incentives.

Like it or not, the Islamists are an integral part of Pakistan. In the event of a war, only these Islamists will sacrifice their lives for Pakistan, whereas America will suddenly develop dyslexia (like it did in 1971). Spurning our true friends for the sake of an unreliable ally is not really a good policy in the longer run. A better policy would be to embrace both.

tahmed32 # 154 - Your point that ``The US, being a democracy, has self-correcting mechanisms like this built in`` is quite cute, and anyone reading it is tempted to nod his head in agreement while sipping coffee in front of computer screen in a warm cofy room somewhere in US.

Please try telling this ``self correcting`` theory to any of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, who had missiles and bombs dropped on their heads only a few months ago; who are facing checkpoints in their own homeland; whose homes are getting raided; who have turned from the second largest exporters of oil to the net importers of oil; who stand in 3 mile long lines to fill up a tank of gas. Being the uncivilized people that they are, they might ask you a stupid question ``Tahmed32: How does this `self correcting` theory bring back my mom and my dad who were incinerated when a 1000 pound bomb dropped on their shack?``

Or if ``thousands`` of dead iraqis is not a big enough number for you, tell this to millions of vietnamese. ``We saved the village by setting it on fire`` is how a US general explained his orders of first surrounding and then setting fire to a vietnamese village. Tell this happy theory of ``self correcting mechanism`` to those millions of vietnamese who lost their lives; to those hundreds of thousands mothers who are still giving birth to severly deformed babies due to the mustard gas and agent orange use by americans some 30 years ago. How did the ``self correcting`` mechanism from lessons in vietnam stopped US from killing hundreds and thousands more in the years since vietnam?

And when you are telling this ``self correcting`` mechanism to those stupid people, I am sure they will all stand up and applause. Way to go America, is what they will say. This theory will bring them immense comfort and they may even forget their lost loved ones.

Not to cause you any discomfort, but I wonder if would have put this much faith in the ``self correcting`` theory if all your family had been incinerated by a ``smart bomb``.

Perspective changes quickly when one is on the wrong end of the stick !

#111 by tahmed32

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The leading figure in the anti-soviet struggle was Ahmed Shah Massoud
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Mr. tahmed32, this is a fallacy which has been disseminated by Northern Alliance and Indian media, for obvious political reasons. I recommend a reading of Mark Adkin`s Afghanistan: The Bear Trap - The Defeat of a Superpower as well as Muhammad Yousaf`s biography of Lt.Gen.Akhtar Abdur Rahman, aptly titled Silent Soldier: The Man behind the Afghan Jehad. (Akhtar Abdur Rahman was Zia`s ISI chief and died with Zia in the Bahawalpur crash).

The Afghan Jehad did not have a central character. It was a potpourri of commanders, each operating in his own territory. Ahmad Shah Masud operated in the Valley of Panjshir and led the Tajik resistance against Soviets. He was a brave commander, but not the commander-in-chief of the Afghan Mujahideen.

FYI, Tajiks represent only 20-30% of the Mujahideen. The rest (Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Pahaaris) fought under their own commanders. The Uzbeks e.g. fought under General Dostum who controlled Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. The Pashtuns from western Afghanistan (Kunar province) were led by Prof. Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. The southern Pashtuns were led first by Gulbadin Hekmatyar, based in Jallalabad. Later one of his deputies, Yunus Khalis (based in Kandahar) formed his own faction of Hizb-e-Islami to fight the Soviets.

On the political track, General Zia formed a 7-party alliance including Jami`at-e-Islami (led by Prof. Rabbani), Hezb-e-Islami (led by Hekmatyar), Ittehad-e-Islami (Sayyaf), Jamaat-e-Islami (led by Qazi Hussain Ahmad), Jami`at-e-Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman, Sami-ul-Haq and Sattar Niazi factions), etc. This 7-party alliance was responsible for recruiting Mujahideen and countering the RAW/KHAD propaganda. Ahmad Shah Masud was not included in the 7-party alliance. This is because he didn`t have a political party. He was a brave commander, but not a leader with millions of followers. And commanders can only lead battles, not freedom struggles.

Let`s give Masud due credit for his role in the Jehad. But let`s not deprecate the larger role played by Hekmatyar, Sayyaf, Dostum, Rabbani, Khalis, Qazi and Fazlur Rehman by calling Masud the ``leading figure in the anti-soviet struggle``.

hossp,

.............. thanks for your rigorous defense of the much maligned neighbourhood bar - i always knew i was fulfilling a social obligation by frequenting these venerable institutions ......... cheers! ........ if only mrs hamidm was as understanding... sigh!

152 by Urstruly:

Are you performing the ``stonning of Satan`` ritual, here?

Urstruly: There we go! I told you to swim with the truth, not against it. Because ultimately truth wins out. And you actually came up with a fine example of how the truth came out on the WMD. Now all you have to do is to start practicing to swim with the truth.

Here are your homework assignments:

1. David Kelly was not murdered. The truth came out with the Hutton commission yesterday, and Tony Blair and his government was exonerated of any wrong-doing in Kelly`s death. INSTEAD, the truth came home to roost in the BBC, whose Chairman resigned in the face of the truth.

Repeat the above three times.

2. Americans are not the big satans. The truth is that Bush is under the most severe criticism by Americans themselves. Ritter and Kay are both Americans - and the Congress itself sat and listened to Kay yesterday. Ritter was on C-Span this morning. THere is a 9/11 commission looking into who knew what before 9/11. The US, being a democracy, has self-correcting mechanisms like this built in. There is no place for Satan in the US. Plenty of places for Satan to hide in the muslim world though, where a mountain of falsehood is used by islamists to hide the peaceful and profoundly democratic message of the Quran.

Repeat the above three times.

Speaking of truth and lies, it was interesting watching the crow still croaking about WMDs in Iraq last week. I mean four weapon inspectors, Scott Ritter, David Kay, Hans Blix, and David Kelley who was murdered to keep his mouth shut have told repeatedly in no uncertain words that there are and there never were WMDs in Iraq. They have even checkd Saddam Hussains mouth and probably his rectum as well but couldn`t find anything. I mean this is what is called chori aur sina zori. Is there a wonder why americans are called big satans in rest of the world.

“It is not based on everyone dressing and doing the same thing. It is based on everyone dressing the way they want, living any way they want, saying anything they want. This is what made the society great.”
“He can stand on top of the Washington moument steps and say everyone in his own country is a bast*rd for fighting in Vietnam,”-Romair #145

Romair, clearly your knowledge of the US is extremely limited. This is a conservative country. Yeah! You do what you want but everybody in his or her right mind or from the mainstream would call you crazy, whacko, or lunatic. Especially when you get to the part of “say what you want.”
Try saying something funky and somebody would pull your plug out on you or you would head out to an asylum. May be you are already living there. How do I know for crying out loud?
Every society has people that live on fringes. They don’t define the society-they are misfits. They are the filth of the society. It is ignorance that causes you to believe they that they define the US society. They are the outsiders they are not the standards on which this society stands on. You can’t just assume that this society encourages misfits; it does not. It finds it convenient to just ignore them.

Contrary to your thesis, societies evolve by using every day dynamism, Conforming or non-conforming.
*
- He has to work hard
- He has to pay taxes
- He has to not break the law
- He has to not bother his neighbors
*** -Romair.

These things can fit in any country what is so unique about them. Isn’t that what people are supposed to do in Pakistan too?


“If other Americans now start discriminating against them for not shaving their beards and for praying on Friday and for preferring religious gatherings over Super Bowl bashes, then they should also force all the other non-conformists to conform, as well.”

The religious freedom is almost always guaranteed by all civil societies barring a few like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan which explicitly declare some people non Muslim.

I think you need to understand what conformist and non-conformist are. In your own dreamed up world non-conformists are equal to crazies. That is far from the reality. Non-conformists do not say crazy things. Only crazies do; and there are some more crazies out there that call them non-conformist.

“This is why no one can say with certainity where USA will be in 200 years”

So you know where other countries would be in 200 years?

Urstruly #142 You are grasping at straws to avoid drowning in the truth that is all around you.

The first step in becoming a swimmer is to lose your fear of water. Similarly, the first step to living the straight life is to lose your fear of the truth.

Thanks Ali, for a very thoughtful and thought provoking article.
I wonder if there is some contradiction in the following two sentences.

``First, develop a voting bloc.``

and

``The success of other ethnic groups has derived from their “mainstreaming”. ``

I understand that they are in different contexts and they are not in actual contradiction to each other, but isn`t there something terribly wrong with a group(religious, country of origin, ethnic, etc) which votes absolutely in one way. Are you not proving your detractors right, by affirming that you are a member of that group above all other things.
Regards,

Romair #145 I agree with what you write - i.e. that the US is indeed the land of liberty where as long as you work hard and dont bother your neighbors you are free to live your life as you please.

I disagree only with the last para: The jews have a special history that goes back a thousand years. They were segregated in ghettoes in europe, were cursed by the christian priests (who laid the infamous ``blood libel`` upon them - i.e. that they drink the blood of christian babies), they had their homes burnt from time to time in pogroms (in france, germany and russia), were required to wear the infamous ``yellow star`` at times (e.g. france in the 15th century). The ``yellow star`` humiliation in fact they shared with the muslims who lived in france (few though they were) at the time (according to historian Barbara Tuchman in her excellent book on 15th century europe titled ``A distant mirror``.

So, when muslims in the US compare themselves to the way the jews were treated, they merely indulge in hypocritical self-pity. What they complain about is the result not of discrimination but of legitimate security measures that the US has had to take to prevent another murderous attack of the kind that took place on 9/11.

hamidm #137: So that`s what you mean by merlot and bars! It is a metaphor for the good life. We had a ghalib in our midst and we hardly knew ye!!

Forget Bars.

You go to your neighborhood gym, and you see pencil-leg, pot-bellied 55 yr old mr shanmugan in the shower (not a pleasant site) after his doctor recommended spin class, 40 yr old gupta in the steam-room discussing merits of VOIP stocks with o`hara in his thick saharnpuri accent, and then you almost bump into ``dave`` chen walking around in canvas shoes, brown shanghai socks and not much else. where do the brothers go? i have seen some occasionally enjoying a brotherly game of raquetball, but NEVER in the shower! is there any truth or i am just bigoted? (and i know nothing about mrs sharma or noor aunty, but i might understand that).

hamidm #137: ``............... by this time you should know that my use of ``the bar`` and references to ``merlot`` are purely symbolic .............. kind of like the old poets` use of ``beloved`` to refer to a fictitious deity and ``ishq`` to symbolize infatuation with imaginary gods ...........

...... the bar could be the ball-park and merlot could be a lemonade................``

Wah! Wah! Do we have a Ghalib in the making :-) Actually, all this time, I thought you actually meant, ``merlot`` and, ``the bar.``

I have to make one point. For a person who believes in the values of the USA, I think you maybe missing out on the basic essence of the American society.

The American society is not based on conformity. On the contrary, it is based on challenging conformity. It is not based on everyone dressing and doing the same thing. It is based on everyone dressing the way they want, living any way they want, saying anything they want. This is what made the society great.

It has that one quality that every society needs to succeed, i.e. fluidity. It adjusts and changes as time passes. And these adjustments and changes are not due to the influence of conformists, who force everyone to be like them, or force everyone to be like a picture perfect representation of Uncle Sam. It is due to the ability to accept all ideas and all wierdos into its society, and even gaining from the thoughts of these wierdos.

This is why no one can say with certainity where USA will be in 200 years. It maybe all Christian, it maybe all Athiest, it may be all Hippies, it maybe all Chinese or Indian or Hispanice. And it may even be all Muslim or Hindu. It will allow all these ideas to compete with each other, letting the best one win out. Rather than forcing all ideas to conform to what exists in the present.

According to the American ethos, anyone who does the following things is American. After doing these things, he can do whatever he wants. He can have gay sex, he can have sex with ten different people (even simultaneously), he can wear wierd looking black and white clothes and ride around in horse- buggies and refuse the luxuries of electricity, he can wear even wierder black clothes, and have long curly hair with a cap on the back of his head, he can worship the devil and have weekly devil-worshipper meetings, he can color his hair purple and dye his shirt orange and buy an beat up volkswagon van and say hari krishnan the whole day, he can stand on top of the Washington moument steps and say everyone in his own country is a bast*rd for fighting in Vietnam, and he can wear conical white hoods and hold weekly meetings discussing the black race. He can, if he has enough influence, even distort the whole US foreign policy and use it to defend a distance state, and even create unnecessary enemies for the USA, itself.

And yes, he can also have a long beard, and take a vacation on Eid, and not drink wine and take extra long lunch breaks on Friday and not watch baseball.

What does he have to do to achieve these rights:

- He has to work hard
- He has to pay taxes
- He has to not break the law
- He has to not bother his neighbors

Once he does that, then within the boundaries of his own community center or house, he is more than welcome to do any of the things in the previous paragraphs.

Pakistani-Americans do all the four things above. And they do them well. After that, the basis of the US social system allows them the right to conform on other issues if they want, or not conform if they don`t want to. If other Americans now start discriminating against them for not shaving their beards and for praying on Friday and for prefering religious gatherings over Super Bowl bashes, then they should also force all the other non-conformists to conform, as well.

And if the USA has reached that stage where it is forcing conformity, then I am afraid it has lost the basic aspect of its society that made it great. And if one is forced to conform, then one might as well move to Saudi Arabia.

The future of Pakistani-Americans will not be changed by what they do or don`t do. They have been doing the same things before 9/11, that they are doing today. They were and are a successul, law-abiding part of the US society (Abdul and non-Abdul). There future will be decided by how strong the built-in dampers in the USA society are able to withstand discriminatory ideas, as well as the thought process of the majority population. And on how well the Pakistani-Americans can organize themselves to handle these changes.

Do keep in mind that the Jews throughout Europe and USA did all they could to conform to the mainstream ideals. However, they were still discriminated against. They only achieved equal status when the majority changed its views and accepted them and when the Jews themselves organized themselves into successful pressure groups.