Sophisticated Ignorance

The reason that the pioneers of this country set out from England was to establish settlements free from the King and Church of England’s scrutiny over their religious beliefs. Its a shame that at a time that presidential candidates are claiming to be more like their forefathers, they’re acting more like the old country’s king. The Crustades continue…

It recently came to light that the NYPD used money given to them by the Obama & Bush administration to monitor Muslim communities in the northeast. Yes, that means that a city police department went outside of their jurisdiction to keep tabs on people solely because of their religious background. O.o 

How can actions by the police department be applauded by NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg? Sure, it was horrible that the 9/11 attacks occurred and that the devastation has changed the lives of New Yorkers forever. Does that mean that from now on, all people of Muslim faith or Middle Eastern descent should be tracked due to the actions of extremists?

I — like every other American who was old enough to grasp the brevity of the attacks— remember where I was on that fateful day. Here we are 9 years later and I, personally, feel like many injustices have [and are] been/been carried out instead of actively pursuing the factions that were actually behind what happened. An entire religion is not to blame.

Add to the fact that recently, after Qurans were burned in Afghanistan by American soldiers, people took to the streets to protest. Unfortunately, the protests have turned violent. Military leaders have all but shirked taking responsibility for the gaffe and tried to frame the protesters as violent people.

If we’ve learned anything from the 2005 incident where a Danish newspaper included an illustration of the prophet Muhammed among its political cartoons, it’s Muslims do not play when it comes to their religion.

Violent mobs took to the streets in the Middle East. A Somali man even broke into the cartoonist’s house in Denmark with an ax

The fact that the Taliban is trying to capitalize on the incident to incite even more anger at America isn’t surprising. It’s not like we have a great track record with the Afghan people. We’ve been occupying their country for 10 years much to their dismay. It doesn’t take much to piss them off and we went for the all-time high score.

When President Obama apologized to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai for the incident, he was criticized. I’m going to hold off on my thoughts about anyone attempting to chomp off the leader of the free world for another peace [Politricks as Usual], but there has to be something said about the people vying to the chance to lose test their political mettle against Barack Obama in this year’s presidential election.

To claim that because the act wasn’t deliberate, it doesn’t deserve be apologized for, Rick Santorum, you prove to the American people that if we elect you, it’ll be like putting a feeder fish into a shark tank. For Newt Gingrich to call Obama an appeaser—when realistically, [along with strides for peace,] he’s continued the previous administration’s practices for pissing off the Middle East [Attack of the Drones, anyone?]—is straight pandering for anything to attack the president on.

Kirsten Powers does a great job of taking the GOP to task for their attacks.

Back to New York. While followers of the Islamic faith were marching in the streets against the Danish newspapers in 2005, The mosque attenders here that the NYPD were secretly keeping tabs on were calling for peaceful boycotts. 

“They’re viewing Muslims like they’re crazy. They’re terrorists. They all must be fanatics,” said Abdul Akbar Mohammed, the imam for the past eight years at the Masjid Imam Ali K. Muslim in Newark. “That’s not right.”

To be fair, acts of terrorism across the world have been carried out by Christians of caucasian descent for hundreds of years. When does that investigation begin?