|
 Excuse
Me????
CAIR to the aid of illegal aliens...
[by Laura Mansfield] 4/13/06
Contrast
the audiotapes of a man quietly repeating “Oh my God, Oh my
God” to his father as he watches as the airplane he is on,
along with his wife and 2 1ž2 year old daughter, crash into
the World Trade Center, with the shouts of convicted terrorist
Zacarious Moussaoui damning the courtroom to hell.
We have Moussoui’s
attorney pleading that his client be spared the death penalty
because of his mental illness and begging the court not to
allow his client to fulfill his dreams of martyrdom.
We have a
man sitting in the courtroom, daring the US courts to put him
to death in effect martyring him to his god. Moussaoui, a man
who could have saved the lives of those murdered on September
11, 2001, had he chosen to tell investigators the truth about
the 9/11 plans, is proof positive that mental illness does
not preclude a person from being a terrorist and a murderer.
Contributor
Laura
Mansfield
Laura Mansfield is a writer and commentator on issues regarding the Middle
East, Islam, and Radical Islamic Terrorism.
Subscribers
to her Strategic
Translations and Analysis service include major
libraries in the US, the UK, Germany, and Italy; various
US and UK governmental and intelligence agencies; law
enforcement agencies in the US, UK, Italy, and Germany;
and many Fortune 500 companies.
She
is a regular subject matter consultant for news agencies
in the UK, the US, Germany, Italy, and Israel. [go
to Mansfield index]
[go to Mansfield website]
|
One
Nation Under Allah
by
Laura Mansfield
|
Inshallah
by
Laura Mansfield
|
So I find
it completely amazing that Ahmed Bedier, director of the Tampa
branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
says "It's just sad that he would be treated as some sort of
criminal or terrorist" when speaking of a twenty-year old Moroccan
who has been imprisoned in Tampa on charges that he threatened
to “blow up” the University of South Florida soccer coach.
It’s not
like the University of South Florida is paranoid about Muslims.
They have a long track record of “diversity”. Remember, USF
is the former employer of Sami Al Arian.
I don’t see
any comments from Bedier about the fact that this Mouad is
in the United States illegally.
What’s a
20-year old mentally ill Morroccan doing in the United States
alone anyway? How did he get here? Who paid for his plane ticket?
Is Nabil
Mouad a terrorist?
I don’t know
whether he is or not.
What I do
know is this. My oldest daughter looks distinctively Middle
Eastern. She has been taught that because of her appearance,
her behavior must be beyond reproach. When she flies, she knows
better than to joke about such things as terrorism and hijackings.
Frankly, in a post-911 world, those topics are not humorous.
If Mouad
is schizophrenic, then what is he doing here in this country
on his own, illegally? Where is his family? Why aren’t they
trying to help him?
Mental illness
and terrorism are not mutually exclusive, as the case of Zacarious
Moussaoui demonstrates clearly.
Some believe
that mental illness in fact makes a person more likely to follow
a path of terror.
Certainly
not all mentally ill persons are terrorists, or even potential
terrorists. But those who threaten violence, mentally ill or
not, must be evaluated..
Law enforcement
cannot afford to not investigate threats. They can’t afford
to not take threats seriously.
Not anymore.
We’ve seen what happens when they do.
CAIR-FL:
Schizophrenic Man Jailed as ‘Terrorist’
Source:
St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA
- When he's not in a cell as wide as he is tall, Nabil
Mouad uses one of his two free hours a day playing the
only sport available in jail, basketball. All the while,
he wishes he could play soccer, which was his life, his
dream, his goal.
"When
I have a problem," he said, "I play soccer and I feel free."
But
soccer is also in part how Mouad, a 20-year-old Moroccan
in the United States illegally, ended up in an orange jail
suit, pink plastic slippers and constraining cuffs in a
Falkenburg Road Jail interview room, explaining how his
passion for the sport, mixed with mental illness, led to
a bizarre clash with the University of South Florida soccer
coach.
Locked
down 22 hours a day with no possessions besides a Koran
and a bedsheet to kneel on for prayer, Mouad has been isolated
for his own protection. In the minds of other inmates,
his Muslim faith and the report that he threatened to "blow
up" the coach add up to terrorist - about as popular as
a child molester behind bars, jail Capt. Tom Bliss said.
Mental
health workers say Mouad's story is common: A man suffering
from schizophrenia has no family support, stops taking
his pills and gets entangled in the justice system.
But what makes him different, they say, is his racial and
religious background in the post-9/11 world, where no threat
can afford to be taken lightly. His advocates wonder if
jail is really where he belongs.
"It's
just sad that he would be treated as some sort of criminal
or terrorist," said Ahmed Bedier, director of the Tampa
branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. ONE
copyright
2006 Laura Mansfield
§
|
