THE WISDOM FUND

TWF.org

May 15, 2010

The Washington Post
Compassion, prejudice and American Muslims
By Walied Shater
[The writer served as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service from 1995 to
2007.]
I woke up early on Sept. 12, 2001, to get ready for work. I put on my best suit,
my only custom-made shirt, my most expensive Nordstrom tie. I shined my shoes.
I was tense and nervous and did not know what to expect from my co-workers. I ha
d, by chance, been off duty the day before, the day of the horrific attacks on t
he United States, and of course by late evening on Sept. 11, the names of the su
spected hijackers began to come out. All were Arabic or Muslim names like mine.
Since January 2000, I had been assigned to the most important division in the U.
S. Secret Service: the Presidential Protective Division, commonly known as PPD.
I held a top-secret clearance, reported to the White House daily, and traveled r
outinely on Air Force One or Marine One with the president. I loved the experien
ce. I had never felt discriminated against at work or socially, except for a few
"terrorist" jokes. I was a welcomed and trusted member of the division.
Sept. 12 was different, though. Nineteen men had killed close to 3,000 Americans
the day before in the name of my religion.
As I entered the White House, I prepared myself mentally for the verbal barrage
to come. I had grown up a tough kid in Brooklyn and had been raised a proud Amer
ican Muslim.
As I walked to the office for agents on the president's detail, I was intercepte
d by a supervisor named Ron. When he asked to speak with me, I said I had to put
my equipment bag in the office and would come right back. I was trying to buy t
ime to get ready for what might come. As I approached Ron, a tall and strong man
in his early 50s, I thought, "Here it comes, stay cool."
Ron put his hand on my right shoulder and said: "Walied, I am glad you are here
with us today." My defenses crumbled, and my eyes welled up at this simple act o
f compassion. I said thanks and excused myself.
Ron stood up as a preemptive strike to anyone who might have said something to m
e that day. He told me I belonged. He embodied what was great about America. As
the day went on I felt ashamed of the fears I had felt earlier.
When I concluded my five-year assignment on the PPD in 2005, managers told me I
had led more presidential security advance teams than any other agent since 2000
. My wife and I were proud of my work and proud for a nation in which an America
n Muslim can achieve anything. That is America.
Today, though, American Muslims feel under siege. Too many feel the American dre
am is not for them. For a few, radicalization is the next step. Anti-Muslim rhet
oric has reached epic proportions in broader U.S. society -- largely tolerated,
rarely condemned. While "terrorism experts" cite frequent travel to Muslim count
ries or Internet videos as primers for radicalization, the core primer, which is
largely unremarked upon, is the siege mentality surrounding American Muslims.
Many factors contribute to this mentality, including rhetoric from fringe hate g
roups, the demonization of Muslims by Hollywood and repeated questions of loyalt
y by (conservative)
commentators. Nothing is more debilitating to the psyche of American Muslims tha
n to have those in positions of authority remain silent after such
comments or, worse, contribute to the hostility.
American Muslims notice when, as happened last week, the Naval Criminal Investig
ative Service stopped using an anti-Muslim film "Obsession: Radical Islam's Obse
ssion with the West" to train agents. But American Muslims also notice when a Fl
orida Republican candidate for Congress, Dan Fanelli, runs television ads in whi
ch he points to a white man and asks, "Does this look like a terrorist?" and the
n turns to an Arab-looking man and asks, "Or this?"
Or when Congress invites the preacher Franklin Graham to speak at the National D
ay of Prayer event on Capitol Hill despite Graham's infamous remarks about Islam
as a "very evil and wicked religion."
U.S. leaders need to do much more to help bring American Muslims into the mainst
ream. The president and others should follow the example set by former secretary
of state Colin Powell when he endorsed then-candidate Barack Obama on "Meet the
Press." Reacting to assertions that Obama was Muslim, Powell asked, "Is there s
omething wrong with being a Muslim in this country? Is there something wrong wit
h some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be presiden
t?"
Not just American Muslims but all Americans need to see and hear examples of peo
ple like my former supervisor and Colin Powell.
---
RE 9/11 see http://www.twf.org/911.html
---
May 12, 2010
The New York Times
Pakistan and Times Square
By Nicholas D. Kristof
If we want Times Square to be safer from terrorists, we need to start by helping
make Pakistan safer as well.
People with links to Pakistan have been behind a hugely disproportionate share o
f international terror incidents over the last two decades: the 1993 and 2001 Wo
rld Trade Center attacks; Richard Reids failed shoe bombing in 2001; the so-call
ed Bojinka plot in 1995 to blow up 12 planes simultaneously; the 2005 London tra
in and bus bombings; the 2001 attacks on the Indian Parliament; and attacks on t
wo luxury hotels and a Jewish center in Mumbai in 2008.
So it came as little surprise that the suspect in the attempted car bombing in T
imes Square, Faisal Shahzad, is a Pakistani-American.
Why does an ostensible ally seem to constitute more of a threat than, say, Iran?
Or Lebanon or Syria or Iraq? Or Egypt, birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood bra
nd of militant Islam? Or the West Bank and Gaza, where resentment of Americas Mi
ddle East policies is centered?
One answer, I think, is that Pakistans American-backed military leader of the 19
70s and 1980s, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, drove the country off course, seeking t
o use fundamentalism as a way to buttress the regime. Instead of investing in ed
ucation and infrastructure, he invested in religious sanctimony.
The public education system, in particular, is a catastrophe. Ive dropped in on
Pakistani schools where the teachers havent bothered to show up (because they ge
t paid anyway), and where the classrooms have collapsed (leaving students to mee
t under trees). Girls have been particularly left out. In the tribal areas, fema
le literacy is 3 percent.
Theres an instructive contrast with Bangladesh, which was part of Pakistan until
it split off in 1971. At that time, Bangladesh was Pakistanis impoverished cous
in and seemed pretty much hopeless. Henry Kissinger famously described Banglades
h as an international basket case.
But then Bangladesh began climbing a virtuous spiral by investing in education,
of girls in particular. It now has more girls in high school than boys, accordin
g to Unicef. This focus on education has bolstered its economy, reduced populati
on growth rates, nurtured civil society and dampened fundamentalism.
Educated girls formed the basis of a garment industry, making shirts for America
ns. This brought in currency, boosted employment and provided an economic lifeli
ne to the country. Those educated girls went to work for poverty-fighting organi
zations like BRAC and the Grameen Bank.
In Pakistans tribal areas, you can hear American drones buzzing faintly overhead
, a reminder of our focus on military solutions. Drones and hard power have thei
r place, but not to the exclusion of schools and soft power. An important 2008 s
tudy from Rand, How Terrorist Groups End, concluded that military force has rare
ly been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups.
I cant tell you how frustrating it is on visits to rural Pakistan to see fundame
ntalist Wahabi-funded madrassas as the only game in town. They offer free meals,
and the best students are given further scholarships to study abroad at fundame
ntalist institutions so that they come back as respected scholars.
We dont even compete. Medieval misogynist fundamentalists display greater faith
in the power of education than Americans do.
Lets hope this is changing under the Obama administration. Its promising that th
e Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package provides billions of dollars for long-term civi
lian programs in Pakistan, although its still unclear how it will be implemented
. One useful signal would be for Washington to encourage Islamabad to send not o
nly troops to North Waziristan but also teachers.
We continue to be oblivious to trade possibilities. Pro-American Pakistanis figh
ting against extremism have been pleading for years for the United States to cut
tariffs on Pakistani garment exports, to nurture the textile industry and stabi
lize the country. Pakistans foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, told me that
his top three goals are market access, market access, market access. But Washin
gton wants to protect North Carolina textile mills, so we wont cut tariffs on Pa
kistani goods. The technical word for that: myopia.
Education and lower tariffs are not quick fixes, sometimes not even slow fixes.
But they are tools that can help, at the margins, bring Pakistan back from the p
recipice. It has been reassuring to see the work of people like Greg Mortenson,
whose brave school-building in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in Three
Cups of Tea. Ditto for Developments in Literacy, or D.I.L., which builds schools
for girls in Pakistan that are the most exhilarating things Ive seen there.
It costs $1,500 to sponsor a D.I.L. classroom for a year, and thats just about t
he best long-term counterterrorism investment available.

---
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed wit
hout profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the includ
ed information for research and educational purposes.
NEW 364 page, 5th edition "THE WAR ON ISLAM"
FREE DOWNLOAD: 264 page, 3rd edition "THE WAR ON ISLAM"
FREE DOWNLOAD: "9/11 UNVEILED