FROM A PILOT'S PERSPECTIVE: "YOU WORRY ME"
By: American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco
March 10, 2002

I've been trying to say this since 9-11. I guess I will be labeled as a bigoted American.

You worry me

You worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets
of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with
the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country.

But you don't blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me. I
notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands,
professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow
citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand
their grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify
the inhumanity of their attacks.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in
my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally
stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed
them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise
grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless
public servants, and children's mothers.

So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be
consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the
soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American,
trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe
world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim
terrorist.

How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the
Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our
parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR
constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those
very same good neighbors and children?

The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my
responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with
ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with ALL of its
faults. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it
for me.

I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or
not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly
display it in front of your house or on your car? Do you pray in your
many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and
prosper it?

Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"? Are
you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that
was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their
lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by
paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America? If this is your commitment,
then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.

Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this
time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking
as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent
because I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign
overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry
about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy. I
am only interested in action.

What will you do for America -- our great country -- at this time of
crisis, at this time of war? I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN
flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting, "Allah Bless America." I want to
see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment
of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole.

The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the
WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities.
You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now!
But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I
have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter.
You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security
guards at your facilities.

You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from
reprisals. The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared
in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned
with making sure that the United States prove who was responsible before
taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow
Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad
than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi,
Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance
and peace and love for all people ~ then I want chapter and verse from the Koran
and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up.

What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true
when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism,
and intolerance? It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large
numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed
incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that
has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure
is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose
members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose
members defended Johnny Cochran and O.J. Simpson after the latter
butchered his wife and murdered an innocent friend. A form whose members
(some as young a five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week
out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies
of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons
into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only
to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of
their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling member
refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.

Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show
their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore?
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner,
or celebrate Christmas? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because
we have befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the
entire middle-east? And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the
world are you even here?

Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and
stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I
want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like
rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your
family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE!

We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your
twisted, violent, intolerant religion.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that
matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under
the greatest Constitution in the world.

I want to know where every Arab/Muslim in this country stands and I think
it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to
demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and
sisters who died protecting the very Constitution that is protecting you
and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here
as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there
can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is
up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand.

Until then…. you worry me.

~Afterward~
I think this should be sent to everyone that has an e-mail Address. These are my
sentiments exactly. The Muslim world needs to draw a line and the American Muslim
Community needs to step forward. The ones that do not should be deported.

LET'S COVER THE COUNTRY WITH THIS ONE!