what is true is that Timothy MC Vey killed 168 of his fellow "AMERICANS" and neither he nor his family have recieved the kind of rhetoric and Xenophobic slandar that "forignors" and Middle Easternors endur.
Lets take a look at this comparison. I'll try and shed some light on this.
There is no evidence to date to show that Mc Vey and his co-conspirators (not his family, not one person) were a part of a large, organized movement. While thousands of Americans disagree with our government, this event in OKC was an unusual, isolated case. The alledged connection between Al Queda and McVey/Nichols is still unproven.
Al Queda, on the other hand, has supporters and conspirators throughout the mideast and beyond. Their dedication is built on a religious fervor to kill the infidel (US) that very few muslims will stand up and publically disavow here. No one in the mideast will publically disavow the actions of Al Queda. Diplomats will do that in english, never in a language that the average arab will understand. They fear being targeted for death by a growing group of terrorists. In Saudi Arabia, the terrorists had easy access to visas for many months after the attacks. That means that THEY ARE HERE, and in undetermined numbers. They are completely indistinguishable from others arabs who are not terrorists.
While Mc Vey's family has not recieved "the kind of rhetoric and Xenophobic slandar that "forignors" and Middle Easternors endur" you have shown that you don't know at ALL what they HAVE endured. Death threats. Hate mail. Hate calls. Comments in supermakets. Almost every time they show their faces in public, something happens. They have become
pariahs.
In addition, WE OURSELVES have become suspects. US Senators. Medal of Honor winners. Children. The infirmed. ALL have been targeted at security checkpoints because we have some crazy interpretation about "equality". Are all of those who are being hasseled at checkpoints equally probable of being terrorists?
The truth is, we have very specific knowlege of who attacked us on September 11th. We know who supports them, and we know that they are mideastern muslim men between 17 and 40. We know that there were no American grandmothers, children, or senators. No nail clipers were used as weapons.
We know that very few others are motivated to join these cells. It would be even harder to infiltrate these groups. We know that almost ALL of their sympathizers will come from a very narrow slice of the world population. We know that the terrorists DON'T CARE if innocent arab Americans are suspects here. That's fine with them, since they hate THEM too!
If you take all of this into account, and you are surprised that good people can make the mistake of being fearful of people who have the same background and apearance as the terrorists, then I don't know how the situation could be made more clear.
To say that this is hapening because Americans are xenophobic about "forignors" shows a contempt for Americans that goes beyond this issue, and predates the attacks of September 11th.
So now we should go pick a war in the name of Peace!!
That's exactly what we did when we entered WWII and defeated three evil regimes. They almost took over the world, and they would have were it not for our sacrifices. They had limited means, compared to Soddam Husein. He threw out out weapons inspectors and kept on working on chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. He has had ten years to perfect them.
Apparently, you don't consider this guy to be a threat. Either that, or you watch Peter Jennings too much.