March 1, 2002

                         YOU WORRY ME
  
By: American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco

"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, 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 it's religions, with ALL of it's different
citizens, with all of it's 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 it's flag? Do you proudly
display 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 members 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 Mulsims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate
Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have
befriended Israel, the ONLY civilized 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."