I have been writing and rewriting this stupid blog like a junior high school kid with a love letter. Nothing is coming out the way that I want it to sound so I’m just going to get on with it and let you decide how it is.
Having said that, the other problem is that it’s a sad day when a person has to think twice about what they say or how they say it in regards to their own government. I swear to God, I never would have thought that I would be saying that in the good ‘ole United States. I mean come on, that’s the kinda shit that people living under Soviet rule had to deal with. Or like people that lived in Albania under that little freak Enver Hoxha, where if you criticized him you were breaking the law. And now here, in the land of apple pie and fake tits, ignorant little men that to me have a gnomish look, minus the beard, say things like “you are either with us or against us.” Well damn, what if I simply don’t agree? Does that mean that I have to be necessarily against you? Isn’t it my right to agree or disagree? And even be critical if I want?
From what I know and have seen and read, this isn’t the case anymore. It reminds me of a conversation that I once had with an older man in Arizona. We were discussing the militias, and also just your average citizen, that felt the need to keep a loaded rifle and an Alice Pack next to their beds. The man said that this was nonsense in regards to the day that our own government would turn against us. He likened this to the “crazies”, as he called them, of the 50’s and 60’s that felt the need to build nuclear bomb shelters under their house. The man said that in every generation there was a threat, always unsubstantiated, that people were afraid of. He was mainly basing this loose theory off the idea that just because World War III never happened, and on that one the games not over yet anyway, anyone who prepared for it was one of the crazies. He was basically saying that people have always been afraid of some conspiracy or another, but that in the end there weren’t any Boogie Men in the closet, so everything is always going to be just peachy.
Now I look back on that conversation and wonder who is the true crazie? In just the last seven years we have seen things happen, and laws made, that had you have told somebody about this a decade ago they would have called you loony for sure. I probably would have been one of the first ones to call you loony. During the late 90’s, while employed by we all know who, I was on this major America is the greatest place on Earth kick. I would sit there, in foreign countries, and argue the most hardcore “Islamic Radical” into a corner. And I did this on many an occasion. These were the times when people still remembered what the CIA did for the Afghan Mujahideen, and forgot what the CIA didn’t do for the Afghan people. These were the times when, at least in my circles, I rarely encountered a Muslim in the world who viewed the United States as the “Great Satan.” These were the times when a young American kid put on the Woodland pattern BDU’s that he was given in Kashmir and the guys from Harakatul Jihad cheered because he “looked like an American soldier.”
These were also the times when there was what many considered an unwritten truce between the Mujahideen of the world and the “west”, meaning mainly the United States, the UK, Germany, etc. The truce was that they don’t mess around in your backyard and you don’t mess around in theirs. Let them fight the Soviets, and post Soviet regimes, and in return they won’t fight you. Basically, as unbelievable as these words are now, live and let live. Just look at the Bosnian war. There were scores of young Muslims from the UK who not only fought in Bosnia against the Serbs, but who came home to free medical care. In those days the only “Muslims” in the UK talking shit about the west were government provocateurs. At the time it wasn’t understood why these big mouthed people who had never fought anybody, does the name Omar ring a bell, were allowed to talk so much garbage that didn’t make sense to anybody, neither the Muslims nor the government.
Well back on subject. The point was that a lot of Muslims in the world believed that America was a pretty nice place to live, so why fuck it up? And even more so for those of us that are both, American and Muslim. And then suddenly everything changed, and see I got you there, I wasn’t going to say “with Sept. 11th” like you thought. Those of us in the know saw the writing on the wall as far back as ’98-’99. Suddenly things began to shift. Three young fighters from some Arab country were picked up in Albania en route to the fight in Kosova, at CIA request, and sent to Egypt were they were unexpectedly executed. This was by far the only incident, and surely one of the less important ones, but I use the example simply because I know that it happened. If you will recall, I too was picked up in Albania that year, and amazingly was accused of having something to do with the Bombings that had taken place in Dar as Salaam and Nairobi. The shift had taken place. I was in Washington D.C. with my bosses when the above mentioned events went down. And to even suggest such a thing would have been to imply direct U.S. Government involvement which is obviously not the case. The point that I am making here is that whoever was behind the shift wasn’t going about it very responsibly. A lot began to change, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure of my own arguments anymore.
Each time I left the country and reentered in those pivotal couple of years my treatment became worse. During one particularly ridiculous incident of harassment upon coming back from wherever, I almost did what I wasn’t allowed to do by telling them whom I worked for. The Customs people were crossing the line, they obviously didn’t know who I worked for, but did know that I was a Muslim. The treatment wasn’t only unwarranted in my case, it was down right degrading. Again, somebody was changing the way things had been, and we could see that something bad was going down. Then came the big event, Sept. 11th.
Although shocking, it didn’t come as a surprise. Immediately there were more questions than answers. I am not a 9-11 theorist, and I’m sure that all of you have read both sides of opinions about what happened that day. Some opinions are outrageous, but I think that it would be just as outrageous to simply accept the “facts” at face value. That a hijacker’s passport could survive the inferno that engulfed the planes as they slammed into the buildings, and then flutter unharmed to the rubble below, is as unbelievable as the claim that the American Government was directly behind the events. But just as there are doubts concerning what really happened that day, considering a couple of the supposed hijackers family’s came forth and said “hey, our son died a couple of years ago so why is his face on the news,” so are there in turn doubts as to whether or not a few individuals in the government DID have prior knowledge of what was coming. Outrageous you say? Well what about the fact that the hijackers all had a meeting in Kuala Lumpur prior to Sept. 11th, and the CIA recorded the meeting? What about the Mossad agents that lived across the street from Muhammad Atta in Florida and no doubt bugged everything that he said while there?
So, is it so outrageous to question whether or not a few individuals could have allowed a major act of terrorism to happen without stopping it to further whatever goals they have? And more importantly, we have to look at how that day not only changed the world, but our lives here in the U.S. as well. And believe it or not, this is where this blog really starts, that was just the prelude. Next, I want to talk about how eleven men, (actually I don’t know the correct number but it’s a large group close to eleven), who all have the same names, and are all on the no-fly list. When the absurdity of it isn’t in the fact that obviously all of the guys with the same name can’t be the same person, the absurdity of it is the fact the original name holder who was a “bad guy” has been dead for some time now. So why isn’t there a system in place where the group of guys can all prove that each one of them isn’t the original bad guy, and thereby fly again.
Or if a child appears to be on the list, why doesn’t someone have the discretion to say, “ok, this kid must have the same name as some bad guy, so the kid can fly.” Equally as bad is the fact that many people on the no-fly list aren’t bad guys at all and don’t share the same name as some bad guy. There are people who are on the no-fly list who shouldn’t even be on the list to begin with, and they to have no recourse to fight back and fly again.
To be continued...
In the meantime, check out some other people who worked for their country and then ended up on the no-fly list:
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