On Monday I wrote this:
The now official Republican approach of demonizing Muslims and riding a popular wave of suspicion against them is a national-security disaster. An America that treats Muslims at home as second-class citizens will be an America that will find its allies abroad unwilling to take risks on its behalf, it will find itself unable to exploit divisions between rival factions in conflicts overseas, it will find fewer family members willing to warn the authorities that their children are being radicalized, and it will produce fewer American Muslims who want to use their cultural knowledge of Islam and the Arab world in service to our military and law-enforcement institutions. Perhaps most important, singling out Muslims for scorn short-circuits what has always been one of America's strongest defenses against radicalism -- its ability to quickly assimilate new cultures.
One of the people I actually had in mind when I wrote that paragraph was Lebanese-American former FBI Agent and interrogator Ali Soufan, who had been deeply involved in the FBI's al-Qaeda related investigations since even before 9/11. Soufan was one of eight bureau agents who spoke Arabic fluently the day the planes hit the towers. Today, he weighs on the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero and its potential implications:
The potential damage to our national security is not only to our work abroad, but at home too. Today in America we are facing an increased threat of homegrown terrorism. While Bin Laden couldn't find a single American-Muslim to be part of the 9/11 plot, today, thanks to mixture of poor (and even harmful) leadership within the American-Muslim community and failed strategies from our government in dealing with the threat, some young Muslims are finding themselves increasingly isolated and marginalized--and are becoming easy prey for radicals.
Still, I think this may ultimately be Soufan's most important point:
To those politicians now saying a mosque can't be built near Ground Zero, I would like them to take a walk through Arlington Cemetery and learn the names and stories of American-Muslims who have died in service to our country. They should also learn a bit more about the victims of 9/11, such as Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Muslim-American who was a New York City Police cadet and paramedic. When he saw smoke coming from the Twin Towers he ran to assist, where he died helping victims.
Another Muslim who died in the World Trade Center was Mohammad Chowdhury who was working at Windows on the World to support his pregnant wife and daughter. He never made it home that day, and his son born 48 hours later never knew his father. Al Qaeda didn't differentiate between Muslims and other Americans when it hit the Twin Towers--and neither should we.
I couldn't put it better than that if I tried.
