Arab Americans Should Accept Security Checks

Re “Arabs in Florida Angered by Bush,” Oct. 4:

The Times quotes Arab Americans in Florida upset with President Bush and Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft’s post-Sept. 11 policies for what a Kerry campaign e-mail called “racial profiling” and “unfairly targeting Muslim and Arab Americans.” Well, are we not at war with radical Islamic extremists? If so, then how do we discern which Muslims are friendly and which are terrorists?

Terrorist Muslims do not have the word “terrorist” written on their foreheads. Unless we look into suspicious behavior of those fitting the terrorist descriptions, which are people of Arab and Muslim backgrounds, how can we know who is friendly and who is here to kill us?

Let us not forget that many of the Sept. 11 terrorists were living in the United States for several years before they killed thousands of Americans.

Not looking for radical Islamic terrorists in Arab or Muslim communities would be like not looking for the Ku Klux Klan in white neighborhoods. Rather than getting upset with Bush and Ashcroft for trying to protect all Americans living in America from being killed by radical Islamic terrorists who may still be living here, Muslims living in the U.S. should express their outrage at their fellow Muslims for putting peaceable U.S. Muslims in this position to begin with.

Rod Guyton

Torrance

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This was a very disturbing, disappointing, divisive story that can only serve to anger most non-Arab Americans.

Who were the terrorists of 9/11?

Who are the terrorists that teach young adults the “glory” of wrapping their bodies in bombs to kill as many citizens as possible?

Who are the terrorists that use car and truck bombs to kill as many citizens as possible?

Who are the faceless terrorists shown on TV who stand over bound persons and gruesomely cut off heads?

Instead of joining all Americans in disgust for the evil perpetrated by fanatic Muslim terrorists regardless of ethnicity and showing reasonable support for government measures to prevent more murderous acts, we get a politically driven story about Florida’s angry Arab population.

The elite print media in the United States, with their political liberalism quite apparent especially during election years, try hard to sway the views of more moderate and conservative Americans. However, with trust in the U.S. media at an all-time low, the public may be immune to these divisive stories.

Vi Patmas

Mission Viejo