Hate is just an emotion...

ever heard of the ripple effect?

What an emotion it is though.

I watched a documentary on the Lackawanna 6 last night. The Lackawanna 6 is six American citizens who were one of the first terrorist sleeper cells to be discovered after September 11.

Lackawanna is a Yemeni community in Buffalo, NY – 100 or so years ago several hundred Yemeni immigrants came to the USA to work the steel. The steel is no more, the jobs are gone, and Lackawanna is just like any other community in America’s rust belt – if not dead, close to dieing.

The 6 Arab-Americans had all been born in America, living fairly normal lives, the questions needed to be asked, what would inspire these American citizens to commit a terrorist act against their own country? What could possibly inspire the hatred within that would be required to commit such an atrocity?

The youths began to falter from their strict culture, joining the other youths on the street, and doing whatever it is youths in the poverty stricken towns of Buffalo do, I won’t be so brash as to assume, but you get the idea.

Arguments were stirring between the youths and the elders of the Lackawanna community; typical problems of troubled youths feeling the generation gap… then a preacher came… a Yemeni by the name of Kamal Derwish The elders were very happy with this cleric, he was appealing to the youths, and he kept them of the street.

Derwish kept the youths of the streets with home prayer meetings. At first they were conducted in a peaceful and friendly fashion, within the confines of the homes of the community, very slowly and gradually, the prayer meetings became anti-American vitriol, with Derwish showing videos of Muslims suffering across the globe… Impressionable youths were easily swayed to the dark side.

Derwish encouraged the hatred, informed the youths of the Al-Quada training camps in Afghanistan, and soon enough, the original six were on their way… They were Mukhtar Al-Bakri, Sahim Alwan, Faysal Galab, Shafal Mosed, Yaseinn Taher, and Yahya Goba.

It was about this time (Spring 2001) that the FBI in Buffalo received an anonymous letter from an Arab American within the Lackawanna community informing them of the 6 American citizens going to the training camps in Afghanistan – detailing what the plans were. This anonymous letter was disregarded as a hoax. American citizens were invaluable to Osama bin Laden and his network, they would be protected by the American constitution and could not be arrested upon suspicion, Osama actually introduced himself to one of the six…

The resulting investigations show that Derwish had in fact recruited many more than the original 6 during his short stint in Lackawanna – it was clear his job was recruiting for the Terrorist network. The investigations were also successful in ostracising the Muslim community from mainstream America… Muslims were being stopped in the street and thoroughly checked in view of the general public.

This leads me to the question, Arab Americans enjoyed the same liberties as regular American’s before 9/11, however, they now feel isolated and ostracised – like they are dogs to be spat on in the street. This isn’t coming from my mouth; it’s coming from the Muslim communities of America, articles like this help me understand why they feel this way.

Derwish was assassinated in Yemen by the CIA, the Lackawanna 6 have been tried and convicted for conspiracy to terrorise, in spite of the Lackawanna communities disposition that those individuals would not be capable of such atrocities, however, the charged emotion from September 11 remains, and one would have to ask, would that anonymous Arab American put pen to paper in today’s environment to warn the FBI?

I hope so.

BAM!!!

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