Bullshit in Brooklyn

The Los Angeles Times (login and password = 456123) has this story on the plight of terrorist cells operating in the United States.

Days like last Wednesday are designed to make the rest of the nation feel safer. Starting at 6 a.m., armed, body armor-clad officers of the FBI, Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service swarmed the neighborhood, knocked down doors and arrested 19 people, mostly of Yemeni extraction. Sixteen were accused of money laundering, one was charged with fraud and two with forging identity documents.

This does make me feel safer. I am glad that we are raiding the operations centers of the people related by blood to those who would attack America.

"It's odd," said Emira Habiby Browne, executive director of the Arab-American Family Support Center in Brooklyn. "While the rest of the country seems to slowly forget the impact of Sept. 11, people here feel more and more under siege."

You don't like it? Then get the hell out of here. Take your fake Yemeni visas and get the hell out of our country!

Earlier last month, on different occasions, an FBI agent wired with a recording device bought a Yemeni divorce decree and birth certificates stamped with Yemeni government seals from each place. He wasn't asked for any identification, and the kiosk proprietor, Ali Hamdi, simply made up the fictional mother's name, according to the agent's affidavits for arrest and search warrants. Each document cost $70 and took less than an hour to make.

The agent also stated that the Saba Travel office had counterfeit seals from federal and state agencies that could be used to make fake U.S. documents.

Send these folks back to the desert! We have enough productive, law-abiding illegal immigrants as it is. We do not need criminals who would do all they can to support factions that would destroy this country. Send them back to the desert! If they jaywalk, if they make a turn without using their turn signal, if they bounce a check, if they do not have the proper documentation, send them back to the desert!

"This is a delicate time, and if you're doing something wrong, you should pay for it," said Ismail Hassan, a real estate agent and notary who lives next door to Saba Travel. "But I know this man. He may have documents to facilitate immigration to America, but he is not engaged in criminal activity to aid and abet terrorism." Hassan waved his arm toward the sidewalk filled with shoppers and baby strollers. "There are no terrorists in this neighborhood."

Creating and possessing documents which facilitate immigration to America from the Middle East IS a criminal activity and DOES aid terrorists. Yeah, and there are no terrorists in Hebron or Nablus either.

People avoid banks because they don't know enough English to fill out the forms, or their home villages are too far from a bank branch, he said. Western Union charges a hefty commission on both ends.

Almontaser would put people in touch with others who were going back to Yemen and could carry cash or checks to families, or arrange for someone to make a payment here to be collected in a remote Yemeni village the next day.

People avoid banks and other legitimate forms of money transfer because the sender and recipient can be tracked. Terrorists do want law enforcement to be able to follow their money. Law-abiding immigrants should care little if their funds are moved through a legal, regulated system.

"Sept. 11 hurt everybody, but we have been hurt three times over," he said. "As Americans, as part of the Muslim community and as Yemenis."

September 11, hurt America in many ways many time over. It hurt us because America and our standards were attacked. It hurt because we were attacked by members of the Muslim immigrant community. It hurt because the attackers were supported - were aided and abetted - by members of the Yemeni immigrant community. And now you think we should let bygones be bygones? You think we should let the Muslim and the Yemeni and the Muslim-Yemeni immigrant communities continue to plot and scheme as if September 11 never occurred?

I think we should send them back to the desert.

Jonathan 7/01/2002 09:24:00 AM