Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Ohio Men

AP reports today that three “Ohio men” have been indicted on terrorism charges alleging that they “planned attacks to kill US and coalition military personnel in Iraq and other countries.”

Yeah, “Ohio men.” I’m sure an underground cell of fanatic Buckeye fans meeting at the pool hall on the outskirts of beautiful Anytown, Ohio are all hatching plots against those dastardly US military personnel over a few beers.

Of course, we’ve all got a pretty good idea what sort of “Ohio men” we’re really talking about here, even if AP wants to write the story without using the terms “Arab” or “Muslim” even once. God forbid the media recognize anything resembling the concept of nationality, or notice that there are real differences, sometimes lethal ones, between people.
The conventional wisdom looks pretty on the bullseye to me – not even the AP avoids giving the names: one Mohammad Zaki Amawi, apparently a citizen of both the US and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; a Marwan Othman El-Hindi, a US citizen born in Jordan; and finally, Wassim I. Mazloum, who came to the US from Lebanon in 2000.

One of these “Ohio men” has also been accused of twice threatening in conversations to kill or injure the President.

No doubt about it, “Ohio men,” probably even on the voter rolls. They were going to practice their demolitions skills setting off bombs on 4 July 2005, so that explosions wouldn’t be noticed while other Ohio men were setting off firecrackers.

Yeah, maybe the “Ohio men” are innocent, but I’m not putting anybody’s Ohio farm on it. Gotta make the ritual salaam to “innocent until proven guilty” though, which is more than the “Ohio men’s” friends in Iraq would be likely to do.

If these guys are guilty, it’s almost too bad they didn’t make it to Iraq, where some real Ohio men could turn them into chopped liver.
But more importantly, this little article, and the built-in, so politically correct, conceit that, despite our different backgrounds; differing religious heritages; different nationalities; different upbringings -- that all people are functionally the same, cookie-cutter interchangeable, captures perfectly for me all that is wrong with our political and media elites. It is delusional to assume mere possession of a passport, or entitlement to same, makes all who live here automatically the same. Most immigrants assimilate, but some do not, and it is patronising in the extreme, and whistling past the graveyard, to discount background: to assume that nationality and religion simply do not exist. Our enemies certainly do not.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohio huh ? Wonder who they voted for last time ?

Anonymous said...

Back in the 70s there was a movie, Network, I think. The gist was the broadcast tv stations had broken from reporting the news and gone to sensationalism, fiction, grandstanding, hyperbole, etc. ratings were everything. At one point one of the networks suggested (as opart of its news???) for everyone to stick their head out the window and yell"i'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

In the 70's this was way out there and hilarious. In 2006 it clearly has become reality.

Does objectivity or factual even exist anymore?

Baron Bodissey said...

I don't think those guys are Jamaat ul-Fuqra, from what I read in the news reports. If they are, they must be the overseas "handlers" of the American members.

They're probably Tablighi Jamaat, though...