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NEWS
Contemplations on a meeting
with Congressman Mark Kirk (IL-District 10)
Northbrook, IL- A.
Youssef wrote on 10/20/02 with a follow up on 10/16/04
I met with the 58th
and 59th districts republican state senators (Marc Brown and
Kathy Parker) and congressman for 10th district Mark Kirk at a
supporter’s house in Northbrook.
Major
points:
 | Parker is the 8 years
incumbent but has a very tough race with Suzan Garrett. |
| Marc Brown is a businessman and this is his first time in politics. He
seemed very green even on local issues. |
| Kirk is a hawk with a
military background and one of selected 9 congressmen that were assembled to
be briefed on the Middle East policy in the White House. He is the president
of the congress transportation committee and a member of the armed services
committee. |
| He stated “he thinks
that the risk of sending American people in harms way is less than the risk of
Sadam.” He explained that the current thinking of the administration that war
is the last resort. |
| On the allies: He
explained that he "would rather have other allies’ planes flying next to him to
show how lonely Sadam is, and to serve as targets then only his plane to be
attacked by the Iraqi." Congressman Kirk explained that the Soviet Union resisted
the war because Iraq owes them $10B. However, they talked to the Iraqi
opposition, who promised to pay them the debt! France’s position is because
they wanted to sell oil-drilling equipment to Iraq. He said they [France]
would change their stand soon, since the Iraqi opposition had assured them to
buy their equipment. |
My questions before and
during the meeting were about the stand of each candidate on the issues of
profiling of Muslims and Arabs, and the lack of release of the names of many
detainees, which is unconstitutional. I asked Marc Brown: What is your
stand on sending the troops of this country to fight over in Iraq, N. Korea and
Iran? I repeated the same
question in the same setting to senator Parker and congressman Kirk and I did
not really get any straight answers.
The two senators responded
to my questions about their stand on profiling that "they were more concerned
about traffic, etc.." even though that senator Parker stated that she established
antiterrorism bill (helped by the Jewish federation). This bill was the only
support for the police to go against an organization “Bridgeview” with a legal
claim of terrorism based on a local law. [She probably meant Global Relief], as
she was proud to state.
I responded to the two
senators that there is no difference between local and international issues as
we learned form Sept 11th and that "all politics are local". I also
told them that you as senators you get to vote on the international issues.
However, they deferred the question to Congressman Kirk to answer.
Specific questions and
answers for Congressman Kirk:
Q: What checks and
balances that we have in place to guard against the backlash that may happen due
to the war in the Middle east against Middle Eastern looking (may be Muslims on
Christians) that lived and love this country?
A: Congressman Kirk
answered that he always tell others that the people of “middle eastern origin,
who speak Arabic or Farsi with no accident, are assets to be cherished and used
by the CIA.”
Q: Isn’t true that the CIA's
report did not support that Iraq is a present and imminent danger?
A: Congressman Kirk
answered “It is absolutely false that the CIA
report stated that Iraq is not a current danger. He said he was personally
briefed.”
Other questions came form
the audience:
Q: why did the democrats
resist the war resolution if they were briefed with the same information that
revealed how dangerous is the Iraqi situation?
No direct answer, except
that they ended up supporting the president.
Congressman Kirk considers
congressman (McDermott), who co-chair the (congress kidney foundation) with him,
a liability. He stated that he is un-patriotic since he went to Baghdad and
called president Bush a liar.
Congressman Kirk stated
that Bush Senior and Clinton refused him the right to get 1000 green cards. But,
Bush Jr. gave him this right, so now he “can get Dr. Taha out”, who is in charge
of the nuclear program in Iraq with her family and she can be debriefed”.
A question (from the
audience) about letting Iraqi scientist that will get green cards under Bush
resolution to move over with their families to give information to the US to
come to the US and not to Jordan, where they can be in danger.
Congressman Kirk answered
that these Iraqi scientists would not want to come here “anyway”. His reasoning
was that “they speak Arabic” and “they are Muslims”.
I told Congressman Kirk
after the meeting that people in the Muslim and Arab community feel torn when
they know that their taxes are going to be used to kill their relatives back
where they came from.
10/16/04 Follow up
commentary:
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The Russian and the French still did not join the war,
and the Iraqi did not pay them what they owe them. The US asked all countries
to forgive at least 50% of Iraq’s debt. |
|
The CIA information turned out to be inaccurate and two
committees concluded that there are no WMD. The major Iraqi figure from the
opposition turned to be collaborating with Iran and gave misleading
information to the administration (Ahmed Ghalabi). |
|
Many Iraqi scientists were available and some of them
surrendered in addition to the list of 52 of the old Iraqi regime and Sadam
personally. No information were collected from them. |
Both Ms. Parker and Mr. Brown lost in 2002. Mr. Kirk is running for
reelection this year.
What did 35,000 Muslims do when they met on Labor Day 2004
Rosemont, IL-D. DePalma wrote
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) held its 41st annual convention
over Labor Day Weekend (Sept. 3-6) in Rosemont, IL. Some 35,000 attendees, 600
vendors and journalists from 15 countries amassed at the convention site for
this major intellectual and cultural event for American Muslims. Annual meetings
for MYNA and MSA were also held alongside the ISNA convention. The following
summary is based, in large part, on a closing session at which several selected
individuals offered their own summaries of the various sessions they had
attended.
The overall theme of the ISNA convention was Islam: Dialogue, Devotion &
Development, and the inaugural theme was "common ground," rather than "clash of
civilizations," reflecting what one speaker called the change in mentality after
9/11 in which faith communities are reaching out to each other instead of
keeping to themselves.
In addition to the dozens of sessions on the themes of dialogue, devotion and
development, and the huge "bazaar" (featuring everything from books, CD-ROMs,
DVDs, dolls, toys, clothing, food, and services), there was also:
o an interfaith banquet at which Dr. Sherif Bassiouni was honored
o a "meet the authors" event
o an art exhibit
o matrimonial networking
Under the "dialogue" theme, major sessions were held on these topics:
-- What is a dialogic home (defined as a home where there is free communication
as a model for the larger community). Dialogue must be between parents and
children, between spouses, and within the community and on an interfaith level.
-- Listening to the African-American Experience
The voices of African-American Muslims have been on the periphery, and there is
racism in Islamic organizations in the U.S. African-American and immigrant
Muslims have common ground and need increased dialogue. Immigrant Muslims can
learn a lot from the experience since African-American have been striving for
acceptance rather than assimilation, which is what immigrant Muslims are also
striving for.
-- Beyond a Mono-logic Community (a community void of diversity of thought and
sustained dialogue). We need a multi-logic community. Why? Because a fundamental
tool of spreading Islam is discourse. (Note: There are many other reasons why we
need a multilogic community!)
-- Developing a Meaningful Human Rights Discourse
Parallel sessions were held on:
-- Media. Recommendation to avoid victim mentality/blaming media for images of
Muslims; work WITH the media, and support broadcasters that do good, fair
reporting to audiences that are already open-minded (such as PBS)
-- Prepare crisis packages. Recommendation to designate speakers in advance,
w/stock answers by those who can well represent our organizations
-- Build alliances with other organizations
-- Try to understand audience (adversary vs. someone who's curious). Explain
facts with simplicity and do not denigrate audience's understanding of their own
faith.
Dr. Jamal Badawi who summarized the sessions had attended that were devoted to
the "development" theme reminded us that he almost didn't come this year. He
expected the same old thing, but realized this time that the ISNA convention was
like the Muslims' "Super bowl" -- a lot of things to lots of Muslims. We come
for lots of reasons -- and their all okay...from socializing/matrimonial to
self-development to shopping. I especially appreciated those comments!
A session on Leadership Development reminded attendees that our leaders are the
face of our community. Developing qualified leaders (in and outside our
community) is very important. That development starts with the development of
the individual. Key components for leadership are to learn the content, to read
and reach out to others who are knowledgeable, and to fully embrace the search
for knowledge.
A session on the challenge of engaging Muslim youth emphasized that 50% of
Muslims in the U.S. are less than 20 years old. There is a risk of failing to
institutionalize Islam in the U.S. if we fail to engage our youth. It is
critical to balance American pop culture with Islamic culture. One strategy that
is often overlooked in addressing issue is the "ask our youth" what they think.
Experience since African-American has been striving for acceptance rather than
assimilation, which is what immigrant Muslims are also striving for.
STATISTICS
The Commonest Name (The Economist, March-2004)
In Brussels, the capital of the European Union, Muhammad has been the most
common name for new-born boys for the past 4 years.
Where Women Rule (Utne Reader, September-October 2004)
Percentage female representatives in national legislatures worldwide was
compared across 50 highest ranked nations showed Rwanda ranking first at
48.8%-due to the genocide. Australia (25%), Pakistan (21.6%), Canada (20.6%) and
USA (14.3%) as number 25th.
Death Figures (The Lancet, November 2004)
The casualty figure in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003
is 100,000 dead.
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