Shooting Paintballs At Osama & Saddam Is A Hate Crime?

by John Hawkins | August 20, 2004 11:59 pm

This is small story that understandably hasn’t gotten a lot of press, but I think it’s more significant that it would seem to be at first…

“A live-target paintball game in which patrons take aim at runners dressed as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden[1] has drawn fire from critics who say the game is tasteless and can only encourage violence against Arabs.

“We don’t need any more games that would encourage people to hate Arabs or kill them,” said Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey Chapter of American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee[2].

Assaf has called on local officials to shut the game down, which he considers hate speech. He also wants Wildwood visitors to boycott it.”

First of all, this is off topic, but I don’t envy the poor guys who are running around getting shot at — paintballs sting! Especially from up close. I bet those poor guys are covered with bruises from head to toe every night when they get off of work =D…but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

What I really wanted to talk about was how little things like this are exactly why so many people tend to wonder who “moderate” Muslims are really rooting for in the war on terrorism.

I mean, if you’re getting upset that someone is shooting paintballs at Osama Bin Laden & Saddam Hussein, that in and of itself makes people question where your loyalties lie. I mean if back in say 1943, if you had someone of German-American ancestry getting all upset because someone was…oh, let’s say throwing darts at a Hitler cut-out, wouldn’t people start to wonder what was going on in their head? Wouldn’t people start to wonder why they were “defending Hitler”?

It’s no different today. If you think shooting paintballs at “Osama” and “Saddam” is “hate speech” against Arabs, doesn;t that mean you think that Saddam and Osama are representative, at least in a certain sense, of all Muslims or Arabs?

Furthermore, while I don’t doubt the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of American Muslims &/or Arabs to our country and while I’ve slammed even other Republicans[3] who act as if Islam itself is the enemy, I cannot help but be bothered by things like this.

This has been said before, but moderate Muslims &/or Arabs really need to speak out against terrorism & against radical Islam because although there are a few moderate voices out there, they are being drowned out by a sea of radical Islamist, pro-terrorist, Jihadis who treat Islam like some sort of fanatical cult run by an evil “God of Death”. Yeah, maybe moderate Muslims shouldn’t have to speak out against radical Islamists in an ideal world, but this isn’t an ideal situation.

You have Muslims sawing off the heads of innocent victims and crying “God is great” afterwards. Day in and day out in the Middle-East, anti-Semitic rhetoric matched only by the Nazis is being preached in mosques all over the region. And don’t forget all the Muslim terrorists that are blowing themselves up on buses filled with innocent people and flying into skyscrapers so they can have their “72 virgins” in heaven. Moreover, you have all of these radical Islamists specifically saying they’re doing this in the name of Islam, while moderate Muslims are at best not being heard, or worse, are not saying anything. Given that, how can anyone blame the average person on the street for wondering what Islam is really all about?

The world and even Islam itself needs more moderate Muslims to step up to the plate and be heard. I’m talking about people like Hirshad Manji[4] & the guys over at Iraq The Model[5] & Healing Iraq[6]. If we had more moderate Islamic voices like that out there, the planet would be better off…

Hat tip to Tongue Tied[7] for the paintball story.

Endnotes:
  1. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden: http://kyw.com/Local%20News/local_story_233094428.html
  2. American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee: http://www.adc.org/
  3. slammed even other Republicans: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/archives/week_2003_01_26.PHP#000610
  4. Hirshad Manji: http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/
  5. Iraq The Model: http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
  6. Healing Iraq: http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/
  7. Tongue Tied: http://www.tonguetied.us/

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