"Burn the Quran" Farce

It’s going to be really bad! I mean REALLY bad! This was all I could think of as I read the MSNBC article about the Florida pastor who is organizing the “International Burn the Quran Day” in Florida on the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

I had a sinking feeling right away. It awakened memories of the Muslims’ protests against the satirical cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Mohammed five years ago.

I could see it again: protests, attacks on embassies, burning flags and attacking westerners.

This is such a bigoted and improper provocation of Muslims around the world. In fact, it is a killing of all what has been built of good will between Muslims and the rest of the world for the last few years.

Before heading to work this morning, I watched the pastor’s interview on CNN International. I focused on what he was saying to the anchor and noticed that he is totally ignorant of what Islam as a whole is and how different it is from Islamic fanaticism.

I could tell from the way he was talking, he was yet another Sarah Palin-like bigot and no more than that. No intelligence and no logic.

The Huffington Post quoted him in an AP interview, saying, “Instead of us backing down, maybe it's to time to stand up. Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior."

Well, let’s see. First he criticizes the Muslims of being violent when he himself is inciting violence. If he wasn’t, then why wouldn’t he find other alternatives “to stand up” and “not tolerate” their behavior? Isn’t it better to think logically and sit down with Muslims and hear from them directly or is it just an excuse to do something that may cause fury around the globe and probably create a religious war?

On the other hand, he is being smart. He is using THE most powerful weapon to poke the bear! He knows very well that the holy Quran is far more important to Muslims than the cartoons that were published in the Danish press. He knows that this may lead to a worldwide controversy that- God forbids- end up in a big mess, something he seems thirsty for.

And he is not doing it out of the blue. According to ABC News, he previously “launched an online video series called the "Braveheart Show," which he uses to preach anti-Islamic sermons to an audience larger than the 50 families who belong to the church. He even once sent his children to school, wearing "Islam Is of the Devil” T-Shirts!

That tells you a lot about that guy!

Luckily, this controversy has drawn criticism from many who are trying to quell the fire before it’s lighted. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus condemned the event and said it could "endanger troops" and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

The White House, the State Department, and Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith leaders in the U.S. and around the world, including the Vatican, have condemned this plan as well and called for ending it. And today the US Attorney General was quoted, calling it “idiotic and dangerous.”

However, it worries me that despite all of this condemnation it may not be enough to avoid the anger of the Muslims around the world who will be extremely offended.

This event will definitely be a useful tool to terrorists to launch attacks anywhere in the world. Civilians will be hurt, soldiers will be killed and the gap between Muslims and the West will be way bigger than it is right now. Then, it will be too late to talk!

Quite honestly, I don’t know what will make this bigot stop! All I can hope for is that Muslims do not react to it-if it happens- violently and the Americans stand up to defend their fellow Muslim Americans and stop this farce!

Are you Muslim?

“Are you Muslim?” uttered the man who asked me about the time first. I wasn’t sure what to respond at first. I thought of the taxi cab driver who was attacked in New York City after he was asked the same question.

It was about 9 a.m. when I was standing outside the Greyhound bus station, trying to breathe some fresh air before my bus to Philadelphia arrives. There was no one there other than the man, and it just didn’t feel right.

It took me another second to remember there were security officers inside the station. I thought I could be safer if I went inside. I finally said, “No” and stepped back to the station.

I kept thinking about my answer as my feet were driving me inside. I felt guilty, even though I’m not a practicing Muslim. I don’t fast. I don’t go to mosques. I don’t even pray. Yet something inside me told me this was wrong. On the other hand the voice of reason was telling me it’s OK. This man might have had bad intentions like that who cut the Muslim cabbie’s throat in NYC.

This fear did not come out of nothing. It all started earlier that day, around 7 a.m. on the Metro train. It was a Saturday morning, August 28, and I was going to the bus station to head to Philly. To my shock, the Metro train was filled with strangers. People you could tell were not from DC.

There were hundreds of them at the Metro station. The train was literally packed and I had to squeeze myself. I finally remembered that they all came for the Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin rally at the Lincoln Memorial. They started introducing themselves, coming from Maine, South Carolina, Ohio, etc and were all wearing T-shirts with patriotic signs and American flags on them.

As I got on the train, they started staring at me, making me very uncomfortable. They were talking about terrorism, 9/11 and healthcare. They were also talking about how free America is and how terrorists want to take advantage of that! All while looking at me!

I put my hands in my pocket next to my phone. I wanted to make sure I can dial 911 in case someone attacked me. Luckily, no one did, except that they gave me those you-stole-our-country looks.

All the way to Philly I kept thinking about what was happening in DC at that time. Thousands of conservative Americans gathering, listening to someone like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck who hijacked the word of logic, brainwashing the crowd with their racist and hateful slogans. It reminded me of the time when my mail was open and thrown aside in my apartment building after the Fort Hood shooting incident and how some people would look at me before they decide to sit next to me or not on the bus!

This all kept me thinking about the fate of this nation. It makes me feel very sad. Despite all the difficulties and hardships I’m encountering in this country, I love it and call it home now. The last thing I want to happen is to see it descending to destroying the diversity that made it what it is.

However, I can still say that I’m glad not all Americans are like that.

The Hurt Locker: An Invitation to Think!

Now I know what this fuss was all about and why “The Hurt Locker” won all these Oscars. Simply, the movie is stunning from the very beginning to the very end.

There are two strong themes in the movie: courage and war addiction.

The protagonist of this film, Staff Sgt. William James appears to be enjoying the horrors that accompany his bomb-defusing job in war-torn Iraq. He is courageous and seems to be fond of what he does even though he knows he might die in any moment as he defuses bombs.

This kind of addiction does not stop there. It follows him home. What soldiers, citizens and reporters go through in a war zone change everything in their lives, something that was strongly portrayed in the film. Back in the U.S., James’ wife appears to be indifferent about the horrors he saw in Iraq. This is a major problem many armed forces members and reporters face after they leave the war zone for home. It becomes too normal for them to live there and that’s why I think many of them return back to the war zone or go somewhere disturbed by conflict to relate to. Others get divorced!

From an Iraqi citizen’s perspective, I think the film was believable. Director Kathryn Bigelow and the rest of the cast did a wonderful job in portraying how Baghdad looked like during the war. To me, the setting was very similar to that of 2006-Baghdad. Empty streets, trash everywhere, fear in the eyes of everyone, distrust everywhere, broken glass and insurgents running freely in the streets of Baghdad. What made the film even more authentic is the Iraqi actors who speak Iraqi Arabic.

The film is by all means a great portrayal of how war looks like. It invites people to think twice before uttering stupid words in front of those who witness war, like my grad school classmate who told me that he cat was “traumatized” back in 2006 when just a few weeks before that I had seen dead bodies in the streets of Baghdad. It invites people to endure hardships that might be nothing if compared to what others do in war zones.

Hello stranger! I’m tweeting nearby your house. Come attack me!

Keeping privacy is something I learned to control instinctively, thanks to years of wars and the former police state where I lived that forced me to understand how to protect myself from interferers.

Our digital age has become a little bit difficult to control with the dozens of social networks available nowadays, which I’m kind of obsessed with. However, I’m reconsidering all of that. I have no longer become the private person I used to be, and I need to put an end to that.

On my iPhone I have an app called “Echofon” which I use to read the latest tweets tweeted by the people I’m following on Twitter. It’s a really cool app, that is very intuitive, fast and easy to use, unlike the extremely-slow twitterberry app that I had on the BlackBerry I had before I switched to the iPhone.

While “Echofon” is really good, it recently added a new feature that became available after I installed the latest update of the app. It offers the “Nearby Tweets” feature which allows the Twitter iPhone user to basically see whoever is tweeting nearby his/her place. This is not it. The feature depends on the iPhone’s GPS technology, allowing the user to locate the tweeting people on Google maps, identifying their exact location accompanied by the Tweeting person’s twitter page, photo, Web site link and the entire timeline of his/her tweets. See the screenshot posted in this entry.

As I noticed this, I have become so disturbed. I actually can walk to the tweeting person’s house and recognize him/her through his/her photo posted on their Twitter page. What disturbed me the most is that there are psychos in this country who can basically hurt you if they disagree with what you say or tweet, to be specific. So through this app, I can easily be attacked and even if I’m not attacked I don’t have my privacy anymore.

I don’t want some people to know where I live. Period!

This is not the first time I come across a privacy breach. Last month when Google announced its Buzz social media network, I woke up to see that I’m following literally every Gmail person in my contacts list. That was not the worst part. Thank goodness millions of people complained that the flawed Buzz system was ruining their privacy that it finally changed.

In Iraq, Google Earth made me nervous all the time. Insurgents, known for their use of technology, were able to locate basically anything they wanted through that satellite service.

Today, it’s not only the redundant and repetitive Google Buzz but also Linkedin (which I totally find useless), Foursquare (which I see as a place where people go to get coupons because some weirdo tells them they became the kings or Queens of their neighborhoods), FMyLife, Jaiku, Plurk, Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous, Yammer, Qaiku, Geni.com, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Orkut, Skyrock, Qzone, Vkontakte, RenRen, Kaixin, ASmallWorld, studivz, Xing, RunAlong.se, Bebo, BigTent, Elgg, Hyves, Flirtomatic, etc… The list is too long for me to count.

All of these are too much. I find most of them useless, except for Facebook which I consider the most “private” amongst them. At least I know I can control who sees my content and even what content they can see!

You might have heard this before. Technology is making our life better but it’s also hurting us. I strongly believe we should stop for a minute before we tweet or facebook our content because this may put us or/and the others in danger.

Visiting the Prez's House

In two successive days I had great things to witness. Yesterday, I voted in my country's major parliamentary elections, and today my friends and I had the chance to take a tour at the White House!

What great experiences, vote for my country on one day and visit the house that supports democracy the next day!

For more pictures, visit my flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bassamsebti/.

I Voted for Iraq

Today, I fulfilled an important task: I voted in my country’s parliamentary elections. As an Iraqi citizen who adores his country, I couldn’t be happier and proud after I cast my ballot.at the polling center in Arlington, Virginia in the United States. A sense of relief and optimism rushed into me after I did that. There is nothing in this world that can make me happy than seeing my beloved Iraq heal its wounds and be a better place so that I return and stay there forever.

By voting today, I have become part of the change Iraq is awaiting. Even though I'm thousands of miles afar, I still work hard to make Iraq a better place. It may take five, ten and maybe twenty years to rebuild the country but the thousand-miles road starts with one step.

Long live Iraq.

FP: 33 Conflicts are Raging Around the World Today

Irish satirist Jonathan Swift once said, “War! that mad game the world so loves to play.” This quote is summarized by a new photo essay published by Foreign Policy magazine. In it, powerful photos of the world’s conflicts describe what words sometimes fail to express.

Entitled “Planet War,” the photo essay mentions that from the bloody civil wars in Africa to the rag-tag insurgencies in Southeast Asia, 33 conflicts are raging around the world today, and it’s often innocent civilians who suffer the most.