… against Cat Stevens. Or Yusuf Islam. Or whatever he wants to be called. Allah be praised that our terrorist trackers realized the singer was on a Washington-bound airliner and diverted it to Maine before he could run amok in our capital. Terrorist trackers up there in the woods questioned Stevens/Islam, and now they’re deporting him, Allah be praised.
Why? Praise Allah, now that’s a story.
I just love the way the Associated Press describes the grounds for sending the guy’s plane elsewhere, detaining him, then ordering him out of the country:
“… [A] government official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Islam was placed on a watch list after multiple intelligence sources in recent weeks indicated the peace activist may have associations with potential terrorists.”
Got that? He may be linked to potential terrorists. Making allowances for a possibly clumsy rendition of what the anonymous government official said, it’d be nice to get the specifics out into broad daylight, because just about anyone may be linked to potential terrorists.
The anonymous official also indicates that this information was reported recently. But the AP story goes on to cite suggestions and whispers dating back to 1988 that Stevens/Islam donated money that wound up in the hands of Hamas and a sheikh convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Stevens/Islam denies ever knowingly giving money to terrorist groups, the AP story notes, adding that he’s been donating royalties from one recent CD release to a 9/11 victims fund.
Again: It’d be nice for the government, which saw fit to disrupt the liberty of an entire planeload of passengers, to put its cards on the table: Exactly who is saying what about this guy, and what’s the evidence they’ve got against him? Of course, asking for such elementary respect for civil liberties these days — from a bunch of people who proved impotent to spot or stop a squad of real killers three years ago and who ultimately responded to that attack by fabricating a case for an irrelevant but ruinous war — is probably a bit much.
Well, I’ll try this again. I never liked Cat Stevens. Not his music or his lyrics or his voice , which to me sounded remotely like a whinge. And I never thought much about him beyond that. Then came the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah against Salman Rushdie in 1989 and I recall seeing (in a tv interview) “Cat” gleefully supporting the killing of Rushdie and thinking this guy is a real jerk. All that said, it is a petty small thing for the US government to do when it tosses this guy out of the country. It makes us look petty and paranoid. The other thing is that it is amazing to think that the US government has the time on its hands to chase after this guy while Osama, Dr.al Zawahiri et al are still out there issuing their own fatwahs and committing all sorts of crimes. It would say something in our favor if the “catman” were ignored and allowed to travel freely in the states. It would also say that we are a tolerant country, unbothered by the opinions of one pop musician turned Muslim.