Crimes Against Humanity

Slowly the stories are trickling out. Murder, mayhem, torture, and any other atrocity one can imagine. All perpetrated against people around the world by those who still think they are purveyors of peace and democracy. Worst of all, the perpetrators continue to be defended by the US army, the civilian command, the press, and most American public.

Of course those who perpetrated these atrocities are directly responsible and should be held accountable and brought to justice without further delay. But don't hold your breath for that. There is no outcry, there is no outpouring of support for the aggrieved, there is no media frenzy, there is no call for special congressional hearings. The politicians are still celebrating the Healthcare bill approval by the congress.

Headline: How Americans are Propagandized About Afghanistan.

The story recounts the horrors of US military personnel killing people in cold blood, then covering their tracks with extensive procedures of extracting bullets from the victims' heads (no less). Then, after killing them, tying the women up to make them look like they were bound and gagged by the men for honor killing. What does it take to do all this? How much time does it take to extract bullets from skull? Who is actually doing the extraction? Is it a doctor/medic that is helping? Where are the platoon leaders, the people at the base, and others involved in the carnage?

All of these heinous acts take planning, time, and approvals from senior officers. How many people does it take to cover up these crimes?

The article cites major news media groups colluding with the army and corroborating the story as authentic at the time all of these atrocities took place. New York Times is part of that collusion!CNN is one of the most trusted names in the news business. They supposedly verified the facts, had their people on the ground and reporting the story, and the quotes from the officers in charge are all real. Is this really happening in America today? This is not a movie, this is real life.

After the truth is revealed neither of the original news sources have, to date, admitted complicity, responsibility, or even acknowledgement of false reporting. Do any of these organizations ever make a mistake?

Headline: WikiLeaks Video shows 12 dead in US Army Apache Assault on unarmed Reuters Cameramen.

"The WikiLeaks video of helicopter gunners shooting civilians and savoring their kills as if playing a video game, although horrific, is understandable." Understandable for who? Understandable from whose point of view?

Now the headlines are: WikiLeaks vidoe shows 12 dead in Iraq army assault
Another one says: WikiLeaks Misrepresents Apache Assault on Medhi [sic] Army Militia
The army senior officers defended these actions at the time. The problem is that even today they continue to defend these criminal and rogue elements. How wide spread is this problem? What about thousands upon thousands of murders in Iraq where people were finding headless bodies all around the city of Baghdad? Who really committed those atrocities? At least at the time they were blamed on militias? But is that really true. Who were those dead people?

The Nation (thenamtion.com), both in print and on their website most recently reported that their reporters in Pakistan saw operatives from US special operation forces involved in suicide bombings via cars and trucks. Since that reporting and some exposure of that news on news boards, the rate of suicide bombings have gone down to almost zero. Is that a coincidence?
Curiously enough, New York Times did not bother to print anything about either the murders in Afghanistan, (which they originally reported as honor killings and Al-Qaida fighters being neutralized) or the Video of innocent Iraqis being gunned down in broad daylight as if somebody is playing video game. CNN reported the story but did not bring all the horrific details to the fore citing concern for family members of the dead Iraqis. Really? Is the video not available in its entirety in million and one places, either directly or via a youtube embed?

These atrocities clearly amount to crimes against humanity. Will these criminals be exposed and brought to justice?

The Idiot in the Middle

If one studies religion of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam they may be surprised to find that without a doubt there are more similarities than there are differences. Starting from the Prophets, the Books, the basic tenets of right and wrong, are all identical in all three religions. Religious teachings, methods of prayer, even some of the timings for prayers is the same with only minor differences. Fasting is proscribed in all three religions in one form or another. Religious giving is practiced by all three religions. Despite the similarities, the differences are what bring the sides to war and atrocities against each other. In this war what role the media is playing? Is the media fair to all three religions? Is media reporting impartial or skewed against one religion or another. Why the atrocities of one religion hidden compared to other? Is that by design?

Media has been trashing Islam for years now. Everyday there are stories portraying Muslims as villains, anti-peace, and anti-America. Lately though Christianity has joined the ranks of religions that are out of media favor. Pope said the other day that unfair media reports target Catholic Church. This has been going on for a while. Lately Church of Scientology has joined the ranks of religious organizations that have been targeted by the mainstream media. It seems like there is a smear campaign underway against both Islam and Christianity. The campaign against Christians is a relatively new phenomenon. It was long time coming though since the malignment of Islam is reaching a point where its now part of the society at large. War against Christianity is the next frontier along with rewriting history for the benefit of the few. One religion that has been responsible for most atrocities through out the world and throughout history has been absent from the news and media scrutiny altogether. This is neither accidental, nor it should come as a surprise to those who have studied media in any length.

Jews have sold themselves as the God's chosen people and they can't do nothing wrong, or so it seems. They have reinforced this idea at every opportunity. Not only that but they have created opportunities to reinforce the idea that they are superior creation compared to the rest of the human race. As such anything and everything they do, including committing heinous atrocities against those who go against them, is considered perfectly alright and it is what is called for. The list of atrocities committed by the jews is rather long. The entire list can not be covered in one article so here's the short version:

Iraq war was the brain child of Richard Perl (AKA Prince of Darkness), a former Likud Party (of Israel) member now a fellow at AEI, the uber conservative think tanks with people like Lynn Cheney as its current members. Two other people instrumental in pushing that war were Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. All three happen to be jewish. In addition, Richard Perl wrote a white paper in 1988 redrawing the maps of middle east and rest of Asia and Africa. The paper is available on many website.

Atrocities committed by Jews and Israelis, which is one and the same, are so many but each and every one of them is sold to the American public and to the world as mitigating the threat against security of Israel. When it comes to Israel and the jews the world just totally forgets about that because media never questions anything as they question events attributed to Muslims and Christians.

Now the world is gearing up for mass murder against the Iranians. Of course the underlying premise of what is attributed to Iranian leaders is absolutely false but people have already been sold that lie and nobody questions that part anymore. Main stream media has been directly responsible for selling that lie and it continues to reinforce that lie with even bigger lies. It is a lie and people ought to find that out for themselves. Unfortunately, most people are too lazy, to preoccupied with their facebook buddies, and too bogged down with the current news that they don't care what the truth is anymore.

Whoever controls or owns the media controls everything else because that is where the opinions are formed and wars are sold. If you look up Associated Press you will see that it controls 5000+ newspapers and 1700+ TV stations directly. These are news outlets that get their stories primarily from Associated press. In addition there are many other outlets including Yahoo news portal, and now Google News Portal and many other outlets that source articles written for Associated press. These sources are scattered all around the world. If a story break in Pakistan its reported by somebody local in Pakistan, gets fed to the news editors sitting in US, edited for the slant of bias that must go in while protecting the sacred cows of Associated Press and then goes out to general public. Even though Associated Press is touted as a not for profit cooperative Tom Curley, CEO decides what news gets out and what stays in. Tom Curley happens to be jewish.

New York Times is owned by third generation of Sulzberger family. A prominent jewish family in New York area. The paper has nationwide distribution and it is considered to be a premier news source for millions of people around the country. It also owns several TV stations in the east coast and have affiliate relationships with, at last check, at least 8 news papers around the globe. From January 1st 2010 to March 15th 2010 there has never been a single day without at least one major story appearing in New York Times that is vehemently against Islam, Muslims, and Muslim world in general. Add to that special features that appear in the Magazine section and the opinion pieces from the likes of Thomas Friedman and Michael Isikoff. Both of them happen to be jewish. In addition the misceleneosu news articles about Iraq and Iran that are invariably biased and opinionated and none of that is ever good.

NewsCorp is owned by Rupert Murdoch who proudly says his mother was Jewish and he has undying allegiance to jews and Israel. NewsCorp, among other news outlets controls Fox News and Wall Street Journal. Roger Ailers runs the gamut at Fox News. Besides independent confirmation, just based on the news that comes out of Fox its a sure bet that he is jewish with an agenda.

Disney is now privately owned by a conglomeration of interests including Pixar, which in turn is owned by Gaffen Brothers, Spielberg and several other investors that are all jewish.
We are just scratching the surface. One does not have to dive too deep to find out that all media in its entirety is controlled by the jewish interests. From the News papers, to TV stations, to Public Access Channels in most major cities, to National Public Radio (NPR) is all owned and/or operated by jewish interests in one or the other way. Add to that entities like the Scaife and Koch foundations (both jewish owned) with billions of dollars to spend on propaganda at will, and you will know why jews, the perpetrators of most all wars are never in the news and never blamed for anything. Anything outside of that realm of jewish ownership is insignificant and does not matter at all.

Most recently two outfits have seen major changes in how they present the news, what they write about, and how the words are used in the headlines. Reuters have been transformed about three months ago and about a month ago Christian Science Monitor, the mouthpiece of the Church of Scientology has seen a sea change in the coverage. Christian Science Monitor is one of the premier newspaper that was, until recently it seems, was not affiliated with any other news organization such as Associated Press. That is changing now and the end result is yet to be seen.
Among the three main religions, the Muslim are bearing the majority of the blame for all sorts of world problems but the idiots (and I say that with love and affection) in the middle are the Christians. They always side with the jews but never realize that they are being back stabbed on daily basis and sold out right from under their noses.

No Spin A Pleasant Surprise

American media left in the dust

Few Days ago an article in Christian Science Monitor mentioned about news media that was relatively unbiased. It's a rather novel concept in these troubled times. What was not surprising at all was the fact that not one of the outlet was US based. Free speech produces all sorts of monsters and one of them happens to be the one where whoever owns the media can spew any amount of lies and get away with it.

One of the surprises in the list was Hindu Times.

The Hindu Times is far cry, at least from the preliminary reading, from the bias and hatred that Associated Press or New York Times spews out. Here is the report in question:

Headline: Saudi Arabia 'worried' about Pakistan situation

What was remarkable about the article? Unlike the Associated Press article which would have reminded the reader about Three wars that India and Pakistan have fought in the past, the gory details of the Mumbai Attacks (how many killed and how the synagogue was attacked and how old is that survivor boy from the synagogue etc.) it stuck to the facts regarding the topic at hand which was the Saudi foreign Minister's meeting with the visiting prime minister of India. In addition there were ample details about the trip and related happenings and other articles if you really wanted to dig deeper.

The New York Times would not have fared any better than Associated Press since they are both cut from the same cloth, one that has the bias as hubris written all over it. It is refreshing to see a news outlet that sticks to new reporting instead of news making. Opinions are good but those should remain in the editorial pages instead of on the front pages disguised as news.

Dueling Veeps

The worst presidency in the history of the United States = George Bush
The worst vice presidency in the history of the United States = Dick Cheney

Unfortunately neither of them are done with America yet. When and how can we get rid of these two people and stop the destruction of this country?

Keith Olberman who is one of the most vehement opponent of bush had this to say earlier:

"He's been shrill, totally unpatriotic, and sounding more concerned with torture and interrogation than with results and intelligence. ... I think he may believe that only his vision can save American, and thus anything, including lying to America, is justifiable. This is, I believe, called 'a Messiah Complex."

During the Bush/cheney years any critic of their administration was immediately labeled anti-America and unpatriotic. The media went along with that and unabashedly maligned anybody that opposed these two people or any of their cohorts. Now when they are out of power, they have abrogated to themselves the right to do what they denied others. Hypocrisy's other name is cheney.

Cheney said "It's the mindset that concerns me." when talking about the treatment of some of the suspects. How is that different from how Richard Reid was treated during Bush presidency. But the guy at the ABC who is suppose to be big times reporter with many years of journalism under his belt, Jonathan Karl, did not ask this very pertinent question, r asked it in a way that gave him an easy out. Did it just not occur to him at the time or was it just something he was not going to ask. Most likely its the later because enough of these people asking the hard question could have prevented the US going to war with Iraq, would have prevented many other catastrophes during the previous administration. These journalists are tongue tied in front of these politicians or are they protecting their sacred cows?

So the problem, once again, is the media. As long as the media keep giving Dick and George time and space on the air and in print they will never ever run out of words to say to mislead the Amercing people. As long as Media stays away from hard questions they will keep getting away with it. American people, for all their strengths, are more easily mislead than any other people because they want to believe somebody. They want to trust those who they elected, now or in the past. That is a two edged sword. Fortunately, judging by the comments on some news sites (excluding Faux News) people are waking up to the truth. Whether any of that will matter or not, only time will tell.

The hypocrisy should stop with the realization that both george and dick were wrong on Iraq. They have caused to have hundreds of thousands of people killed and instead of being ashamed of it they want others to join them so they are not alone. They want others to fail so they stop looking so bad. The stated policy of Republican fringe is that they hope for Obama to fail which was expressed clearly through their mouthpiece Rush. Nobody from the Republican party criticized that, which essentially indicates they all agreed with him. However, realizing they were wrong and admitting it would take a much bigger men than both of these criminals will ever be.

Here is another curiosity. Anytime Cheney comes on a show he seems to be bashing Bush and his policies while bush was in the office. The purpose is two fold. One, it sets the agenda for the current republican wingnuts in the congress. Second, he is playing the role of a good cop and a bad cop and essentially in the process he is making bush look good. From a historical perspective nobody really cares about the vice presidency. If the bush presidency, compared to some to the policies being implemented today, is making him look good than Cheney benefits indirectly. For him it's a win win situation. That is why even if they have to buy time from the networks they will do that to push their agendas.

If Cheney was Japanese, by about now, with all the proof we have against this guy somebody would he handing him the sword.

Top 10 Tools Of Tyranny

Media outlets are prominently displayed in this menagerie of culprits that are destroying America one brick at a time. This is so because people become what they hear and see. People want to see what they WANT to see and hear and believe. We see and hear what matches with what we think is reality. We confirm what we know, expand on what has changed of what we know, and assimilate more of the similar stuff that reinforces what we already know and believe. In a survey of 22,000 people in 21 countries, only politicians ranked as less trustworthy than managers of large companies, who finished behind lawyers and Journalists. The journalists rank very low in the scheme of things when it comes to trustworthiness and ethical standards.
American media gives us 90% of what we want to see and 90% of what we see is handed down to us based on what the media wants us to see. It's very circular. We become what we see and hear. If hatred and bigotry is what we see on TV than that is exactly what we become: hateful and bigoted. If we see xenophobia then that is what we become in our day to day life. That is what media is doing to us. It plays a huge role in what we think, do and how we treat other people around us. Media shapes our lives in more way then we would like to admit.

Fox News
The amount of misinformation coming out of this media outlet is unmatched. If this was a liberal media owned by a foreigner, Rupert Murdoch, the likes of Rush and Glenn will be accusing them of selling out America to foreigners. However no one ever says a word about that since it favors conservatives and it serves their purpose. According to them it's perfect for America.

US State Department
The true shadow government within the Obama government. Hillary Clinton is suppose to be incharge of it but she has been sidelined from about the second month into her appointment. Beyond that was all Rahm and his henchmen running the foreign policy.

American Enterprise Institute
The neocon hang out of people like Karl Rove and Richard Perle, the prince of Darkness. Even Lynn Cheney has a desk their for allegedly writing books for kids.

Blackwater
Hired mercenaries and thugs with no regard for life whatsoever. They have recently been ordered out of Iraq but it remains to be seen how they are going to be morphed to pull wool over the Iraqi government's eyes. The weak government in Iraq is the obvious advantage Blackwater has. The crimes against the innocent, murder in broad daylight, and bribery from the highest level. What more evidence you need to declare them enemies of state, both in America and abroad. Its all about the networking and who you know in the high places.

New York Times
Behind the excellence in writing is the ultimate sword of hatred and bigotry. It kills, and kills relentlessly. They have a special section dedicated to inciting unrest in Iran, or so it seems. Even the Iranian clerics have become the darling of news hacks at this establishment. When China kills its own Muslim civilian population in cold blood, according to New York Times its China's "Strongman" protecting the interests of the state. See also our top ten enemies of peace.

Associated Press
With control over 5000+ print media and 1700+ TV stations they have the monopoly over all aspects of any household globally. This is especially true in the west because that is where most of the information that comes out of this premier hatemonger is consumed. Unless you are living in a cave you can not escape from the clutches of this tool of tyranny. The biased and agenda driven drivel coming out of this media conglomerate is unmatched. Top secret weapon: the people who decide what goes in the news and what stays out. See also our top ten enemies of peace.

Rush, Glenn, And The Right Wing Hate Machine
Rush, Glenn, Sean, and O'Rielly are the poster boys of right wing hate machine. However don't forget people like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Robert Spencer, and the entire staff of FrontPage Magazine that work behind the scenes to convince people in high places that hate is good and freedom is bad; torture is OK and accountability is bad. They are there to argue that banning Hijab and minarets will somehow make us safer and stronger.

Hollywood
The remake of Taking The Pelham 123 was an eye opener. It maligned the two main religions using camera angles and symbols. Hollywood churning out movie after movie with message of hate and desecration of symbols of Christianity and especially those of Islam.

Department Of Homeland Security
The most recent addition to the arsenal of hate mongering is called "home grown threats." Everybody is a suspect. anybody and everybody can be interrogated without showing just cause.

US Armed Forces
The military industrial complex that we were warned about was no hoax. It has come to fruition long time ago but more so now than ever before. They have been let loose on the world without any accountability. The tyranny they are unleashing on innocent people in far away places is making new enemies for America by the bushel. Nobody blinks an eye on murder of innocent people and chalk that all up to collateral damage. The means to that end are all too familiar: drone attacks in Pakistan, night raids in Afghanistan, torture and renditions around the globe, and special forces and sophisticated bomb attacks disguised as suicide bombings in Iran.

Analysis: Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Jimmy Carter knows how not to work the media. He's been out of the limelight ever since his appearance at Brandeis University to talk about his book with controversial comments in his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid to aspiring jewish politicians at that ivy league college. The parting shots or lack thereof were dignified though. For others media has been less merciful including their beloved Bush.

During the last days of lame duck 43rd president of the United States some of the expressions were priceless. Of course the Monkey mouth Bush was pretty popular among his detractors. But mostly his picture with a finger pointing in the air, hand gesture that is totally out of place, and other similar photographs started to show up approximately during the last two years of his presidency.

For Obama on the other hand, its little bit of a stretch to see unflattering pictures with finger stretched out or face making the letter O to cheer the crowd up or something like that have started to show up more and more often. So why is that significant you ask.

In the American culture people usually don't talk much with their hands. Italians and some other Europeans do that. Of course Arabs and pretty much all Muslims do talk with their hands slightly less than they do otherwise. Cultures are different and in some places it is acceptable and perfectly normal to use hands and gestures while in others it is not. In America it's considered rather rude to flail your hand and point fingers while talking because everything has a name and when you talk you are expected to be precise by using language instead of gestures. If you want to give somebody direction in Afghanistan you would see people pointing to a direction while they tell you where to go, but not here because you are expected to be more precise. That is why the question: why are these pictures showing up and why now.

Of course media is well aware of this little idiosyncrasy about the hand gestures and they play it to the hilt to their advantage. If you are a careful observer you may have noticed that every time they want to show anybody that they talk negative about they have a pictures with some hand movement in place. Curiously enough what Arab or Muslim politician is there that they don't talk negative about since its their favorite pastime. Pictures of Muqtada-Al-Sadr with his finger in the air is embedded in our psyche. Iranian president always shows up with hands in the air, finger pointing everywhere. Still other times he is shown with hand stretched that looks like he is saluting somebody but its not exactly too becoming or flattering for him.

All of that is part of the propaganda and the media's war against anybody they dislike. But why would anybody dislike Obama. He is charming, dashing, eloquent, and very leaderlike. Yet, so early and so quickly, the charm has worn off?, The eloquence has given way to lingering questions? The leadership is being questioned? He almost split GOP in the middle during the last session with them. If he can do few more of those question/answer sessions maybe it will help change the tone of the pictures that have started to show up lately.

Just Skip The Headlines

They are all lies and misinformation

I have been doing some non-scientific research lately. On my own. No mega funding, no celebrity endorsements, no big time media moguls involved in the process. That could be good or bad. First the bad part. I will not get the notoriety that my research deserves. I will not get famous for doing this research. I will not be called by NPR or the likes of them for a feature show. It will just sit there for anybody who just happens to pass by my post. Just a chance lookup of the "next blog."

Now the good part. It will be fair; as fair as it can be with one person’s opinion. There will be no spin other than my own. In today’s media for me those are invaluable traits. Those things do not exist anywhere, no exception. Let me repeat that: no exception. Are you getting my point yet.
The premise is simple. At for now once a day, usually in the morning after I wake up with cheap coffee and morning rituals I log on to the computer and look at the news. I have selected four news sites. Two (they call themselves) independent and two news aggregators as follow:
cnn.com
nytimes.com
news.yahoo.com
news.google.com

I look at the headlines and take screen shots. Just the headlines and the little blurb attached to each headline in the case of the news aggregators. No detailed article listing for who knows what slander lurks inside. Sometimes, depending on how busy the site is I may take two screen shots of the same site by scrolling down to get additional headlines and topics of interest. If I did not do that I believe that the outcome will be more non-scientific than it has to be.
I have started the process since the beginning of the year. I have the screen shots of everyday for all four sites.

Can you guess the rest of my article? If you don’t want to guess or maybe you are eager to get my spin and if so then please read on. Otherwise I know you have better things to do.
The story broke on Christmas day. How timely is that. People are off work, they have all the time in the world to surf the web. They are feeling somewhat religious, but definitely more than other time. And wham bham!!!! Some guy wants to blow up a plane. It could not have happened at more opportune time, now could it? It’s a boon for the news media, match made in heaven. Any other clichés I can use. I’ll spare you.

The results of my non-scientific research so far:

Everyday without fail, the top of the news is nothing but more bad news, related stories that rehashed, the stories that are made up to look new. Lies, lies, and more lies.

The word on the street is that this guy tried to get on the plane without a passport. He was successful in doing so from one port to another, then board the plane once more, without the passport and head to Detroit. Really? So is it security failure or a planned activity.
His father tells CIA his son is mixed up in things he should not be and nobody takes notice. Was that by design or just an overlook on the part of the CIA. What transpired at the terminal to bypass all the checks. Once again one is forced to conclude that there might be some collusion on the part of some inside people to get this guy on the plane.

The timing, the circumstance, the details. I for one don’t believe any of this. But the aftermath is equally disturbing. It’s the relentless crusade on anything Islamic, anybody Muslim, anything and anybody from Muslim world. All part of the plan. In the meantime the Patriot Act was up for renewal at the start of the year. There were concerned senators that had made the case to make amends for many wrongs that were perpetrated by previous administration. I have yet to see any debate on that issue. It’s a real issue that is of concern and should be of concern to ordinary citizen.

There was the promise of closing the notorious torture heaven called Guantanamo Bay, USA, prison. I saw a news article specifically talking about people being released from Guantanamo Bay and involved in terror activities. The article had no names, no references, no specifics. It was a made for news article from Associated Press to convey a point. No debate is going on regarding that promise. This was a promise because of which many voters went to polls and voted for democrats. Yesterday the promised deadline passed without any serious action or lack therof and any serious consequences. There were no articles in the New York Times, nothing on the CNN, no mention of this in the first State Of The Union speech last night. There are approximately half of the detainees approved to be sent to their home countries but no real dates set for them to be realeased. Any little thing can delay the whole process of overdue justicebeing served.

The wholesale derailment and hijacking of Obama’s entire agenda (read our earlier article) is a foot note because news media is too busy concocting stories on how Muslims are out to get America, left, right, and center.

For an ordinary person it's difficult to tell what is the truth and where the lies begin. It's one thing if the facts are presented as they may be. Good, bad, or ugly. The problem lies when there is the spin from the sources that are suppose to give you the facts. Most people do not have the time to dig the truth and so whatever is displayed on the screen becomes the truth. Therein lies the great rewards for the media. When a dog is rewarded for barking, it continues to do so; it increases its barking for more food and more treats.

Article: Why Do Muslim Women Wear Hijab

One thing that have always been amazing is the lack of apathy when it comes to any issue related to Muslim women. One of these is the issue of Hijab. What we hear all the time in the news media is the anti-hijab bias. What is even more interesting is that nobody ever, ever asks a woman the simple question: Why does she wear hijab.

This is a series or articles with that question posed to random women who were seen wearing hijab. Why does she wear hijab. Here is one post verbatim. There are no changes made from the original response. The goal here is to present multiple responses over period of time and as the entries trickle in they will be presented with minimal change. Any change will be strictly for the purpose of brevity and/or severe grammatical problems. (if any)

This is a beautifully written response and I found it to be genuine and representative of thousands of women that practice wearing Hijab despite the hatred and negative connotation attached to it. This piece makes it very obvious that the distorted view given to us by the media is nowhere close to reality. Read for yourself and leave your comments.


This is the response in full without any changes:

I started wearing the Islamic headscarf --the "hijab," as it's transliterated from Arabic-- about a year and a half ago, as an act of modesty for my religion, Islam. The hijab is a symbol of modesty. Women have complained that they would rather be appreciated for reasons other than their physical appearance; Islam has a solution for that: modesty. The hijab is not directly mandated by Islam; it's merely choice. In the Qur'an, it is stated that no Islamic belief should be forced on an individual. The hijab does not make women inferior; it's a solution for women who want their minds to be stronger than their appearance. The head scarf wasn't even something new introduced by Islam. You're forgetting that, a few centuries ago, women covered their heads when they went outside. True, in this day and age, common people don't cover their heads anymore. In Islam, if something is hard to do, you don't have to do it. If a woman feels inferior wearing the headscarf, or has been assaulted for it, they don't have to wear it. By wearing the hijab you're not succumbing to anything except God's teaching; in fact, when wearing the hijab, you're not succumbing to the desire to show off yourself to everybody. The way I see it, men don't have to show off their looks to get things they want, but some women do. In that case, whose inferior there? The hijab is not a foreign influence. You've probably seen several Americans wearing the headscarf too; they just look Arab (I know this for sure, since my uncle married an American woman who wears the hijab now; she is often mistaken for an Arab).

I was born and raised in the United States, and almost none of my relatives --even the ones who live in Pakistan-- wear the hijab, apart from my mother, who actually started wearing it when she came the U.S. thirty years ago. None of my relatives really supported my decision to wear the headscarf. My own parents were almost shocked when I started wearing it. They've constantly reminded me that I don't have to do it. Even though they're happy with it, they think --and in this case, I hope they're wrong-- that I might stop in a few years. They know it's probably hard to wear it in America, but honestly it hasn't been that hard. I've been able to talk to people as easily as before. It's like I get to choose who to speak to now; most people who approach me are open-minded, kind, and non-judgmental: the type of people I'd like to be friends with. Generally, people don't initially approach me as often as before, but now I get to choose who approaches me by talking with them first. I do get glared at by strangers sometimes, and most people don't look at me in the eye anymore. However, I know they've been ill-informed by the media. Sometimes I do feel a pressure to always do the right thing. If I'm not constantly behaved at all times, or if I accidentally say something rude or offensive, there are people who would have a bad impression of Muslims because they saw one who wasn't perfect. After all, they have a bad impression from the "Muslims" they see on TV who do explicitly forbidden things. Extremism is forbidden in Islam...but that's another topic. The constant, reasonably good behavior has made me, undeniably, a much better person.

The hijab isn't a sign of extremism; it's really just an item of clothing to put, but on your head. And by the way, I've never, ever heard of someone getting heat stroke because of wearing the hijab (though if you get to that state, you really should take it off). In Saudi Arabia, men also cover their head to keep them safe from heat when they go out, and Saudi Arabia is mostly desert. Wearing the hijab does not signify extremism. Islam doesn't call for women who wear the hijab to necessarily be as religious or even as modest as nuns are. True, there are ways to be modest and restrain themselves from wrong things without wearing the headscarf, and I commend people who can do that. For me, the hijab is a reminder to act appropriately, and it's definitely saved me from making many wrong decisions I would definitely regret. I don't mind others --my friends included-- being immodest or immoral, because I would have been like that if I didn't really know about Islam. Every person I meet who treats me with respect --like a normal person-- surprises me, because I generally expect people to have the bad image of Muslims that the media and extreme "Islamic" groups feed them. Neither do I have any deference for people who glare at me, because I know they don't really know what I --and other Muslims-- believe in. And I know, that if I wasn't Muslim, I would probably treat Muslims like they do.

Top 10 Things We Like To See Taken Off The Media

1. FoxNews - Fox anything - lies, lies, lies


2. War on Terror - give it a rest - it's all hoax, lies, and drama anyway


3. Glenn... who? As if Rush was not telling enough lies


4. maligning of any religion - stop all frivolous religion bashing now


5. Pat Robertson and the 700 Club - call it the church of hate and bigotry


6. Dick's ugly face - the more he lies more crooked it gets


7. George's ugly face - don't make me puke again.... please


8. Ann Frank and the holocaust propaganda industry - the world has endured enough propaganda, now go away


9. GM - when will they go away? When will the bailout at taxpayer's expense will end? Sell them to the Irish


10. Jay Leno - nothing personal and we love you but please go away - go and tend to your antique cars or do something productive