| OPINION
| October 13, 2004
Editorial/Our View
Who’s Who in Terrorism?
There’s more to know about
‘Thine Enemy’
I enjoyed reading Mr. Morgan’s column,
“Know Thine Enemy,” on Sept. 28th’s opinion’s
page. In his column, Mr. Morgan makes a well-put and passionate
argument. However, I would like to point out a couple of facts he
overlooked.
He claims that the U.S. should deny all visitors that hail from
a “terrorism-sponsoring country”. What should the criteria
be for the State Department to officially red-mark a country as
terrorism-sponsoring? The infamous shoe bomber, Richard Reid, was
a British citizen. Should we then turn away Elton John, Prince William
and perhaps her Majesty? Using the same argument, are we assuming
just because there are no known Islamic terrorists from say, Taiwan,
Taiwanese citizens can bypass all security checks when entering
the country?
It is hard to imagine that the foreign aid to Jordan and Egypt is
linked to terrorist activities. In fact, Secretary of State Colin
Powell warned Congress that to cut the 2005 foreign aid to Egypt
would damage a close Middle East ally at a sensitive time. Cutting
the foreign aid would offer no help in the war against terrorism,
as most terrorism activities are funded by individuals. What needs
to happen, and is in fact happening, is the seizing of bank accounts
that have terrorist connections. Again, modern terrorism does not
involve a nation, it involves tribes and regions and factions made
up of fanatical individuals.
My point is simple: Fighting terrorism does not mean fighting people
from certain countries. Sure, it is easy to say, “He’s
from Iraq; let’s interrogate him,” or “He looks
like one of them head-chopping folks on the Internet; I better get
my .38.”
Forty years ago, certain people in this country could not vote because
they looked different. Is history bound to repeat itself? After
reading Mr. Morgan’s column, I am indeed worried.
— Jimmy Feng is a computer science and engineering graduate
student.
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