The Hill News

Today, December 7, 2011, is the 70th Anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.  As communities across America remember that day, Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) seeks the spotlight once again with a Congressional hearing claiming to explore “homegrown terrorism’s threat to military communities inside the United States.” 

I hope real American values and vision drive today’s hearing, not prejudice, hysteria and a failure of leadership.  I hope King honors his position as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee with a comprehensive review of real dangers to our military communities.  That’s what the American people deserve.

Based on King’s past hearings, however, the American people are justified to fear that King will rely on insidious discrimination targeting Muslim Americans.  If the hearing’s date (Pearl Harbor’s Anniversary) and its subject matter, the 2009 attack at Ft. Hood Texas, are any indication, today’! s hearing will go too far by singling out Muslim-American service members as the danger to our military communities. Whatever happens today, let us be clear: Any blanket suggestion that all Muslim American soldiers are the threat is morally and strategically wrong.

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