Open Letter to Congressman Ellison

Congressman-

you are in the news today, quoted in the Star Tribune as saying that the hearings scheduled by Rep King of New York into domestic terrorism is a "McCarthyistic witch hunt."  While I understand your trepidation of hearings that would focus on homegrown radical Islam, I have to question your integrity on this issue.  As the highest ranking elected official in this country who is Muslim, you have an enormous opportunity to be a leader and spokesman for your faith.  And you do speak out-but only on half the issue.  Your quick condemnation of anyone who is critical of Islam might resonate with me a bit more if you were as quick to condemn any Muslim who attacks (in Eric Holder's phrase) my people.

In June 2009, one of my people was murdered and another severely wounded  when a member of your faith opened fire in the name of Allah.  You made no official statement on the killing of Pvt Long and the attempted killing of Pvt Ezeagwula, although you did issue statements condemning the murder of a Kansas abortion doctor and a shooting at the national Holocaust Museum, which occurred in the same month.

In November of 2009, a member of your faith praised Allah at the top of his lungs while he gunned down 13 of my people in cold blood, and tried to kill 29 others.  One of them, Kham See Xiong, was a constituent of yours.  Your official statement contains only words of sorrow, rather than the words of condemnation that were needed.  As a high profile Muslim, you had an opportunity to decisively and vehemently condemn the actions of Major Hasan, and set the record straight that mainstream Muslims do not condone the murder of non-Muslims in the name of Allah.  Instead, you spent the next week talking about focusing on the families and the terrible effects of PTSD.  But Major Hasan wasn't motivated by PTSD--he was motivated by radical Islam and a desire to kill Americans. 

Last week, two more of my people were gunned down by a member of your faith, again loudly proclaiming the greatness of Allah as he pulled the trigger.  You had nothing to say once again on the murder of Airman Cuddeback or Airman Alden, although it hasn't yet been a week, so maybe you just didn't want to "rush to judgment".

That makes for 16 of my people murdered in cold blood by radical members of your faith.  I'm not even counting civilians; the victims of honor killings, those who nearly died in the air, those who avoided being butchered at Times Square only because of the incompetence of the bomber, or the thousands of people who might have been killed had a Christmas car bomb been real.

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I can't seem to find any instance of you condemning any of these radical, militant Islamic attacks on my people, the US military, or even on American civilians.

It is perfectly appropriate for you to defend your religion from criticism, just as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even Wiccans would defend their beliefs.  But in order to show some integrity, you also have to be the first to be critical of your own religion when it is wrong, or wrongly interpreted by those easily swayed.

Until you stand up before the cameras and say definitively that you believe murdering US soldiers on American soil is wrong, you have no credibility as an unbiased source on the subject of Islam.