Right Wing Terrorist Attack in Ohio

Right wing terrorism is alive and well in America and being ignored. On 9/11/2006 there was a terrorist attack on a woman's health center in Davenport, Iowa. There was the Delaware Pogrom where Jewish and Muslim families were driven out of a small town for not being Christian. The list goes on. And mostly it is just ignored by the media, but Homeland Security...by everyone.

The latest attack is a chemical attack on children in a mosque in Ohio. From Daily Kos:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.

That diary goes on to quote an email from someone who knows some of the victims of this attack:

"She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there...

"This didn't happen in some far away place -- but right here in Dayton, and to my friends. Many of the Iraqi refugees were praying together at the Mosque Friday evening. People that I know and love...

"She tells me that her daughters slept with her last night, the little one in her arms and sobbing throughout the night. She tells me she is afraid, and will never return to the mosque, and I wonder what kind of country is this where people have to fear attending their place of worship?

"The children come into the room, and tell me they want to leave America and return to Syria, where they had fled to from Iraq. They say they like me, ... , and other American friends -- but they are too afraid and want to leave. Should a 6 and 7 year old even have to contemplate the safety of their living situation?

"Did the anti-Muslim video circulating in the area have something to do with this incident, or is that just a bizarre coincidence? Who attacks women and children?"

A can of pepper spray was found outside the mosque.

The Interfaith Alliance has issued a statement condemning the attack:

“‘God, help us!’ I prayed as I read the headline: ‘Chemical irritant empties Islamic Society of Greater Dayton's mosque,’” said Rev. Gaddy. “Has it come to this—an assault on innocent children? Scapegoating Muslims as well as denouncing them verbally and attacking them physically has become all too common in this post 9/11 world.”

This attack comes just days after the distribution of the film Obsession- Radical Islam’s War against the West, in Ohio newspapers. News reports state that two unidentified men sprayed chemicals into a room full of children and infants as their mothers gathered together for their Ramadan prayers.

Rev Gaddy went on to say, “Did the distribution of an anti-Muslim film encourage the Islamaphobia that may have caused the attack? No one can say except the perpetrators, but the fear card is being played in the media, on the Internet and, now, in newspaper inserts across the United States..”

Rev. Gaddy concluded by saying, “Interfaith Alliance calls on its members and friends, and all Americans who believe in religious freedom and all those who value religious liberty and equality to send a strong, unified message that we will not tolerate bias motivated violence of any kind. We need to let the Muslim community of Dayton, and across America, know that we stand with them against terrorism and that we condemn this senseless act of violence and the propaganda that helped to fuel it.”

Republicans and right wing talk show hosts, including Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and Anne Coulter, advocate racism, intolerance, and violence every day. So we shouldn't be surprised when racism, anti-Semitism, intolerance and violence increase in our society. There is a long list of Republican intolerance and racism.

The terrorists who attacked this mosque, like the terrorists in Delaware and in Iowa, are cowards. They are about as un-American as you can get and deserve our condemnation. The Republican politicians and right wing media that encourages this kind of violence are also un-American cowards who deserve our condemnation.