The Occasional Observer

Today's article in the NYT contained some interesting info:

DEARBORN, Mich. — Twice recently, vandals have shattered windows at three mosques and a dozen businesses popular among Shiite Muslims along Warren Avenue, the spine of the Arab community here.

Surprisingly, the vandals were not xenophobic Chrisitans, much to the dismay of the Times. It turns out they were Sunni Muslims. The Sunni-Shiite split has come home to middle America.

My first reaction was, "so what?" After all, my paesanos brought their clannish rival gangs here from the old country, too. Did that threaten America? I was just They were just offering protection to fellow Italian-Americans at a reasonable price.

Now that I think about it though, organized crime never sought to impose its belief structure on the rest of the world. While there was a mob equivalent to Sharia Law, we didn't much want to share it with the masses. It would have made it a lot harder to rob everyone if the whole world had become wise guys.

Back to Dearborn. Here's an interesting quote:

...most in Dearborn’s Iraqi Shiite community blame the Sunni Muslims.

“The Shiites were very happy that they killed Saddam, but the Sunnis were in tears,” Aqeel Al-Tamimi, 34, an immigrant Iraqi truck driver and a Shiite, said as he ate roasted chicken and flatbread at Al-Akashi restaurant, one of the establishments damaged over the city line in Detroit. “These people look at us like we sold our country to America.”

Let me make sure I got that right:

“These people look at us like we sold our country to America."

Yup, there it is again.

So Aqeel Al-Tamimi, who likes to eat flatbread at Al-Akashi, feels like his Mohammaden colleagues are judging him for selling out "our country to America."

I thought his country was America? I could have sworn that the lead line of the story stated he's from Dearborn, Michigan. You know Michigan: one time residence of Henry Ford, historical backbone of US manufacturing might, home of the mighty football Lions.

Well lets see how that works if what he meant by "our country" was America:

...like we sold America to America.

Doesn't sound right. I guess "our country" must mean something else.

Don't worry, folks. I promise you I'll keep watching the Times like a hawk. If there's any follow-up reporting, I'll let you know what Aqeel Al-Tamimi and his Dearbornistan neighbors actually consider to be their country.