john maddente | midwestern clarity

I heard from an American Muslim troubled by my September 20, 2007 column, "National security vs. civil liberty in America" My reply to him follows... "I appreciate your thoughtful reply and I apologize for the length of time it has taken me to respond. Before I address the points you make below, I should like to make clear that I fully recognize that the overwhelming majority of Muslims (American and otherwise) are peaceful, decent, people of faith. Radical Islam represents only a small fraction of the one billion-plus Muslims in the world. Unfortunately that small fraction still equates to a large number of people that we must monitor and defend ourselves from, in order to preserve our freedoms. As for the incident that took place at the Minneapolis airport in 2006, it is obvious that you are troubled by my use of the word “suspicious.” If the 6 clerics involved were simply and quietly praying as you maintain, the flurry of events that made their presence so newsw...