al-Qaeda Threat: Vigilance or Prejudice

By Bryan Cain-Jackson


Article first published as al-Qaeda Threat: Vigilance Or Prejudice on Technorati.


One week has passed since finding out the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death. The country celebrated and rejoiced over the fact that he was dead. The rejoicing should always be about the justice that has been done and never about the fact that person has died.



Conspiracy theories fly rampant in the beliefs that Bin Laden was already killed or that he hasn’t been killed at all. In either scenario, once he was killed there was certainly a cause for concern.


Due to security concerns, there have been at least two passenger planes that have emergency landed. In one of the flights, a man tried to reach for the door while the plane was in the air. The plane landed and the man was interviewed by the federal authorities. The other plane was landed as a result of a suspicious note found by a flight attendant.


An incident aboard a plane to North Carolina is under investigation. Due to the discomfort of passengers aboard, two imams in traditional Muslim dress were removed from the plane prior to take off. Masudar Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul are both of very high importance in the Muslim religious community. They were on their way to a conference for prejudice against Muslims and Islamaphobia. Rahman is a professor at the University of Memphis.


There are definitely reasons to feel threatened after the US killed Osama Bin Laden; he was the leader of the al-Qaeda. Furthermore, the documented evidence proving the Pakistani intelligence team that led the US to Bin Laden as being linked to al-Qaeda terrorists. Why would they lead us to Osama Bin Laden if they had another agenda? How far along in execution are the al-Qaeda plans for the new act of terrorism against the US? There are so many questions and even few answers if any will ever provide a universal sense of satisfaction amongst US citizens. Everyone is being extremely alert and that is to be expected. However, are we being vigilant or outright prejudice?


That need for vigilance can also be a safe assumption as to why our troops will not be sent home yet. I truly fear the feeling of paranoia is rampant in our country; the need to point fingers and label those who are innocent as potential perpetrators is growing out of hand. We are in a climate that is plagued with uncertainty, not knowing what to expect from one day to the next can have this affect on people.


We should take great care and pride in not allowing the image of one’s customs and attire influence our portrait of what a monster is. Osama Bin Laden was a monster, but we should not label those with a similar name, attire, looks or any other aspect of superficiality to drain our perception of color and clarity. It’s important that the fine line between vigilance and prejudice be identified to avoid making an already critical situation worst.