Target America

Someone is offended on a daily basis. Today it's some Arab groups that don't like the Taliban flag in an anti-drug exhibit. Get over it, Hassan, it's a fact of life. To say there would be an outcry if Christian or Jewish symbols were used is ludicrous. There were no Christians or Jews involved. However just to disprove your point, when there has been news about some Klan atrocity we never have hidden the fact that the cross is one of their symbols.
What really makes you look suspicious, is trying to justify Hezbollah as anything other than rabid Jew hating terrorists.
There is no great strain or leap of logic to connect these groups with drugs and terrorism financed by drug money unless of course you have another agenda.


An exhibit on the dangers of drugs and their connections to terrorism did not raise ethnic or religious concerns when it went on display in New York, Dallas and elsewhere. But it has in Detroit. Some members of metro Detroit's Arab-American community are complaining the exhibit at the New Detroit Science Center is insensitive in its use of Islamic imagery and want it changed to ensure it does not offend Muslims.

There are specific concerns over a handmade flag that purportedly belonged to the Taliban in Afghanistan and was given to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, whose museum center in Arlington, Va., created the exhibit.

The white flag carries the statement, written in Arabic, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah" and is displayed near rubble taken from the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Taliban was ousted as the ruling party of Afghanistan by U.S. forces after being linked to Al Qaeda.

But the statement on the flag is fundamental to Islam as a whole and the flag's Taliban connection does not justify its presence in the exhibit, said Hassan Jaber, associate executive director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. Jaber saw the exhibit about two weeks ago at the request of the science center after employees raised concerns.

"If these Taliban use it, and if the vicious and killers have used it, it doesn't mean that there's an association between Islam and drug trafficking," he said. "If they would have used any other religious symbols from Christianity or Judaism, there would have been an outcry in the community. That level of sensitivity is not there."

Sean Fearns, director of the DEA museum, said the flag is meant to illustrate operations against the Taliban -- not to attack Islam. He said a confidential source gave the flag, as well as the poppy pods in the exhibit, to DEA agents in Pakistan in late 2001.

"The purpose of the exhibit is not in any way -- truly, truly in any way -- not to categorize any one group," he said.

The part of the exhibit that displays the flag says both Al Qaeda and the Taliban may have used drug money for their operations. The majority of the exhibit, however, deals with how illegal drugs affect every community and damage the human body, highlighting drug cases in Michigan.

Carolyn Gibson, a DEA special agent with the Detroit Field Division, said she and other agents will listen to any concerns about the exhibit.

Representatives from at least two other Arab-American organizations in metro Detroit -- the Michigan chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Arab American and Chaldean Council -- are expected to review the exhibit, "Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause," at the invitation of the science center.

The DEA has also invited representatives from Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust, a group of civic, religious and law enforcement leaders in Michigan, to view the exhibit. The DEA museum must approve any changes in the content of the exhibit, Fearns said.

Fearns noted the traveling exhibit did not raise similar concerns when it was shown in New York for six months before arriving in Detroit in April. It has also been seen in Dallas and Ashland, Neb., since its opening in 2002 at the DEA museum in Arlington.

For Jaber, the exhibit also erred in listing Hizballah on a board titled "What is a narco-terrorist?" While many Western governments and the U.S. State Department view the Middle Eastern group as a terrorist threat, others consider it a legitimate political and military organization in Lebanon.

"This is an exhibit about the impact of drugs," Jaber said. "Let's just make it an exhibit about the impact of drugs and not strain ourselves to make connections."

Visitors to the museum this week differed in their responses to the flag and its Islamic symbolism.

Winnie Nwankwo, 35, of Southfield called the flag inappropriate for the exhibit.

"Kids will look at it and say, 'Oh!' and tie it to drugs," said Nwankwo, a teacher. "They'll say, 'That's what Muslims do.' "

Several minutes later, Maryellen Gross, 53, of West Bloomfield assessed the flag while holding her 12-year-old daughter Marissa's hand.

"Not being Arab American, I didn't connect it to anything," Gross said. "I don't believe all Muslims sell drugs. My kids would never believe that."

From the Detroit Free Press.