Letter submitted to the editor of the Honolulu Advertiser in response to article on survey indicating many in favor of restricting the civil liberties of American Muslims. However, this newspaper did not publish the letter.

Civil Liberties of American Muslims

To date U.S. military personnel in Iraq have suffered more than 1,321 deaths and 9,844 wounded in action. Some researchers estimate the number of Iraqi casualties at more than 100,000. The monetary cost of this war for U.S. taxpayers exceeds $151 billion so far. These numbers continue to increase with no end in sight. However, such numbers do not begin to express many other costs, long-term as well as short-term, not the least of which is the ruined lives of survivors including family members.

One of the more recent rationalizations for this war is to spread freedom and democracy in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East as well as to defend freedom and democracy here at home, according to President and Commander in Chief George W. Bush and his associates. However, as reported in this newspaper on Dec. 18 and commented on in David Shapiro’s column on the 22nd, a recent national survey by researchers at Cornell University revealed that nearly half of all Americans believe that the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans. In other words, at the same time that the U.S. is fighting a war to promote the freedom of the Iraqi people who are overwhelming Muslim, half of the American public believes that the freedom of Muslims in the U.S. should be restricted. That is hypocritical, immoral, and anti-American. There is no greater threat to homeland security than ignorance and prejudice which undermine freedom and democracy.

Leslie E. Sponsel