Donald Trump: We Are Not the Enemy!: A Muslim-American U.S. Military Veteran Explains the Muslim “Problem” and Offers Proposals for Peace

Published by Gatekeeper Press

3971 Hoover Rd. Suite 77

Columbus, OH 43123-2839

Copyright © 2016 by Adam Al Hor

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

eISBN: 9781619845664

Contents

Chapter 1: My Story

Chapter 2: Fox News and the Islamophobia industry

Chapter 3: Republicans and the 2016 Election Bids

Chapter 4: History of Militant Islam

Chapter 5: Causes of Terrorism

Chapter 6: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions in the Muslim World

Chapter 7: Solutions to Terrorism

Chapter 8: Condemning Terrorism

Chapter 9: Conclusion

Chapter 1

My Story

As a child, if I looked westward from the shores of my native North African country, only the water of the Atlantic Ocean separated me from the United States. Growing up, I fell in love with the liberties, freedoms, and pursuit of happiness that the American people enjoyed, and I strove to be part of the dream. As President Barack Obama said, Alongside our famous individualism, there is another ingredient in the American story, which is a belief that we are all connected as one people despite our background, races, and faiths. There is no white America, black America, Latino America, or Asia America; there is the United States of America.¹

This unique fabric of the country prompted me to contribute to the mix and diversity.

I was born in Morocco, the first country that recognized the United States (on June 23, 1786)as an independent nation. On that momentous day, a treaty of peace and friendship was signed by U.S. Minister Thomas Barclay and Sultan of Morocco Sidi Muhammadat Marrakech.²

I am a middle child of ten children. My parents were previously divorced from arranged marriages, and theirs was also arranged. My father had a small electronic repair shop. My mother always told me that my dad used to make good money, but because of his trustworthy nature, he trusted a friend who conned him out of his savings after the friend promised to help him buy a house. My father was naive. The con artist was later arrested and sentenced to prison, where he died years later. Without a degree, my dad managed to learn how to fix TVs, radio receivers, and most kinds of electronics. I remember when I was small, he used to take me with him to fix people’s TVs in their homes after he closed his shop. After he lost most of his savings, he felt bad, so he started to smoke heavily, which affected his health, and he had to sell the shop and stay at home.

My father saved no money for retirement and, just like most Moroccans, who do not benefit from any type of social welfare, he died poor.

He died in 1993 at age fifty-three following a long fight against an illness related to heavy smoking. I was nineteen years old. We were poor with no financial support, so my mother,without formal education or training, was required to enter the job market by selling clothes in the markets of Casablanca.

My mother sold her merchandise in the streets, never missing a day, weathering cold, rain, and burning sun.

I used to worry about her due to petty thieves and some corrupt Moroccan police officers who extorted money from the poor to allow them to do business. Similar practices are widely known in North Africa, and it was later the spark that ignited Arab Spring in Tunisia in 2011 and beyond.

When I was in college, I used to accompany my mother to help her sell clothes. In Morocco, college was free for Moroccan citizens, but an opportunity cost was associated with attending college. Each class I took was time away from helping to support my family.

When my father worked, we had food on our table and clothes on our backs. But after he died, things started to get worse. My mother had to rent one of the rooms in our two-bedroom flat, and she sold her jewelry and kitchenware to buy food for us. She even washed people’s clothes with her bare hands to make money. We used to be happy to have a guest in our flat, because I knew that we would be eating meat and fresh fruit. We were often hungry and waited for Mom to come back home and bring food.

Later on, my half-brother moved into our flat after the tenant left, and he helped out with the expenses. He didn’t care much about us, and he blamed my mother for leaving his father when he was a kid along with his brother and two sisters. The truth is that my mother was a victim of Arab/Islamic culture rules that strip women of their rights.

My half-brother had a small room by himself because he paid for it, and we all used to sleep in one big room—some on the floor, others on tiny Moroccan couches, and we didn’t have beds. I can’t count how many times I fell off the couch while sleeping. It wasn’t comfortable, to say the least.

I admire my mother because she never begged anyone to help feed her kids and she learned the art of trade, which tremendously helped us later on. She is my hero.

Life is very difficult in Morocco, because it is a low-income country with a lack of jobs and no social welfare. Many poor people rely on donations to survive.

Personally, I often felt guilty about attending college instead of working to support my family. Finding peace while away attending classes was not easy for me.

Eventually, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics. My uncle, through his connections, managed to help me find an entry-level job as a trainee accountant at an accounting firm in Casablanca. The unemployment in Morocco was extremely high among youths, and many businesses took advantage of others’ misfortunes.The owner of the accounting firm informed me that I would be working in his firm as an intern for two months, and he agreed to pay me $100 a month. Eight months later, he was still paying me the same amount ($100 a month) even though the minimum monthly wage in Morocco back then was around $200. Yet I was lucky, because many of my friends who graduated with similar degrees didn’t have a chance to find similar opportunity. They told me that they would work longer for free just to gain experience and not be unemployed.

I always dreamed of a better life, and my prayers were answered when in 1998I was granted a U.S. immigration visa. I was ecstatic and overwhelmed, because usually only people from the Moroccan elites get to travel to the U.S. and not from the bottom of the social pyramid, because it is far and expensive.

During my first year in the land of the free, I told myself that America was a land of opportunities. I had a college degree and didn’t come here to flip burgers, so I registered with the Selective Service. I enlisted in the United States Air Force (USAF) at the end of the ’90s to thank America for the opportunity that was given to me and to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I also did it to pursue higher education and to be part of the dream.

When those terrorist attacks took place on 9/11, I was in uniform, and I pledged to contribute to the security of the U.S. homeland and its troops overseas.

Even though my life in the U.S. wasn’t a paved road, I battled, I struggled, and I overcame all the obstacles by simply believing that impossible is possible.

I had a Moroccan friend who welcomed me in his apartment in Boston. When I first arrived there, I was greeted by seven guys—all Moroccans and all living in the one-bedroom apartment. It was very crowded and smelly, to say the least. Two weeks later, my new friends helped me find a job at McDonald’s earning $4.25 per hour. I worked a second job at Dunkin’ Donuts to make extra money, and when I was off, I used to take English classes at a community college, ride my bicycle, and play soccer.

When I earned my first paycheck, I asked my mother to retire, because my brothers and sisters became my responsibility. I sent a minimum of 30 percent of my earnings home, and it was enough.

Months later, all our Moroccan roommates moved out, and Muhammad and I remained the sole tenants in the apartment.

I went to the club scenes, met Western women, and tried to explore the American culture and learn as much as I could about the number one country on earth and its people.

I fail in love with Boston, because of its historical landmarks, its prestigious schools, and its people. I worked, I lived, and I hung out with Moroccans, which didn’t help my English learning goals and my future ambitions. So I decided to join the U.S. military and experience the