So let's get this straight, Abdul Artan, the Ohio State student who was quoted in his university's newspaper that he was worried about America's apprehensions with the religion of Islam, decided to avenge his beliefs by running over and stabbing Americans?
In Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, Artan said he was worried about bigotry on campus towards Islam and Muslims throughout America.
“I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media. I’m a Muslim, it’s not what media portrays me to be,” he said. “If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads.”
He specifically said in a statement that if the United States wanted “Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace with ‘dawla in al sham,'” according to the Associated Press.
So apparently, in Artan's view, the United States did not make peace with 'dawla in al sham' and he therefore plowed his car into a group of Americans on Monday morning and began stabbing the injured with a butcher knife before he was shot to death by a campus police officer.
Artan was born in Somalia and was a legal permanent resident, according the AP report.
A government official said Artan came to the United States in 2014, but had been living in Pakistan since 2007.
From the surface, it looks like Artan was given a pretty privileged opportunity here in America. Are there not plenty of Americans who would treasure an opportunity to attend Ohio State University and excel in this country? What about young people from Baltimore, Ferguson, or even near-by Chicago? What right do we have as a country to tear Artan away from his peaceful country that is rooted in Islam and bring him here, to this wretched place that he believed was intentionally designed to somehow hurt is well being?
One question remains, what more do we have to do as Americans to prevent such attacks? Do we continue to shelter Muslims and vilify anyone who questions the origins and motives of Islam? Do we continue to bring in 16 year-old boys from Pakistan to the United States and forcefully integrate them into our society? What do we gain as Americans from such actions?
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