Wednesday marked the 18th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks. During the a memorial event in New York City, Nicholas Haros Jr., who lost his mother, Frances Haros, in the attack, wore a shirt that said "some people did something." He used the opportunity to slam Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her previous comments.
"'Some people did something,' said a freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, to support and justify the creation of CAIR, [The Council on American-Islamic Relations]," Haros said after reading his mother's name. "Today I'm here to respond to you exactly who did what to whom. Madam, objectively speaking, we know who and what was done. There is no uncertainty about that. Why your confusion?"
Omar was asked about the confrontation during an interview on "Face the Nation."
"The anniversary this week – the 18th – of the 9/11 attacks on our country and at a Ground Zero remembrance, well, remembrance ceremony, we'll call it," host Margaret Brennan explained. "The son of one of the victims stood up and specifically called out language that you had used in the past that he characterized as 'not respectful,' when referring to the 3,000 people who were killed by Al Qaeda. You said, 'some people did something.' And he put right there on his t-shirt. Do you understand why people found that offensive?"
"So, 9/11 was an attack on all Americans. It was an attack on all of us and I certainly could not understand the weight of the pain that the victims of the families of 9/11 must feel but I think it's really important for us to make sure that we are not forgetting the aftermath of what happened after 9/11," Omar explained. "Many Americans found themselves now having their civil rights stripped from them. And so, when I was speaking to the fact that as a Muslim, only was I suffering as an American who was attacked on that day, but the next day I woke up as my fellow Americans were now treating me as a suspect."
What happened on September 11th was a terrorist attack. Innocent people died simply because they're Americans. Refusing to condemn the monsters who carried out the attack or call them terrorists has nothing to do how Muslims were treated during the aftermath. If anything, she would want to differentiate herself from those heinous people. She'd want others to know that a small subsection of Muslims are extremists, but it's not the norm.
Let's call this what it is: a horrible public relations move to redefine what she meant because she's faced backlash for her comments.
“I certainly could not understand the weight of the pain that the victims of the families of 9/11 must feel,” @IlhanMN says, but we should also remember that many Americans had “their civil rights stripped from them” in the wake of the attacks. pic.twitter.com/m6LbX3i2DG
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 15, 2019