Woman in burqa attacks family with their American Flag

[Albertoo]

Refugees seek a safe haven, but do all of them like America?

Muslim woman in burqa attacks family with their American Flag
| Friday, 06.03.2016, 01:17 PM

ATLANTA - A family in Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta, said they were attacked by an unknown Muslim woman wearing a full burqa simply because they were flying an American flag for Memorial Day.

Amina Ahra, 30, was arrested on two counts of simple battery after being accused of attacking a mother and daughter at their home.
Dami Arno told police she was in the garage talking with her daughter when Ahra emerged from the woods wearing a burqa, grabbed the flag from off the mailbox and charged at them.
Arno said she still can’t believe it all happened on American soil.

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/news/id_12342/Muslim-woman-in-burqa-attacks-family-with-their-American-Flag.html

[HubertHeaver]

1. "Arno said she still can't believe it all happened..."

I can't believe it either.

[Shrike47]

3. I'm a little dubious myself.

[HubertHeaver]

4. We are a dubious lot.

[Warpy]

9. Yeah, give this one the 72 hour sniff test

and my guess is that the other side of the story will give Arno the distinct odor of good old right wing bigotry.

[yardwork]

12. Yeah..... The woman emerged from the woods?

[Hoyt]

2. This should not have happened. But I saw family spokeswoman. I guarantee she supports Trump.

Well, 90+% sure. Hatred from whatever side is wrong.

[jberryhill]

5. Arno can't believe what, exactly?

The part about her "emerging from the woods" and randomly going off at what seems to have been the whole family out in the yard seems a little odd.

Having looked at the address on Google Earth, the house is in the middle of a street that backs up to a car dealership. To "emerge from woods" and end up at that house, you have to cover quite a bit of ground, so they must have had a good view of her coming. It's also not a place where you'd cut through those woods on your way from somewhere to anywhere else, such that it would be a short cut (if you look at the area, you'll see what I mean). Someone coming out of the woods onto that street is very lost, very confused, or has something going on in their head that isn't quite right.

However, odd people do odd things, regardless of what they are wearing or what their religion might be

[FrodosPet]

6. Perhaps it was staged by the Arno family and their neighbors?

[Albertoo]

7. Do you believe the family enticed that woman on their lawn?

[yardwork]

13. What woman? Does she even exist?

[leftynyc]

16. A woman was charged

with simple battery so there obviously was a woman.

[yardwork]

18. But did she really emerge from the woods and attack the family over the flag?

Or was the altercation about something else entirely.

[leftynyc]

25. No idea

but that wasn't your original question.

[yardwork]

26. My question wasn't clear, sorry.

[The Straight Story]

8. I don't understand your question

Are you implying that there might be some refugees, etc, who aren't perfect and that that somehow reflects on the entire group?

I remember conservative folks after 9/11 (and still today) being wary of sikhs and attacking them for wearing a turban.

Would we ask "Americans see people of a different, but do americans like them all?"

I mean, why would anyone ask that? We are a diverse people here, same as refugees, and anyone who expects one group to be perfect is just plain stupid. Why should all bear the crimes of the few - unless the idea is to spread hate/doubts/etc about the many because someone doesn't like them.

[Albertoo]

28. The difference between willing immigrants and refugees is their (dis)taste for the USA

The multiple layers of immigration that created the US were composed of people wanting to come to the US, and, as from 1776, willing to blend in a democratic Republic.
Immigrants liked the USA

Not so with migrants from the Middle East. What they want is to flee war and repression (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria). But a significant minority among them does not wish to blend in a democracy. They want a theocracy. And a significant minority, two digits percentage, harbors the view that the US was the aggressor of their country of origin.
A significant minority of refugees doesn't quit like democracy or the USA.
Witness the Somali refugees who grew up in the US to join ISIS later.

[The Straight Story]

57. Ok, so they reflect others, like conservatives here. They hate america and want a theocracy too

So I guess they are part of that side of the melting pot.

[Albertoo]

58. American religious fundamentalists are nuts, but they do not hate the US or its flag

[The Straight Story]

59. They have hated the US since 2008

back in 2001 it was all "Salute and back your president or it means you hate america, damned liberal hippies."

And now? They are doing to Obama what they said people doing to bush meant you hated America. So, by their own definition, they hate America.

[Albertoo]

61. Fundamentalists may hate Democrats, they do not hate the US like radical Muslims

[Recursion]

10. Is there any indication the woman arrested is a refugee? Or Muslim?

Plenty of African Christian and even animist women cover as well.

[leftynyc]

17. They cover their hair

but a full burqa? No.

[Recursion]

20. "Burqa" made me suspicious since they aren't worn in Africa

Some Somali and Sudanese women wear niqab. I don't expect J. Random Redneck to know the difference, but if the reporter didn't even bother to clear that up it makes me suspect the whole thing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. That was my reaction, too. The woman looks Somali, and no burqas in Somalia

Minneapolis has the largest population of Somalis in the U.S. Almost all the women wear hijab or khimar (the head covering that you see women wearing in Bible illustrations), but I have never seen a Somali woman, or anyone else for that matter, in a burqa.

[leftynyc]

24. Only time I've seen a burqa

in person was in Amman. Such a modern city it was very startling.

[Scootaloo]

45. I'm waking a wild gamble that the garment is just misidentified

Most Americans just don't know the difference between the different garments.

[Marrah_G]

11. Oh I doubt it was "just because they were flying the flag"

or that the woman was wearing an actual burqua.

Still, violence is wrong. She was wrong to do that. If it even happened.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. Maybe she is PTSD from the war and snapped

[bullwinkle428]

15. Yes - I haven't the slightest doubt that in RURAL GEORGIA, there are women

in burqas lurking around in the woods, just waiting for an opportunity to attack the flags of some fine red, white, and blue patriotic Americans!

[yardwork]

19. Happens all the time! Lol

[dawg]

22. Lawrenceville is Atlanta metro. Rural Georgia is where *I* live.

And I get attacked by violent 6' 2" Muslim women in burqas at least once a month.

[Chan790]

47. Maybe they just want a hug?

I mean, if my recollection is correct, you're single and ready to mingle.

Take a chance on a tall, probably-leggy, woman in a fashionable garment.

[Albertoo]

31. See police report confirming the story in post #21 (not mine)

[Sunlei]

21. It's like half a news story. No details what so ever. Here's the police report.

wonder if the witness statements are the 'entire story'?

[Albertoo]

29. Thanks. Pretty much confirms the article

[Oneironaut]

34. Thx

[tblue37]

52. She was wearing a black burqa that attacked them?!! nt

[Scootaloo]

27. Sounds like a nut to me n/t

[Albertoo]

30. Quite likely, but nefarious ideologies send nuts to do harm

Let say the attacking lady is a nut.
Without an ideological motivation, she might chat with fairies or collect twigs.

But if her religious/nationalist background tells her the US is the great Satan,
the outcome is different.

[Scootaloo]

36. So do talking dogs.

We all know what you want this to be about, but it's really looking like a woman with a mental problem, if anything at all.

[Albertoo]

38. So the Middle Eastern culture about the US plays zero role in this case?

That's what you want this to be about, isn't it?
Just a lone mad woman, and never, ever a sign of something that exists among the refugees?
You do know about the Somali refugees who grew up in the US and carry forward the anti-American values of their country of origin? Are they lone nutters too, without any impact of their culture of origin?

[Scootaloo]

44. First, Somalia is in Africa, not the middle east.

So, Somalia is not part of "Middle eastern Culture." Whatever that's supposed to be.

There are over eighty-five thousand Somalis in the United States. Seventy-six thousand of them were born in Somalia. If there were some sort of natural proclivity for them to wander out of wooded lots to menace people with pennants, I think we all would have heard about it by now. So far as I am aware, this is a first.

And just think for a moment. A woman wanders out of the woods, and threatens people with a flagpole. That's less Mohammed Farrah Aidid, and more Britney Spears.

Seriously man. Like I said, you want this to be more than it is. What it is is a woman shambling out of a woodlot in a cassock and swinging a flag at some people.

[Albertoo]

49. Somalia is just miles from the Middle East and belongs to the cultural Middle East

Anyway, you probably understood I was using 'Middle East' loosely, meaning the long stretch of predominantly Muslim countries (map below)

As for your wit over the Somalis not taking the habit of jumping out of woods to attack people with American flags, may I remind you the Somali community in the US has its fair share of Muslim radicals, including some who left to fight with ISIS?

[Scootaloo]

51. Well, you're doing so incorrectly then

If you mean one thing, don't try to use another thing to say it. You meant "Muslim." So say "Muslim."

Second, ISIS fighters don't meander out of trees to threaten people in Georgia with a cloth on a stick. I've seen some videos, they're rather more effective in their methods of brutality, intimidation, and violence.

I don't want to get personal here man, but it looks like you're just trying to confirm your own prejudices.

[Albertoo]

53. No, I didn't mean Muslim

First Muslim is an extremely loose word, since there is not one doctrine of Islam.

Second, among Muslims, and especially among Muslims living in the West, there is a strain of 'Islam' which is interpreted as loosely and benevolently as Reform Jews interpret the ugly text of the Torah.

What I meant was -for lack of a better word- the Middle East interpretation of Islam, i.e. Islam as it is practiced in countries which are over 80% Muslim and represent a long stretch from Mauritania to Pakistan, with the Arabian peninsula loosely at the center, and Somalia stuck just below, next to it.

[struggle4progress]

32. "Police don't know a motive for the attack"

Police: Woman Attacks Homeowner With American Flag
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Jun 2, 2016, 4:22 PM ET

[Albertoo]

35. Already answered in post #30

Even if the attacker is a nut, her insanity appears to have fed on a hatred of the US flag which can only be informed by the way the US is painted in the Middle East for political/religious reasons.

The OP questions the wisdom of welcoming refugees without checking first what their attitude toward the US is.

[struggle4progress]

39. As a very general rule, I frown on attacking people. As another very general rule,

I oppose the pretense that from skeletal stories we can deduce the actual facts of particular incidents. I do not know what happened here. We have a criminal justice system that attempts to sort out matters like this: it is supposed to be evidence-based

[Albertoo]

40. As a general rule, I try to prevent fire rather than wait for the full blaze

IMHO, Democrats would be wise to deprive Trump's successors of very real fire.
I'm convinced (hope) Trump will lose. But European-style hard-RW populism will grow and turbo-charged, more articulate Trumps will rise if concerns over refugees are not answered.

My OP was merely an illustration of the fact there are legitimate fears ME immigrants are not properly screened. Even if the attacker is somewhat deranged, which is quite likely, it is also equally likely her animus toward the US flag was ingrained in her ME culture/religion of origin.

[struggle4progress]

41. According to reports, Amina Ahra is not from the Middle East but from Somalia

[Albertoo]

42. You are nitpicking, Somalia is next door to Yemen and Saudi Arabia

[struggle4progress]

48. "Careless with some facts, careless with all"

[Albertoo]

50. There just isn't an adequate word for the cultural Middle East

Somalia shares far more values with neighbor Yemen than with neighbor Kenya.

[struggle4progress]

54. There isn't an adequate word for people who assume facts-not-in-evidence

based on a person's skin-color or name or religion, but "bigot" might do in a pinch

[Albertoo]

55. The wearing of a burqa is evidence of submission to political Islam

And the word bigot "might do in a pinch" for people who support the sexist coercion or indoctrination of women into walking the streets under a complete covering with only a slit for the eyes.

[Oneironaut]

33. Meh...

- Has the fact that she's Muslim been proven relevant to the story?
- Is there a better source? This looks like a blog.
- Someone can be crazy and Muslim at the same time. Even if it were for waving the flag, that may have been a secondary trigger of the attack.
- Was sent by an Imam? Sent by anyone? Otherwise, she's just some lone (religious?) nut. Religion may be to blame, don't get me wrong, but not all Muslims. If this were a Christian, it would be just as believable, and I'd be saying the same thing.
- Is this the whole story?

Before you get snarky, remember that these are all questions a good journalist would ask. Too bad those don't exist anymore. Good journalists don't fetch good advertising revenue.

[Albertoo]

37. Some answers

- Is there a better source? This looks like a blog.
- Is this the whole story?

See police report in post #21

- Someone can be crazy and Muslim at the same time.
- Has the fact that she's Muslim been proven relevant to the story?

My answer in post #30

- Was sent by an Imam? Sent by anyone? Otherwise, she's just some lone (religious?) nut.

Most likely a lone ranger, to be confirmed.

Religion may be to blame, don't get me wrong, but not all Muslims.

Agree 100%. Muslims are just people, good, bad, same as everyone.
The problem is indeed Islam (as it is understood/defined by the great majority of its clerics), and the wisdom of welcoming refugees without some screening of their attitudes and opinions towards the US.

[Quantess]

43. Sounds like mental illness.

[George Eliot]

46. Watch this video from CBC. Canada takes in many more refugees. See the hardship.

I'm not defending her but what kinds of support do we give people who are refugees? I'm not sure. I watched a Canadian segment from the CBC and it followed the journal of a family who found refuge in Canada and they give quite a lot of support. Still, the family was undergoing huge stresses: language, lack of social support, climate, isolation, education, missing family and friends. You have to watch the segment to really understand how difficult becoming a refugee in a new country can be. They are only here because they have no other choice. America is at minimum partially responsible for the state of the middle east. Please watch this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/struggling-to-adapt-one-syrian-refugee-family-s-story-1.3607786

[Albertoo]

56. Being a refugee is hard, but moving to a country you do not like makes it worse

There are 57 'Muslim' countries.
Better to resettle there rather than in the US if one doesn't approve of the American flag.

[bdwker]

60. THAT. Makes sense.

Resettle them in a country they would feel more comfortable.