Sometimes we do the right things without realizing the full reasons we do them until some time later. The recent ruckus over the appointment of a person with ties to terrorist groups was like that for me.

I and many members of the Peoples Tea Party joined in the opposition to this appointment, some via emails or phone calls others in personal appearance before the Council. Then it began, the people pushing for this appointment characterized the opposition as hate, and based on the color of Mr. Ahmed's skin.

Every Muslim and person of color was told by our City Council that the people opposed to this nomination opposed it because they had a different skin color. Mr. Ahmed himself stated that this was about his religion lumping all Muslims into his radical view.

The media ran with these statements and WJXT TV4 even produced a show where the opposition was called racist and bigots and refused to allow any rebuttal even though numerous requests were made to correct the statements.

The Council meeting that ultimately confirmed Mr. Ahmed was one of the most embarrassing things I have ever witnessed in my life. I was truly embarrassed for Mr. Ahmed, myself and the City of Jacksonville. The manner in which this matter was handled by the Council was unfair to Mr. Ahmed, the people opposing the appointment and the people in the audience that were for it.

The people in opposition to the appointment came to the Council to address the issues of Mr. Ahmed’s previous associations with radical groups and instead the entire meeting became about religion, race, and the color of everyone’s skin. Mr. Redmond’s request to have Mr. Ahmed "pray to his God" made me want to crawl under my chair with shame. Then the unwarranted and race divisional statements of other members of the Council mainly from Mr. Warren Jones took the conversation to new depths of divisiveness.

I sat there through this demeaning and disgusting process stunned at the willingness of leaders to divide the community in order to get this appointment through and then it hit me. The reason I was there opposing this appointment in the first place.

It had nothing to do with Mr. Ahmed's skin color and had nothing to do with his religion except for the misguided approach to supporting violence. That was the only topic of our conversation the entire time unless we were fending off the charges of racism and bigotry. You would think we were there to divide the community and in fact the exact opposite is true and that was the realization that hit me just before I gave the Council a piece of my mind.

We are not the dividers we were the ones trying to remove the threat of division and hate from our presence. Radical Islam is not all of Islam but the un-peaceful extremist promote mistrust and division for all of Islam. The entire purpose of our opposition was to call for peace and end the division of hate and racial division we saw as a threat to society. To accept a person with radical views was to accept hate and division and that is what we opposed and all we opposed.

So why did this process turn so wrong and why was every divisional tactic that could be used was used against us? The mischaracterizations and the racial attacks was nothing more that a strategy and dividing the community along racial and religious lines was a tactic used by people who care nothing about the community but only their own greed.

John Delaney, John Peyton, Warren Jones and Don Redmond all owe the commuinty an apology and some even more for their statements made during this process. This appointment was not about appointing a Muslim, but about the greed of buying influence for oil purchases in the Mid East nation of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Ahemed’s connections to Saudi Arabia are well doccumented as are Mr. Peytons and Delaney’s connection to the Oil Business here in Jacksonville. Follow the money and find the reason. It holds true every time in politics and in this case.

I sincerely hope Mr. Ahmed is truly the moderate he says he is, but his semantic games to condemn terrorism while refusing to name Hezbolla and Hamas as terrorist groups worries me. I also hope the price paid for oil and influence by the Peyton dynasty won’t be much higher than expected for our City.