Posted 06:37 PM ET
Rauf: His past criticisms of U.S. have come back to haunt him. AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Newscom View Enlarged Image
9/11 Mosque: At a Ramadan Iftar dinner at the White House, the president says building a mosque near Ground Zero is just a real estate deal. Of course, 9/11 was just a "man-caused disaster." So is his presidency.
On Friday, President Obama endorsed the construction of a mosque within shouting distance of Ground Zero. On Sunday, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of the terrorist group Hamas and the organization's chief in the Gaza Strip, did the same.
"We have to build everywhere," al-Zahar said on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC radio in New York after Obama said it was okay for Muslims to build a mosque anywhere.
His State Department even sent the mosque's imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, on a goodwill mission to the Middle East.
Good will? Good grief!
Abdul Rauf, touted by the mainstream media and naive politicians as a bridge-builder between cultures, has pointedly refused to describe the group as a terrorist organization — despite the State Department listing that identifies it as such. It is a valid insight into his thought process.
Yes, Mr. President, Muslims should be as free to practice their religion in this country as any other religious group. They are free to buy property and develop it as they wish in accordance with local zoning laws like anyone else.
There are in fact hundreds of mosques in New York and thousands in America.
Mahmoud al-Zahar and Feisal Abdul Rauf may want to build everywhere, but the American people are saying not just anywhere. The American people who put you in the White House are just saying not this mosque, not near Ground Zero, and not now.
If you can't understand why, Mr. President, we have a problem. In fact, the mosque is a mere 600 feet from Ground Zero, so close that the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes crashed into a building on the proposed site.
The mosque at Ground Zero is not about outreach. Evidently President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are not aware of why the name Cordoba House was picked. It is named after the bloody Muslim conquest of Cordoba, Spain, in 711. It will be seen as another Islamic victory.
Is this mosque going to be a bastion of religious tolerance? Its Imam Rauf is a man who has said he has no use for religious dialogue and believes 9/11 was America's fault.
In a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sept. 30, 2001, he said: "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."
Rauf says the U.S. has "been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA."
Sounds like the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for over two decades, who famously said 9/11 was America's chickens coming home to roost.
Anwar al-Awlaki and his mosque in Falls Church, Va., were once described by the media in the same glowing terms as Rauf and his mosque are today.
A New York Times article from Oct. 19, 2001, said al-Awlaki was held up as one of "a new generation of Muslim leaders capable of merging East and West." Yet al-Awlaki's Dar al-Hijrah mosque was a breeding ground for terror itself.
Among al-Awlaki's proteges would be Fort Hood terrorist shooter Nidal Hasan and the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Al-Awlaki is now an al-Qaida leader in Yemen.
We are not saying this is the destiny of the Ground Zero mosque. But tolerance has made us look the other way before. We are saying true outreach and tolerance takes into account the sensitivities of an American public shattered by 9/11 and its aftermath.
Is Obama Loyal to the America… Or to Someone…???
--------------
Chris Christie: Stop playing politics with the Ground Zero mosque
An Obama-esque statement, not only in terms of his stance on the mosque (like O, he’s voting present) but in the way he’s trying to position himself above the fray of normal party politics. That’s actually a big part of his brand: We think of him as a conservative rock star thanks to his crusade against spending but Christie tends to present himself as a pragmatist who’s just doing what needs to be done to restore fiscal sanity to New Jersey. He’s the adult in the room, in other words, making hard choices to solve serious problems while lesser pols jerk around and have food fights. That’s what he’s going for here, I think. Politico’s rough transcript:
“Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey. I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day. At the hands of radical Muslim extremist. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account. Just because it’s nearly nine years later, those sensitivities cannot and should not be ignored. On the other hand, we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush…We have to bring people together. And what offends me the most about all this, is that it’s being used as a political football by both parties. And what disturbs me about the president remarks is that he is now using it as a political football as well. I think the president of the United State should rise above that. And should not be using this as a political football, and I don’t believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them.
“My principles on this are two-fold. One, that we have to acknowledge, respect and give some measure of deference to the feelings of the family members who lost there loved ones there that day. But it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that…I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it.”
Asked if he’d call upon both parties to stop, he said, “Well, that again will be playing politics with the issue. I said what I feel about it, and I don’t believe it is up to me to pontificate on other people about what they should do. I just observe what I observe. And I don’t believe that this issue should be a political football. I just don’t. And I think that both sides of this issue now are using this as a political football. And I don’t think it brings people together in America, I think it just further drives people apart, and creates divisions, and I think that’s bad for our country. And all people in our country suffer when those kind of things happen.”
So (1) let’s respect public sensitivities about Ground Zero and (2) let’s respect the distinction between Muslims and radical Muslims and (3) let’s not divide people. What that means in terms of resolving this dispute, I have no idea. But I do agree with him that big-name pols weighing in on this does more harm than good. Even if they’re doing it for sincere reasons rather than for cynical political advantage, there’s no way to avoid the perception that they’re doing it for cynical political advantage, which adds a whole new dimension of clamminess to the discussion. It reminds me of Beltway honchos trying to coopt the tea-party label: Grassroots types on both sides are capable of hashing this out without establishment interference. What does Newt Gingrich add to the debate by railing against the mosque in one breath and chatting with reporters about whether he’ll run for president in another?
POSTED AT 6:23 PM ON AUGUST 16, 2010 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
Breaking News… But No Confirmation: Muslim Leaders Decide Against Ground Zero Mosque
Dems Flee From Obama’s Ground Zero Mosque Stance
Democrats and political analysts took the measure of the fallout from President Obama's support for the ground zero mosque on Monday, saying it will further complicate Democrats' efforts to maintain control of Congress in November. To Read the Full Story — Go Here Now.
The price of liberty is still eternal vigilance, and that should start with the White House… or perhaps more accurately of the White House!
No comments:
Post a Comment