Imam At Center Of 'Ground Zero Mosque' Controversy Assisted Bush-Era State Department With Outreach To Muslims

The more you dig into the wild-eyed frenzy over the so-called "ground zero mosque" (by which, of course, I mean the "ground-zero mosque" that the Cordoba Initiative plans to build and not the "ground-zero mosque" that's already at "ground zero"), the more plain and simple stupidity you uncover.

Today's example: mosque opponents have been falling all over each other to paint the imam behind the proposed Cordoba House, Feisal Abdul Rauf, as some sort of terrorist sympathizing radical. Going further, Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) have criticized Rauf's inclusion in a State Department speaking tour of the Middle East.

Well, if you've been playing the Ground Zero Mosque "But There's Just One Problem With That" Drinking Game, steady your shotglass, because there's just one problem with that. I'll let TPM's Megan Carpentier explain:

If one were to hearken back to the halcyon days of the Bush Administration, one would remember that, when Bush adviser Karen Hughes was appointed Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, the Bush Administration saw improving America's standing among Muslims abroad as a part of its national security strategy. And, as such, Hughes set up listening tours, attended meetings and worked with interfaith groups that -- shocking, by today's Republican standards -- included actual Muslims.

One of those people was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

In separate posts, Greg Sargent and Adam Serwer remind us that Liz Cheney, who's part of the Ground Zero Mosque Paranoiac Choir caterwauling on and on about Rauf, was at the State Department when the Bush administration first started using Rauf as a part of their outreach effort to the Muslim World.

It's almost as if there's no real substance to anyone's fearful claims, and the Cordoba House has just gotten subsumed within a the cynical aspirations of a lot of right wing political hacks! At any rate, rage over Rauf officially qualifies as a facepalm moment for everyone foaming at the mouth about his "radicalism."

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Comments

[Kaz Vorpal]

12:17 PM on 08/24/2010

It's not a mosque. Any time someone calls it a mosque, you can figure either they're too irresponsible to bother learning the facts, or they're a hatemongering liar.

Park51 is a 13 story steel and glass building, like every other one in New York. It is a COMMUNITY CENTER, with a gymnasium, a restaurant, an auditorium...it is a glorified YMCA.

And the people building it are Sufi. The 9-11 terrorists are Wahabi. It's as if these idiots were trying to associate Mormons with the terrorist acts of the Catholic IRA.

Bother to learn the facts:

http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/its-not-even-an-effing-mosque/

[Jan Allen McDaniel]

04:56 PM on 08/24/2010

Imam Rauf told the Saudi press that it is a mosque that will accommodate 2,000 people.

[Salvador Doggy]

05:09 PM on 08/24/2010

"It's not a mosque. Any time someone calls it a mosque, you can figure either they're too irresponsible to bother learning the facts, or they're a hatemongering liar."

So which one is President Obama? Too irresponsible or a hatemongering liar?

“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding,” Obama told reporters Saturday after delivering remarks in Panama City Beach, Fla. “That's what our country is about."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/114305-obama-expands-on-mosque-comments-said-he-supports-the-right-to-build

[JuanDimensional]

12:48 PM on 08/20/2010

1. Islam is not building the religious facility. Imam Rauf is.
2. He couldn't have built there until the Burlington Coat Factory closed because of the damage done to it by 9-11.
3. He said he's building there because of 9-11.
4. 1 muslim died for every 30 non-muslims in 9-11.

Differential slaughter by religion, race, age or gender at a ratio of 30:1 gets noticed whether it should or not. And a decent person would notice it and think "I probably shouldn't equate the suffering of my community with the suffering of other communities who rightly or wrongly will view their suffering by categories (black, white, Jewish, Christian, rich, poor etc.)" when one of my faith died for every 30 not of my faith."

They would think "even though the murderers of 9-11 believe NOTHING that I believe, even though I don't consider them co-religionists, BECAUSE those fools shouted the name of my God before they murdered 3000 of my fellow Americans, I should not build a large place of worship on a spot MADE AVAILABLE by that atrocity, because I will bring needless pain to those other 2900 people's families, and other communities, even though they WRONGLY associate me with the atrocity."

Any decent cleric of any religion would think that. But Rauf doesn't. And he's a creep because of it.

[Daisytoo]

03:42 PM on 08/20/2010

An opportunistic creep of the worst order of creeps.

[Jan Allen McDaniel]

11:31 AM on 08/20/2010

Imam Rauf considers sharia law and American law, Islamic culture and American culture, as equals between which he wants to broker a compromise in law and culture.
This is an unacceptable proposal. The entities are not equal. One is superior to the other and the inferior one has to change to meet the standards required. Islam must be Americanized, not the reverse.
Islamic law is an ancient relic that has withstood all efforts at significant change. Individual scholars and teachers here and there call for reform of this or that doctrine but the kind of institutional change that is needed is not yet in sight.
America does not need to change to accommodate Islam. Islam needs to change to be acceptable as a member of the American family of religions that have accepted the fact that secular law is the highest law of this land.
Unreformed Islamic law does not accept that basic premise.

[Daisytoo]

03:41 PM on 08/20/2010

I'm in agreement w/your clearly made and accurate points. And while I can take some small hope in the fact that you think it's possible that the archaic swamp of sharia can be reformed by adaptation to the reality of civil/secular law, my hope otherwise is not substantial.

There is nothing quite like the desperation of seeking refuge in a free land for building incentives to change one's dysfunctional beliefs and behaviors. Gratitude for freedom can do wonders for the human soul and one's consequent endeavors. Frankly, I don't see this kind of desperation displayed by Muslim immigrants and I certainly see no gratitude (and although I could make a good case in favor of them recognizing their desperate straits, what good would that do if not self-recognized?) Instead of gratitude, I see denial of their stagnant status and sheer opportunism borne along by undiluted arrogance. It does not bode well.

You said it very well: "America does not need to change to accommodate Islam. Islam needs to change to be acceptable as a member of the American family of religions that have accepted the fact that secular law is the highest law of this land."

We ought not enable stagnancy in any way, shape or form. If we continue to do so, it will be more harmful than we can probably imagine.

[Poorsarah]

01:33 AM on 08/20/2010

The problem of asking our GOVT to DICTATE where any religion can or cannot build opens up a can of rotten worms...no, religions do not agree with each others beliefs, but ot have the GOVT controlling reiligions in America is un-American. This is politics at its worst started by the fearmongering of the GOP/TEA...if we want to go on a witch hunt and dig up "disrespect" from other religions...we could find it in all religions. The Christians should tear down ALL churches that have been built over the sacred burial grounds of the real Americans; Native Americans. Also, we should tear down the Japanese Buddhist Shinto shrine built near Pearl Harbor...out of RESPECT for other religions. It would be an endless argument and useless political game to try and figure out which religion is being the most disrespectful.

[MIKEinNYC]

11:00 AM on 08/14/2010

The guy is a good snake oil salesman. He fooled the Bushies and now he's pulling the wool over the eyes of the Obama administration which just PAID to send this guy overseas on a mission.

Are we out of our dmimmi minds?

[RockydaDog]

12:01 PM on 08/14/2010

Follow the money. No matter what your view of this project you'll be surprised.

[Venicelady]

05:11 PM on 08/14/2010

Seems that way, doesn't it?

[MIKEinNYC]

09:17 AM on 08/14/2010

We realize, of course, that it's called the Cordoba" initiative as commemoration of a victory that Moslems scored in Cordoba, Spain where they built a Victory Mosque on the site of one of their conquests. In Cordoba, in order to build their mosque, they use as building materials, stones and other components that they scavenged from the church that stood there before they took it down to build their Victory Mosque and from a a local synagogue that they also destroyed. Religion of Peace! (Piece of this, piece of that)

[Troff]

04:58 PM on 08/14/2010

Exactly! Let's not be fooled by the mere thousand years that has passed since then into thinking that anything will be different this time. And Christians would *never* do something like that!

[Venicelady]

05:23 PM on 08/14/2010

That seems to be a piece of history that people don't understand about the possible motives of the Imam. In bending over backwards to try to show how "tolerant" we are, I have to wonder if we're not letting the wolf in through the front door.
The project name has now been changed to the more innocuous sounding "Park 51". WHY the change, if not to redirect attention away from the connotations associated with Cordoba? Sounds disingenuous to me.
I would love to be proven wrong, but there are just too many questions surrounding this project that the Imam could be more forthright about. For someone who claims he wants to build bridges, he sure seems to be going about it the wrong way.

[Ummmmmm]

07:02 AM on 08/15/2010

Great, another "red scare". There's nothing nefarious about this mosque. of those 13 stories, only one of them is the actual mosque, and not just any type of a mosque, but a sufi mosque. Sufis are to muslims as hippies are to middle class americans. By the way, what is this bullshit you guys are spouting about a cordoba "victory mosque". If you actually read some history, you would find that that "victory mosque" was a victory for all faiths, since islam during the middle ages was the most tolerent religion around. You would rather be a jew in 10th century Cordoba than a christian in london. Atleast there you would be treated with respect.

Following taken straight from an encyclopedia:
It was captured in 711 by a Muslim army: in 716 it became a provincial capital, depending from the Caliphate of Damascus; in Arabic it was known as (Qurṭuba). In May 766, it was elected as capital of the independent Muslim emirate of al-Andalus, later a Caliphate itself. During the caliphate apogee (1000 AD), Córdoba had a population of roughly 400,000 inhabitants,[4] though estimates range between 250,000 and 500,000. In the 10th-11th centuries Córdoba was one of the most advanced cities in the world, as well as a great cultural, political, financial and economic centre. The Great Mosque of Córdoba dates back to this time; under caliph Al-Hakam II Córdoba received what was then the largest library in the world, housing from 400,000 to 1,000,000 volumes.

[miriamac]

01:29 AM on 08/14/2010

This is not about about anti Moslem bigotry or the right to build a mosque. This is about respect for the feelings of others, about the golden rule common to all religions.
Ground Zero is not a historic site. It is a vast emptiness where there was once so much life. There are very few New Yorkers who can look at that emptiness without feeling that loss. And there is no denying that as that emptiness replaced that life the cry "Allah Akbar" rang out as it will from this cultural center.
This structure in that place mocks the dead and tortures the living. It is an obscenity.
The proponents' case that this is something other than a cruel provocation is undermined by the site itself. It is on a very narrow street that will overflow when worship ends. There is no Moslem residential community nearby. Indeed there is no residential community of any kind. There is virtually no available parking and few amenities for families. Indeed it is hard to imagine a less suitable site for a house of worship, particularly one this large.
Put plainly this is what it it appears to be, a cruel provocation.

[bbsnews]

01:32 AM on 08/14/2010

Nope. Your first sentence apologized for bigotry in advance.

[Daisytoo]

12:47 PM on 08/14/2010

It is about bigotry: Bigotry of the Islamists who see fit to construct a triumphalist monument overlooking the site of the devastation brought about by people operating under the name of Allah against infidels.

There are loads of mosques in Manhattan, which is not a problem. This setting is obscenely inappropriate and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous nonsense posing as 'tolerance'.

[Poorsarah]

01:04 AM on 08/20/2010

Well then, dammutt!!! we should tear down ALL CHURCHES that were built on Native American sacred burial grounds (the Native Americans, the REAL Americans, don't have feelings?)...furthermore we should bulldoze ALL Japanese Shinto shrines...especially the shrine built near Pearl Harbor!!!

[canadian75]

12:45 AM on 08/14/2010

back to GOP mantra: "do as I a say and not as I do"

[mlr710]

09:37 PM on 08/13/2010

Get over it teamouthstuffers. You dont get to dictate your warped views on everyone else. Sane people have no problem with a mosque being built, just the insane.

[Kmetz]

05:23 PM on 08/13/2010

Back to the old "Bush did it too" (bailouts, Gitmo releases, job offers to candidates for not running for office) argument from the quintessential "anti-Bush era. Hey liberals, two wrongs.....

[Daisytoo]

05:26 PM on 08/13/2010

"Back to" it's Bush's fault? When did it ever stop?

[Kmetz]

07:14 PM on 08/13/2010

True, very true.

[Kmetz]

07:17 PM on 08/13/2010

There is a distinction though between "Blame Bush" and "Bush did it too." Both are equally hypocritical of the other, yet liberals love bringing it up. I love the new "D goes forward and R goes in reverse" thing. I swear its like our President is the corny kid at the playground you give the fake laugh to.

[canadian75]

12:44 AM on 08/14/2010

its not about "Bush did it too" its that all the people complaining now weren't complaining then? what happened? did you just wake up from a 9 year coma?

[jr40one]

11:26 AM on 08/13/2010

My God, can we ever get passed this divided left and right view? Can we stop with the "but look what Bush did" mentality? On this issue, let's get passed left and right, and look at the facts. We all should be concerned about the security of our nation. Let's objectively look at this Imam's beliefs and motives, along with his funding sources. If we see no terror ties, or reasons for caution, then by all means we our a country of freedom of religion. But, if he has an ulterior motive that threatens our citizens safety then we should not allow it. From the interviews I have seen with this man, there are signs to be concerned.

[Daisytoo]

11:33 AM on 08/13/2010

And one of those signs is the fact the $100 million for this project will be funneled through Islamically dominated Maylasia, which as I write, is persecuting (murdering by beheading , 'relocating' -- burning down houses - of infidels - also known as Christians, Buddhists etc) another is the name - the Cordoba Initiative. The main goal of 'radical' Islam is the restoration of the Caliphate and the name of this project displays that goal quite clearly.

[Venicelady]

04:45 AM on 08/14/2010

I agree!

[Daisytoo]

11:23 AM on 08/13/2010

The allowance of this mosque is the moral and cultural equivalent of permission being granted to build a Nazi Cultural Center next to Auschwitz. And this permission has been granted by nine chronically angst riddled "Liberal" New Yorkers from the Landmark Commission despite the unfettered moral determination of decent Americans throughout the country.

It's an outrage.

[Zork4]

03:14 PM on 08/13/2010

The outrage is suggesting that 3000 dead at the WTC is in any way equivalent to the death camp at Auschwitz where well over a million died. Disgusting.

For what you say to be true, there would need to be plans by Al Quaeda to build a mosque on the WTC site and millions would have to have died that day. Your analogy is ridiculous and demeans the memory of those who lost their lives under the Nazis. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Instead, a moderate Muslim group with ties to the Bush Administration wants to renovate a building they own 2 blocks (in New York that's a lot, we have buildings here) away from the WTC site to create a community center with a chapel-style mosque inside it. It's a chance to show the world and ourselves that we are bigger than hate.

Get a grip, Daisy, your anger is messing up your head.

[Daisytoo]

05:34 PM on 08/13/2010

Do the terms Big Satan and Little Satan mean anything to you?

My analogy not only more than adequately displayed a moral principle that would apply in both cases, but is apt in terms of the practical intention of 'radical' Islam - which is to destroy all of Western civilization (in particular, the USA) including Israel, and replace it with an Islamist Caliphate.

By the way, I'm a New Yorker - upstate now after many years in the city. I don't need a geography lesson.

[Kmetz]

08:52 PM on 08/13/2010

Actually Con-Ed owns half of it, they dont own the whole site, yet.

[Kmetz]

07:18 PM on 08/13/2010

But Hitler wasn't Catholic.

[Venicelady]

05:12 AM on 08/14/2010

He was considered to have been a quarter percent Jewish on his mother's side.

[RockyMissouri]

09:47 AM on 08/14/2010

He was raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy.

[respected]

05:13 AM on 08/13/2010

Instead of fighting over the mosque, think of the firefighters who risked their safety during 9/11. The GOP won''t even vote to pay for thier healthcare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8D4vaA2lYA

[Daisytoo]

10:28 AM on 08/13/2010

Not an issue because it's not true. Anyway, what does the GOP have to do w/this issue?

[bbsnews]

12:55 AM on 08/14/2010

Because they hate Muslims?

[RockydaDog]

10:01 AM on 08/14/2010

Fallacy of distraction. aka red herring.

[Daisytoo]

12:03 AM on 08/13/2010

So what? So did CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations) assist Bush's outreach. Until the Bush administration realized CAIR is a wolf in sheep's clothing. CAIR was welcomed into the White House during several Presidential administrations. This ended shortly after 9/11. Unless Obama has welcomed them back w/open arms, they are still persona non grata - w/several founding members cooling their heels in Fed. Penitentiaries on terror related charges.

[bbsnews]

01:25 AM on 08/14/2010

You are simply parroting right-wing nonsense rhetoric about CAIR. The organization is on the verge of being back into the good graces of the FBI after being unfairly accused of somehow supporting Hamas.

I get accused of this all the time on this blog and elsewhere.

During the Bush administration and even now, look at this thread, anyone who talked in a positive way about the not one but two free and fair elections of Hamas was automatically labeled a Hamas "supporter".

The supreme irony here being that Bush and Condi pressed Sharon into allowing Hamas into elections in the first place. As with Hurricane Katrina, they feigned ignorance. Even though a simple Google search would have quickly enlightened even the youngest and most experienced of White House staffers; at least one would hope.

President Obama is presenting to the world the highest in American ideals, that is freedom of religion, or no religion for that matter.

This mosque affects no one. Even less than gay marriage. It should be a non-issue.

The thing is, the flames of antimuslimism are fanned throughout the country over nothing but fear and smear.

Please stop it.

[RockydaDog]

10:04 AM on 08/14/2010

Its strange though that Rauf will be asking the likes of the Saudis and Qutar for funding for this thing? You'd think he'd raise the money from his flock, like most religions do. Until the money trail passes the sniff test skeptical thinking shouldn't be branded as "antimuslimism" or fear mongering.

[Daisytoo]

12:40 PM on 08/14/2010

Fact: Several of the founders of CAIR are (pre-Bush) tax paid guests in high security Federal Penitentiaries on terror related charges. "Getting back into the graces of the FBI" is a full time goal of CAIR's employees - especially the world class hater and public relations person for CAIR, Ibrahim Hooper. CAIR, a Saudi funded operative, does not 'somehow' support Hamas - it unapologetically supports Hamas.

Simultaneously while 'condemning' the 9/11 attacks on the USA they blame the USA for causing the attacks. Of course, this abominable position is one routinely embraced by leftists.

[inonoatama]

11:57 PM on 08/12/2010

The mosque is now a martyr. That was a foreseeable consequence of placing it at this particular site. Flailing, hyperbolic reactions, by Foxman, Gingrich, Palin, Fox News, and hotheaded protests around the US were all easily predictable results of this decision. Yet the Cordoba Initiative went ahead with the project. If the purpose of the Cordoba Initiative is to improve Muslim-Western relations, it has failed. If their goal was to focus attention on the ability of Americans to be prejudiced they have succeeded. That is something at odds with their mission statement.

[Daisytoo]

12:05 AM on 08/13/2010

Placing Americans in a bad light is exactly in concordance w.their mission.

[inonoatama]

12:29 AM on 08/13/2010

I think you're going way too far in saying that. Even if that were the case, making unverifiable and equally provocative statements would only serve that end.

[RockyMissouri]

09:55 AM on 08/14/2010

Actually, it's people exactly like you who place Americans in a bad light---of intolerance and dischord.... You need to go back and study our history to see just how far we have come. Freedom of religion is our heart and soul---and the foundation of who we are!