Are the Republicans terminally stupid or are they just playing the dangerous fool? In either case, the irrational attack on Muslims everywhere by the GOP's leadership is not only deeply subversive with regard to the American ideal of religious tolerance, but also poses a profound threat to our national security. Nor does it help that some top Democrats like Harry Reid are willing to demean Muslims even as we fight two wars in which victory depends on our ability to convey a respect for their religion.
Just ask Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the war without end to win the hearts and minds of Muslims in Afghanistan, how helpful it is to the Taliban for American politicians to identify all Muslims with terrorism. Or to the theocratic leaders of Iran who justify their hard line with the insistence that the U.S. is obsessively anti-Muslim.
Demonization of the Muslim religion is what this brouhaha is all about. Talk of the sensitivity of the victims of 9/11, ignoring those who were Muslim, is just camouflage. It is as absurd as it would be to blame all religious Jews for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, killed by one gunman from a fanatical Jewish fringe group, or to ban the erection of an Orthodox synagogue anywhere near Rabin's grave. As irrational an act of scapegoating as blaming all ethnic Germans for the acts of Nazis, many of whom claimed to be God-fearing Christians.
Yet that is the logical implication of the comparison that Newt Gingrich made when he likened the proposed erection of a Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site to putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum. On his website, Newt goes further in identifying all Muslims with terrorism: "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively towards us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."
Consider the full implication of that call for an international cold war against Islam by the former GOP House speaker. Someone should remind Newt that both Republican and Democratic presidents have regarded Saudi Arabia as an ally in the war against terrorism and toward that end sanctioned the sale of very sophisticated weaponry to the kingdom and the sharing of intelligence with its military. So too with the Muslim-dominated government of Pakistan with which we have been allied for a half-century, not to mention our current Muslim allies in power in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a leader in Congress, Gingrich supported those policies, but now in his zeal to misrepresent President Barack Obama's perfectly sensible stand that we are not at war with the Muslim world, he abandons not only his record but also any pretense of logic.
But even if one accepts that the Wahhabi version of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia helps fuel violent spin-offs of the Osama bin Laden variety (although bin Laden would be summarily executed in his native land), what does this have to do with a Sufi Muslim community center proposed for lower Manhattan? As the highly regarded religion writer William Dalrymple pointed out in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the group hoping to build the New York center, is a moderate Sufi, and he and his movement's espousal of universal brotherhood have been a target of violence. The Taliban was so threatened by the Sufi message of universal love that it attacked a Pakistani shrine to the great 17th century Sufi poet-saint Rahman Baba. "I am a lover, and I deal in love," Dalrymple writes in citing Baba's revered Sufi verse, which continues, "Sow flowers,/ so your surroundings become a garden./ Don't sow thorns; for they will prick your feet./ We are all one body./ Whoever tortures another, wounds himself."
Just the message most relevant to adorn a building near the site of the World Trade Center, leveled by those who sow thorns. But sadly the thorns of religious bigotry are not a monopoly of any one religion or easily resisted by the demagogic politicians who exploit our ignorance of the other. The premise of our constitutional protection of religious diversity is that ignorance is the enemy of freedom.
Our founders were keenly aware, from the lessons of Europe and the early American colonies, of the dangers posed by false prophets from within their own churches. They knew well from deep personal experience, as is revealed clearly in the writings of Washington and Jefferson, that religious and political liberty was most effectively threatened by the zealotry of one's own kin.
Joseph Ward III: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Speaks Out (AUDIO, TRANSCRIPT)
Jason Derr: Beyond the Scapegoating of Islam: Returning to the American Dream
Lisa Sharon Harper: Why Christians Should Support the 'Ground Zero Mosque'
Wayne Besen: Why I Support the Muslim Center in New York
The Republicans have only one philosophy: win at any price. The Timidcrats stand for feckless hand-wringing--"Love me I'm a liberal." They stumble all over themselves looking for compromises where any compromise is a fundamental violation of Constitutional rights. Shades of the civil rights era. Be patient. Your time will come. As with the parable of the scorpion and the frog it is idle to blame the Republicans for being who they are. They dutifully serve their billionaire paymasters. The Dems, on the other hand, belong in the warmer sectors of hell if they can't grow a pair soon.
http://www.cordobainitiative.org/?q=content/frequently-asked-questions
Islam is not your enemy, folks. And the AMERICAN Muslims don't have any sinister plans. Anything to the contrary is codswallop and spite.
I know people are upset and there's an argument that the builders should just be sensitive to that mere fact. I don't dispute this. But that still doesn't answer why they are upset.
I know that this building is close to Ground Zero and is in close proximity to property that was damaged on 9/11. I still haven't heard an explanation for why a Muslim community center shouldn't be built on property damaged on 9/11. Why not? Why exactly not?
I know that those who object accept that the builders have a constitutional right to build here. I'm not arguing that they should or shouldn't and I think we're all on the same page about their rights.
So, again, why exactly is this upsetting? What is it specifically that causes any upset?
To use Mr. Gingrich's example, putting a monument to Hi.tler near the Holocaust Museum would be upsetting because Hi.tler tried to exterminate the Jewish people and he was the enemy of the United States. So it would be upsetting to build a monument to him anywhere, but most especially in the proximity of a museum dedicated to the memory of his victims.
So, that would be the reason that hypothetical would be upsetting. What's the reason here?
Despite the potential backlash against an Islamic institution opening so close to ground zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who already leads prayers and reads from the Koran inside the building, said that the location was one of the project's key selling points. "New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic," [NYT 12/8/2009]
Iconic indeed.
The location permits the appropriation of the physical location of what most Americans consider an unparalled act of terrorism against America for the purpose of Islamist propoganda.
Here's a great, expanded, post on intent with regard to this mosque:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.politics.misc/browse_thread/thread/3a520a0871debbb4”
Despite the potential backlash against an Islamic institution opening so close to ground zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who already leads prayers and reads from the Koran inside the building, said that the location was one of the project's key selling points. "New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic," [NYT 12/8/2009]
Iconic indeed.
The location permits the appropriation of the physical location of what most Americans consider an unparalleled act of terrorism against America for the purpose of Islamist propoganda.
Here's a great, expanded, post on intent with regard to this mosque:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.politics.misc/browse_thread/thread/3a520a0871debbb4”
Where did you get 63%? Where Stats Dems to Reps = 5 to 1...
Falseness of your " You are crucifying your own with this rhetoric." Even IF Prior stats is actual, I don't belong to Dems... Favor some Progressive Democrats, Yeppers... Total contempt for Rabid Blue Dog Dems, Rabid Red Dog Republicans, absolutely...
"crucified" (?), a Religious term... I'm of WE the People, of Constitutional/ Declaration of Independence, legitimate Government, USA... I, Patriotically stand up to anyone attempting to harm, USA...
IMHO, Rupert Murdock, Rabid Red Dog Republicans, right wing supporters, plus throw in some Democrats, ARE, IMHO, a PRIME threat to USA...
Which Party supports Secessionists? Wants to change about 5 Ammendments to Constitution, they claim believing in, claims we're a Christian Nation?
Which, Prime planner/ supporters of Invading / Occupying two Foriegn Nations (WARS Must Be Constitutionally Declared by Congress, so Occupations)... Which, Prime responsibility for 250,000 Military People with brain injuries, plus 5,000 Military, Dead? Plus many Iraqi civilians/ Afghani civilians? Prime for spending over a Trillion $$$$$ to "topple" Saddam?
Which, primarily put us 2+ Trillion in Debt, lost millions of Jobs, calls People out of work , LAZY, has neglected our Infastructure, continues saying NO/ continues America's crash in hopes of regaining Control again?
I, could go on, but if people are to ignorant/ un-educated to grasp what, I, just pointed out, what for?
If you put a rose bush in your front yard and I tell you that it upsets me and I think you should move it to your backyard, don't you think you have every right to ask why I am offended?
So, what is it then that is so upsetting?
Christopher Hitchens
“It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg,” he wrote in his Notes on Virginia. Jefferson owned a Quran, and was fascinated by Islamic learning that he recognised to have been the medieval guardian of the classical wisdom he revered. His 1777 draft of the Virginia Statute on Religious Toleration is plangent in its fierce refusal to allow government any role in interference with freedom to think or worship how and where one wishes.
Khem.. back to reality.
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" Thomas. Jefferson, Letter to von Humboldt, (1813)
"Sure, this group has the constitutional right to build this mosque, but should they? Why can't they be more sensitive?"
So allow me to translate this... what the community center opponents are basically saying is the group shouldn't build the Islamic community center because they are Muslim and the 19 hijackers were Muslim. Their argument tries to connect the Sept. 11th attacks to the Islamic community center using religion as a common thread. In other words, a Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim, which simply equates to the argument that if an African American robbed a liquor store, all African Americans rob liquor stores. The right is trying to look like they're "constitutional scholars" with this new argument, but it's simply old wine (bigotry and xenophobia) in new skins.
If it were a community center it wouldn't be named after Cordoba Caliphate, an Islamic conquest in Europe. Muslims understand this reference very clearly.So should be Americans,.
Spanish Inquisition community Center, anyone?
1. Publicly agreeing to refuse funds from Middle Eastern Wahhabi sources.!!!
2. Canceling State Department sponsored petro-dollar money raising trip.
3. Reveal sources of financing for this mosque.
Republicans are not *playing* the dangerous fool.
Thank you.