I would agree with you, Rod, if the mosque was being built ON the site of Ground Zero. But it is being built NEAR Ground Zero. In Manhattan, there’s a LOT of prime real estate considered “near” the site of the WTC, and to bar a certain religion from building there is discriminatory.
Again, if it was being built ON Ground Zero, I would agree with you.

How close is it? Also, there was a small Orthodox Church near the Towers which was also destroyed in their fall. was that ever rebuilt?

Another stake driven by islam, in their uncompromising quest for their caliphate, jihad, and a world under their dictatorial theocratic rule.
Wake up folks!

Rod,
I echo Jon–how close is too close? Would three blocks be far enough? Four blocks? Who gets to decide? If you want to see how cooperation after a horrible event can build reconciliation, I would refer you to the Cathedral at Coventry–bombed to smithereens by the Germans and rebuilt with German assistance. That was not an “unspeakably” bad idea. Nor does it seem this is as well. Yes, it may feel insensitive to some (obviously to you), but to call it “unspeakable” is just, well, overblown. In your post you say “Of course it is wrong to blame all Muslims for 9/11.” That almost sounds like you are implying that is it right to blame many Muslims for 9/11. Again, how many? Are all Muslims now tarred with the terrorism brush until they can prove otherwise? How can they prove that they desire the same things for themselves, their families and their country if they are guilty until proven innocent and because of the fact that they are Muslim only allowed to build and worship in certain areas?

But why on earth rub salt in the wounds of the 9/11 dead…
The dead are buried, Rod.
I understand that you might have PTSD over your experience of having been in NYC during the attack, and understandably so, but why not be honest here? The dead don’t care. It is the living who are objecting.
So if you are saying that two blocks away is too close, then how close would be acceptable? Five blocks, ten blocks, fifty blocks?
Or should no new mosques ever be built in NYC?

I’d like to know what terrorist-minded Muslim extremists think–those who cheered on 9/11. If they see it as a victory, as if a monument to their deeds (despite what its builders/proponents think), then I’d have to say it’s far more offensive than the convent.
Otherwise, my tendency is to sort of agree with you, but I don’t like the idea of restricting religious freedom and property rights.

I can’t agree with you on this, Rod. There are churches around the world placed in locations where Christians had waged war against the ‘infidels’ in the name of God. The building doesn’t matter. Don’t you think there are scores of Muslims in New York who also grieved over the attacks a decade ago? Should they not have their own religious shrines for prayer near a place where such a violent act of aggression was made against THEIR country by people who CLAIM to profess their faith? Fighting the mosque is stating that Islam is our enemy, in a country where we allow religions to flourish. Perhaps then we should look at a few ‘churches’ across America that have members who may not have been so horrified by the OKC bombing. Do we forbid their existence?
It’s not IN Ground Zero. It’s near. How near is too near….and how far is too far? This is America. Our soldiers fight for Muslim’s rights too.

The approval of this kind of thing–showing the inevitable, politically correct obsequiousness toward Islam in liberal New York–is more evidence of the coming end of what used to be Western (Jewish, Greek, Christian) Civilization.
And when these absurd quislings have turned over our culture to its despisers, do you think they will make the same mistake and tolerate any kind of dissent from their sharia state? Dhimmitude here we come!
(captcha: “Mosaic they”)

I work across the street from the World Trade Center site, and I think if you walk two blocks in any direction, given how small and winding the streets are in the Financial District, that it won’t feel like it’s a mosque that’s being built on top of the site. The title of your post strikes me as a little misleading – this will not be at Ground Zero, which is just former site. It’s a mosque that will at the border of the Financial District and TriBeCa. I don’t think it will work to advance mutual understanding, but then, I don’t think it has to in order to be justified.

Nothing ironic about it. It’s been clear for a long time that we are not fighting this war at all.
Our soldiers are being consumed in countries that have only a vague connection to the attack, while we still treat the real attackers (Arabia, Yemen) as Valued Allies.
When the attacker is treated as an ally, only one conclusion is possible. The attacker has been victorious.

Rod, I agree with you; only a cultural and historical tone deafness would lead someone to think this OK. I’ve tired of legalistic defenses of this sort of thing… “they are legally free to do this”. Yes, but as you say, some things you just don’t do.

From what I can gather, it’s two blocks away from Ground Zero – in Manhattan terms that may as well be two miles.
I can understand the emotional reaction, Rod, but to compare something as alien as a Christian convent on the site of another faith’s tragedy with a mosque in a city of close to a million Muslims is beyond hyperbole. I’d echo Phil’s question – “How near is too near….and how far is too far?”
That said, there’s nothing wrong with looking into the backers of this project and their motives.

The only religious building destroyed in the 9/11 NY islamist terrorist attacks, was the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas. It was destroyed by the collapsing South Tower. Relics of saints, donated by the last Czar of Russia in the earlier 1900s, were lost, but at least one icon has been reframed with 9/11 damage still evident.
The church has not been rebuilt, and all sorts of complications have been put up obstructing even a new build Orthodox Christian centre, in a seeming confusion of finance and religion.
The Cordoba Institute mosque is being fast tracked by comparison.

Horrible idea. To put a building so close to where the World Trade Center’s fell is almost an insult to their memory. Although all Muslims weren’t involved in this attack, it was still carried out by them. Everyone is making it seem like it is ok for this to happen. Think about people that had loved ones that died because of this. How do you think they feel? How would all of you feel if your husband/wife died in 9/11 because of the Muslim extremists. Then hopefully you would have a different opinion

And when these absurd quislings have turned over our culture to its despisers, do you think they will make the same mistake and tolerate any kind of dissent from their sharia state? Dhimmitude here we come!
You must not be from Texas if you think that could happen here…
Here in Texas, we aren’t frightened by scare words like ‘Dhimmitude’. We know that we’ll absorb them into our culture and their children will be eating barbecue and going to rodeos in no time.

I have no doubt that the mosque will not be built as planned because of the hysteria of people with no sense and the remonstrations of people like yourself who usually have sense.
Let’s unpack this:
– The mosque would not be built “at” the 9/11 site as your intentionally misleading headline puts it, but several blocks away on Park Place.
– The local Jewish community is okay with the proposal. That’s New York for you.
– As another commenter notes, it would be discriminatory to ban a house of worship of a particular faith.
– As yet another commenter notes, it’s time to move on. Please try to do so.

Keep in mind this is not merely a mosque; this is going to be a $100 million, multistory mosque and cultural center, one that is being constructed two blocks from Ground Zero not because there is a need for a mosque there, but rather to make a statement. It’s not the construction of a $100 million mosque and Islamic cultural center I object to, in principle; it’s putting it so close to Ground Zero. I consider it a provocation, and deeply insensitive to the memory of the victims of a mass murder committed there in the name of Islam (if not all, or even most, Muslims).
Let me ask a sincere question of you who support this mosque project: were Jews wrong to object to the construction of a Carmelite convent on the site of Auschwitz? Would they have had a case had the convent been built two blocks from Auschwitz, with the express purpose of referencing the Holocaust (as the planned mosque is to be built in explicit reference to the 9/11 attacks)? I’m a Christian, and while I believe that those nuns had nothing but the best of intentions in settling at Auschwitz to pray for the dead, given the specific nature of the infamous crime that happened there, it was not right for them to be there, or near to the site. Pope John Paul II eventually told them to find another site in the town of Oswiecim to live and to pray. They can still pray for the dead without being on or near the site. Similarly, this mosque and cultural center is being sited two blocks from Ground Zero for a reason. If it were, say, 20 blocks away, it would still be in NYC, it could still fulfill the peacemaking function that its builders say they intend, but it would not be a source of controversy and anger.
I agree, of course, that we have freedom of religion in this country, but there is a such thing as appropriateness. When we worshipped at Our Lady of Lebanon parish in Brooklyn Heights, every so often Hasidic Jews associated with the Chabad House nearby would parade through the neighborhood on Sunday mornings, making a loud racket — so loud that it was difficult for us worshippers inside our church to hear the liturgy. Did they have a right to do that? Yes, they did. But it was rude and insensitive, and they ought not to have done it. Just because one has the right to do something doesn’t make it wise, or compassionate, or just.
If the mosque builders say they want the Ground Zero mosque to be a place of peace and reconciliation, they must surely know from the protest that it will not, and cannot, fulfill that function. To proceed with the project on the “rights” grounds, over the strong objections of many New Yorkers, tells me that this is not really a project about peace and reconciliation, but about making a statement — a statement that is unwelcome, to put it mildly.
As I’ve said, if they chose to put the mosque eight, 10 or more blocks away, I wouldn’t have any serious objection. The site was chosen for its very close proximity to Ground Zero. That’s a problem.

I see the First Amendment is in full force in this debate. I love how “christians” only think it should apply to them. Why don’t we go one step further: no mosques in New York City? Why not ban the practice of Islam in the U.S.?

Let me ask a sincere question of you who support this mosque project: were Jews wrong to object to the construction of a Carmelite convent on the site of Auschwitz?
I don’t support the mosque project – I’m indifferent to it.
Were the Jews wrong to object to the convent? Nope, people object to stuff all the time.
Was the Pope wrong to move it, yes, I think so – if he really believed that what the nuns were doing was right, he should have stood his ground.
Would they have had a case had the convent been built two blocks from Auschwitz, with the express purpose of referencing the Holocaust (as the planned mosque is to be built in explicit reference to the 9/11 attacks)?
The Jews would have even less of a case if the convents were built two blocks away for that purpose.
I’m in favor of frank and open competition in the marketplace of ideas.

, it is deeply offensive to build a giant mosque in what would have been the shadows of the Twin Towers
The decision seems odd to me, but nothing requiring the hysteria here. They killed a bunch of people in New York, and the mosque will be in New York, so it seems like a decision to be made by New Yorkers. New Yorkers are capable of protesting decisions. They don’t need outside help deciding what offends them.
The comparisons to the Holocaust are crazy, but it seems worth pointing out that there are plenty of examples of the same level of historic crime where the offensive symbol is kept, often for the express purpose of offending the injured group: the Confederate flag in South Carolina, the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee, etc.

John E., I deeply resent your stupid remark implying that my opposition to this project is an expression of psychological impairment from 9/11.
Besides, did you personally watch thousands of people die when one of the towers collapsed? Did you smell for days the sweet aroma of incinerated human flesh? Did you have to wash dust off the flowers in your backyard, dust containing human remains? Did you go to firefighters’ funerals in the fall of 2001? No, you didn’t. I did. While my personal experience is a subjective thing, and has no bearing on the moral arguments expressed here, I would suggest to you that you have no real idea what it was like in New York in the aftermath of the attack, and how strong the feelings of many New Yorkers (and former NYers who lived through the attacks, like me) are. You would be wise to take that into consideration before mouthing off with your crackpot diagnoses.

I have no objection to this.
It is, however, irrelevant what local Jews think. This is a national issue because of the sacredness of the location. It is not discriminatory to ban what purports to be a “house of worship” when that house will be used to further a foreign ideology bent on world domination. It is not time to “move on”; it will never be time to “move on” until the aggressive forces of Mohammedism have moved on.
But I have no objection to this.
In fact, I think it may serve a good. For if it keeps the jihad-crazed Saracens from sacking the rebuilt citadel again in the fear they will destroy one of their own shrines, how can that be a bad thing?
The only worry is that if, like St. Paul’s Chapel, it survives the next attack, there will be a spate of conversions from Christianity, Judaism and the steel-gutted agnostics.

Is there a church or synagogue also on the site or nearby Ground Zero? I suppose my feelings would depend on whether the mosque contained a memorial to Muslim victims of 9/11 and a commitment to peace. I can imagine it being a comforting place for Muslims to mourn their dead relatives. But if there is no church or synagogue nearby as well I’d have some objections. I don’t think Islam is to blame for 9/11. It is politics, men who twisted religion to suit their politics and worldly ambitions and urges for evil, who killed the victims on 9/11. I’m not overly fond of a lot of the tenets of Islam, particularly the way they hurt women, but I don’t think every Muslim is a terrorist either.

Sometimes details are important. I gently point out that rational details are the frequent first casualty of emotional rhetoric, with firsthand experience with that and how it fits in with the NIMBY attitude.
What was the date of purchase of the property in question? What was the inception date of the effort to build this facility? If the answer to either, but especially the latter, was after 9/11/2001, then a rational person has grounds to question their motives. If the answer is before, then the rational approach is to let them build.
Beyond that… this topic cannot be resolved in discussion. The emotional component (and the emotional investments of people like Rod) make rational rebuttals to their position irrelevant. No matter what, no matter the rational facts, those who were traumatized by the attack are not going to relent. That is in support to Rod’s analogy to the German convent. Either we respect the emotional investment, or we don’t. The rest is commentary.

Rod, it is not a “crackpot diagnosis” to acknowledge the feelings of people directly involved here, such as yourself. While I would agree that the tone of John’s posts is lacking explicit compassion, your reply to him would seem to support the assertion I make in my first post: This is not a topic that welcomes rational disagreement.
Don’t buy into the stigma connotations here. You were there. Your experiences drove valid reactions and feelings. You are in the company of many people with that. You’ve already asserted that building the facility would be an insult — an emotional reaction — and you have no reason to back away from that or be conflicted about it.

I am a New Yorker who works in the area and, with Jeff Hughes and PolOC, above, agree that in lower-Manhattan terms, two blocks is hardly ‘right on top of’ Ground Zero.
And given that the site itself is again being over to commerce (albeit with a memorial space) and will not remain a mass cemetery, I question the outrage being directed at this particular building.
Here’s a link to a story the Times did in December on the proposed Cordoba Institute: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?ref=nyregion&pagewanted=all

I have nothing against a mosque being located near ground zero. I have lived and worked and served with Muslims so frequently during the last seven years that I do not consider their faith alien. I’ve spent 27 months of my life in Iraq, hearing the call to prayer five times a day. The Muslims I have known have brought great credit to their faith – acting with humility, hospitality, and generosity. I learned enough about the faith to understand that Islamic tradition is against killing women and children and suicide, even IF jihad is declared – and nobody of any real stature in the Muslim faith has declared jihad anyways. Of course, I’ve also witnessed the atrocities that Islamic militants have committed against their own fellow Muslims, to say nothing of US, in Iraq in the name of unauthorized and immorally conducted Jihad.
All I can say is that given the outcry against it, its leaders should, in humility, act with sensitivity near this hallowed ground, rather than acting defensively and insisting publicly on their right to build there (and it IS their right, but that’s beside the point.) They cannot but be aware that their every choice will be watched with scrutiny, given the significance of an Islamic center so close to where a bunch of homicidal maniacs acting in the name of Islam killed so many. The mosque should not be ostentatious, but simple. And it should include some sort of memorial to the fallen, given that ashes fell on its roof the same as everywhere else in the area.
‘Writing in The Huffington Post on Monday, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an Orthodox rabbi and media personality, suggested the main focus of the Cordoba House should be a memorial and museum dedicated to 9/11 victims.
“If the groups building the Cultural Center and mosque are prepared to make this its focus, they will have proven that they are not only enormously sensitive to the families of the victims who lost loved ones there, but that they are courageous voices who wish to take back their religion from the fiends who purport to represent it.”‘

I echo Jon–how close is too close? Would three blocks be far enough? Four blocks? Who gets to decide? If you want to see how cooperation after a horrible event can build reconciliation, I would refer you to the Cathedral at Coventry–bombed to smithereens by the Germans and rebuilt with German assistance. That was not an “unspeakably” bad idea. Nor does it seem this is as well. Yes, it may feel insensitive to some (obviously to you), but to call it “unspeakable” is just, well, overblown. In your post you say “Of course it is wrong to blame all Muslims for 9/11.” That almost sounds like you are implying that is it right to blame many Muslims for 9/11. Again, how many? Are all Muslims now tarred with the terrorism brush until they can prove otherwise? How can they prove that they desire the same things for themselves, their families and their country if they are guilty until proven innocent and because of the fact that they are Muslim only allowed to build and worship in certain areas?
Dan speaks my mind.
Rod, I’m trying to understand the outrage, and I just can’t grasp it. To me, the outraged reaction is as much a part of the problem as any insensitivity on the part of the mosque promoters. It’s a response out of fear and clinging to one’s sense of being wronged, which will never lead to full healing. As for the Auschwitz comparison, I have two thoughts. First, if the camp were located in the heart of a large city, then 2 blocks away would be fine, IMO. Two blocks in a significantly less populated area is much closer — within easy sight and might be interpreted differently. Second, I do think that a reaction other than outraged opposition (if that’s what happened) would have been much more healing to Germany and to the holocaust survivors themselves. Perhaps the building would still not have gone forward or perhaps something smaller would have been erected, but the process of sitting down together in good faith and love is always worth while. Being guided by anger and fear seldom is. This is not to say that there will be no heart-felt conflict, or that peaceful resolution is inevitable, but anger and accusation are the wrong place to start if peaceful co-existence is the goal. If all you want is more distrust and fighting, then go for it. (This posture of good faith and respect goes both ways, incidentally. The Mosque builders should be willing to engage the community tenderly rather than push through legalistically, which is really subtle form of violence if you think about it.)

“While my personal experience is a subjective thing, and has no bearing on the moral arguments expressed here, I would suggest to you that you have no real idea what it was like in New York in the aftermath of the attack, and how strong the feelings of many New Yorkers (and former NYers who lived through the attacks, like me) are.”
With all due respect to the feelings you have regarding 9/11, I would point out that you still have not answered the question asked of you earlier. How close is too close? Should no new Mosque/Community center be built on Manhattan? Should it not be built anywhere in NYC?
The concept of localism starts with allowing those people closest to the problem to deal with the problem. That seems to be what is happening here. You suffered mightily through the attack and its aftermath, but you moved on to other areas/jobs. And while your feelings are no doubt genuine, are they germaine? Should the offense of a former NYC resident who was affected as you were by the attacks have any more credence in this argument than a current NYC resident who was similarly affected but expresses acceptance of this development?
To borrow a phrase, what would Philip Blond do?

Regarding the question of building ON or near Auschwitz, yes I do think they would have had a better argument in building a convent slightly removed from the actual site. The physical locations of these sites, such as Auschwitz or Ground Zero, should be maintained (at least for a time) as monuments and reminders of man’s inhumanity to man. Certainly a mosque ON Ground Zero would have been a step too far.
Rod: “If the mosque builders say they want the Ground Zero mosque to be a place of peace and reconciliation, they must surely know from the protest that it will not, and cannot, fulfill that function.”
Even if it cannot, at first, fulfill that function, it hopefully eventually will. That journey, that intent is the very definition of jihad – “struggle” (not simply holy war). Muslims must struggle to bring peace in the face of their co-religionists having done so much to convince others that Islam can not be a peaceful religion.
Let’s not forget that Muslims also died in the WTC attacks.

Having read some comments that went up while I was composing mine above, I want to affirm that strong feelings of anger, fear and outrage are legitimate and real and need to be acknowledged. What I find problematic is basing one’s interactions, decisions and judgments on those feelings alone. Also projecting those feelings onto others to interpret motivation is frequently a cause of further misunderstanding. The emotions themselves are what they are. The way we deal with them is at least to some degree within our control. (That’s actually kind of a conservative POV, isn’t it? Huh, I better watch it…)

And Rod, your comment about PTSD being psychological impairment, while possibly technically correct, is somewhat insensitive. Those soldiers I know who have PTSD try not to think of themselves that way on their good days.
PTSD is a reaction to a traumatic event. No one knows why some get it and some do not. If your memories are that intense and still include the sense of smell and sound, rather than fading considerably with time, and if your heart is racing and adrenaline rushing at recounting the memory, you really might have a touch of PTSD. Not the full blown syndrome, you’d have to have the full complement of symptoms for that diagnosis. But you may have lingering reactions to certain triggers – a common enough thing. You should see me, or anybody in the platoon I served with, during a fireworks show.

Rod seems to have two issues here- one is the location (and Rod has yet to say how close or far is appropriate for a mosque), and the other has to do with the motives of the builders (by the way, the NY Post article does NOT describe the motives as specifically relating to 9/11).
On the location issue, I think two blocks in such a densely populated area as Manhattan is plenty of distance. I would feel differently if they proposed to build it on the site.
On the motives issue (which is not clear from the article, so I’ll just take Rod’s word for it), what would be an appropriate motive for building a mosque there (Rod says it is to “make a statement”)? If the area was underrepresented with Muslim places of worship, would it be ok? If the location was a prime place to attract interested passers’ by (like a place of business), would that be ok? Does the character of the statement matter (for example, to promote peace and understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, as a supporter of the mosque says in the article)?
The fact that many New Yorkers oppose it does not matter that much to me. I don’t know if their disapproval is similar to Rod’s or is just an anti-Muslim reaction. Also, it’s not clear at all whether a majority of New Yorkers would oppose or support it, though it probably doesn’t matter anyway.

and Rod has yet to say how close or far is appropriate for a mosque
I believe he said eight or ten blocks.

re: distance to site
The link I posted, above, includes a map showing the location of the proposed institute.

Franklin, would that there were more commenters like you on this blog. I sincerely appreciate that your comments are consistently insightful and respectful.
John
Captcha: gambler humphrey; I knew him well.

I’m afraid I can’t look to the New York Post for balanced treatment of such a hot-button issue. I will reserve judgment until I can find out more about the details.
What if the mosque were dedicated to a peaceful Islam, unequivocally calling for all Muslims to reject violence (which I believe many, and possibly most, faithful Muslims do)?
John
Captcha: clusters leftist; the plot thickens.

Two blocks from Ground Zero is nothing. Those blocks in lower Manhattan are much shorter and more irregular than blocks uptown. Googlemap “45 Park Place, New York” to see for yourself how close this is. Besides, according to the imam spearheading the project, the property was purchased with the express intent of establishing a large mosque and Islamic cultural center near the Ground Zero site, to make a positive statement. I can’t know that imam’s heart, but I will grant for the sake of argument that he means well in all this. Nevertheless, it’s a breathtakingly insensitive move, given the nature of the world-historical crime that took place on that site, in the name of Islam. And yes, I know that Muslims died in the Twin Towers. Catholics died at Auschwitz too — but it was still insensitive to place a convent on the grounds — or, I would say, within close proximity of those grounds, because the statement the nuns made by choosing to open a convent there did not send the message they intended to send. Interestingly, when Jews protested it, the then-primate of Poland, Cardinal Glemp, let fly with an anti-Semitic sermon — which ironically made the Jewish protesters’ point for them. That is, though the death camp at Auschwitz was constructed and run not in the name of Christ, but in the name of a radically anti-Christian ideology (Nazism), it was centuries of Christian anti-Semitism that prepared the way for the Nazi crime against the Jews. A failure to understand why Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants would be aggrieved by a place of Christian prayer being established so close to that site — however well-meant — is difficult to grasp. The charitable thing for Christians to have done — and as Pope John Paul ultimately did — was not to stand on one’s rights, but to recognize that prudence counsels against building such a place.
I don’t question that the Islamic group has a legal right to build a mosque on their own property, at least in principle (I don’t know about zoning regulations). And again — please, people read what I’m actually saying here, not what you think I’m saying — I do not blame all Muslims for 9/11. Nor would I have a problem with a mosque further away from the Ground Zero site (indeed, as the Times story puts it, this imam’s present mosque is in Tribeca, which is not that far away from Ground Zero. He could have chosen to build on the site he already owns, but that would have been beside the point. This is a mosque that was conceived as a statement about 9/11, and intended to be placed so close to the site for that reason.

With gratitude to absurdbeats for providing the NYT link:
The leader of the project informed Mayor Bloomberg of the plans last September (in conjunction with Ramadan), and they purchased the property that July.
Now for stated motivations:
A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”
“We want to push back against the extremists,” added Imam Feisal, 61.
The mayor’s director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Fatima Shama, went further. “We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody,” Ms. Shama said. Imam Feisal’s wife, Daisy Khan, serves on an advisory team for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the memorial, said, “The idea of a cultural center that strengthens ties between Muslims and people of all faiths and backgrounds is positive.”
The F.B.I. said Imam Feisal had helped agents reach out to the Muslim population after Sept. 11. “We’ve had positive interactions with him in the past,” said an agency spokesman, Richard Kolk. Alice Hoagland of Las Gatos, Calif., whose son, Mark Bingham, was killed in the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, said, “It’s quite a bold step buying a piece of land adjacent to ground zero,” but she said she considered plans for the site “a noble effort.”
The rational rebuttal hinges on one question: Do you trust that Feisal’s motivations are sincere? Whichever answer is offered, the discussion ends there.

This is a tough question. You can’t have a society of religious tolerance with sectarian no-go zones; and the Muslims responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center were Arabians, not Americans. Any action that effectively brands Muslims as anti-American reinforces the propaganda spread by the jihadists.
On the other hand, the Auschwitz precedent is valid: Religious institutions should show sensitivity in their choice of locations. Imagine one of the churches intent on converting Jews to Christianity building in or near an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
Seems to me that the best option for Ground Zero and environs is some sort of interfaith center, perhaps a New World version of Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where Jews, Christians and Muslims worship, usually peacefully, within sight of one another. In New York, invite Buddhists and Hindus, too. Give administration of the place to a neutral, pacifist faith – Quakers, say, or Unitarians.
Invite the Cordoba House developers to put up the $100 million as seed money for such a center. If their name is more than cosmetic – Islamic Spain was the most religiously tolerant society in medieval Europe – they should welcome the proposal.

The Muslims in question should have been more sensitive to the issue, but I don’t see any reasonable legal way of denying their mosque. If we buy into the idea of eternal guilt by association, Native Americans have legitimate grounds to deny a Christian church to be built…well within two blocks of anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.

i would liken this to dating your best friend’s ex-girlfriend. in each case, the actual actions are not in themselves wrong or offensive, but when placed in the context of the emotional history of the individual situation, it becomes a problem.
sure, ostensibly you should be able to date whoever you want, but you have to accept the possibility that your friend isn’t going to be happy about the situation. and yes, technically they should be able to build a mosque wherever they want to, but they should expect protests and vandalism.

My sister’s office was in the WTC on 9/11. She is still traumatized by the events of that day, after all these years.
I think Rod is right that it’s hard to understand how folks who were there felt and feel about all the awful things that happened on that day. As terrible as it was to see it all unfold on TV, being there was much, much worse. And for many people the effects have been lasting.
My sister still mourns the first floor WTC security guards she saw every day on her way in to work, whose names she never knew, and who almost certainly died in the attack. (Her firm was extraordinarily lucky — they lost only one employee.) One of her work friends who lived in lower Manhattan lost her apartment, and her dog, in the destruction. And on and on.
Everyone is indeed entitled to his or her opinion, on this and every other issue. But I think this is one of those issues where special sensitivity is appropriate.

The comparison to Auschwitz fails for a very simple reaons: Auschwitz has been maintained as a site of extermination—preserved as it was in 1945.
The Ground Zero site, on the other hand, is not being preserved at all, but is presently a construction site for the ‘Freedom Tower’—which, whatever its name implies, will, in fact, be an office tower.
Why the outrage over a building two blocks away when the site itself will return to its commercial form?

Rod, I think I’d be able to be more upset about this if there weren’t already an *office building* being built on the site.

Franklin:
The rational rebuttal hinges on one question: Do you trust that Feisal’s motivations are sincere? Whichever answer is offered, the discussion ends there.
Franklin, I disagree. I can’t read Feisal’s mind or heart, but for the sake of argument, I will grant that his motives are sincere. I don’t think it matters. I believe that the motives of the Carmelites who built the convent at Auschwitz were sincere and well-meaning too, but that doesn’t change the fact that doing so was very insensitive, given the nature of the crime that occurred on the Auschwitz site, and the complicity of the legacy of Christian anti-Semitism in that crime. While their desire to pray for the souls of the dead and serve as a sign of God’s healing presence at the place of such pain and suffering is to be admired and praised, the particular nature of the crime works against their plan. Which is why it was eventually abandoned.
I think the same logic is at work here.
I do wish mosque defenders on this thread would stop standing on “rights” and a narrow reading of geography. Of course it’s not literally on the 9/11 site. Nothing is. But it’s about as close as you can feasibly get to the site, and the imam has said over and over that he and his organization bought the property for the express purpose of building a mosque as a witness at the site of the crime. For all moral intents and purposes, it is on the Ground Zero site — and that’s what we’re talking about here, the morality of the Ground Zero mosque project.
Again, something can be legally justified, but morally unwise. From the point of view of Polish Catholics grieved by the Holocaust, it makes sense to have a Christian religious community on the grounds of Auschwitz, praying and making reparation for what happened there. From a Catholic point of view, such a gesture is a gift to the dead and to the world, even the Jewish community. I remember the controversy over the convent from back in the day, and I didn’t understand at the time why Jews were so upset over it. Why would they object to a house of Christian prayer at the site of such evil deeds? I too thought that it was wrong of Jewish protesters to question the motives of the nuns. But then when Cdl. Glemp made his irasicible anti-Semitic remarks about the Jewish protesters, I saw things differently, and understood why, despite the stated motives of the nuns (which I saw then and still see no reason to doubt), there was a lot more to this issue than I was able to grasp at the time, especially from my far remove historically and geographically from what happened there. Even if the Jewish protesters were wrong, given the specific nature of what happened on the site of Auschwitz, their feelings ought to have been respected — as, ultimately, the Pope did.
I feel the same way about this Ground Zero mosque. I have no reason to doubt the motives of the imam who wants to build it, and I do note that lots of New Yorkers support its construction. Still, given that the mass murder on the Ground Zero site was carried out by pious Muslims in the name of Islam, it is deeply insensitive to the memory of the dead to build this mosque so close to the site — even if the Muslims backing the mosque condemn the 9/11 killers, as surely the Catholics who built the Auschwitz convent condemned the Nazis.

I can’t believe that this idea of building a Mosque is even being considered. Why don’t we just set up a training camp for the Islamic wackos in New York so they won’t have to travel so far to destroy us. All of the “bleeding hearts”, including our president, should stop worrying about offending other countries and start protecting and standing up for America.
Maybe the officials think this will create jobs in construction but it is obviously going to be financed by the Muslim organizations. Eveyone who is out of work doesn’t work in construction. Stop thinking about the money and think about the consequences.

I think we are seeing why Godwin’s Law exists. Dragging the Holocaust into this is done for hyper-emotional reasons that doesn’t really help us clarify the current conflict.
The reason they want to build a mosque is because of commenters like JHardy. They want to begin to heal the harm that was done by a handfull of Muslims and the mosque is a gesture towards that healing.
When does it stop being “too soon”? Give the raw emotions of people who have a connection to 9-11, how long do those wounds have to be accommodated. Do they always get a veto vote?
I think of the Vietnam Veterans memorial in DC, which was viewed as offensive and insensitive by Vietnam Vets when it was proposed. There was a lot of anger saying that their anger as being ignored when it was suggested a black, marble slab be used as a memorial. It is now considered one of the greatest pieces of “memorial architecture and design” that has ever been created

this fits in exactly with the islam’s pattern of building on or appropriating sites that have deep significance for the pre-exisitng non-muslim population. consider: jerusalem’s temple mount, the ayodhya mosque (now destroyed by a hindu mob), the hagia sophia in constantinople/istanbul, even the ka’aba in mecca was holy before islam. ground zero can now be counted in this list. it is an outrage.

No, “dragging the Holocaust into this” is because I was looking for a similar comparison in which the well-intentioned witness of a religious group was seen — correctly — as offensive because of the specific nature of the historical event the religious witness was intended to condemn. The comparison is imperfect for several reasons, not least because unlike the 9/11 hijackers, the Nazis didn’t carry out the murders at Auschwitz in service of the Christian religion, but it’s the best I could come up with. You may have a better one — and if so, let’s hear it.
By the way, I do think it’s morally problematic that they’re going to build a “Freedom Tower” — what an asinine name — on the Ground Zero footprint. That’s a massive piece of real estate in lower Manhattan, but it feels very wrong to me to redevelop it commercially. But it’s not my city any longer, so I don’t get a say in this, or in the mosque project.
And by the way, I assume the Ground Zero mosque will go up. I won’t lose any sleep over it. But I will regret it, and anyway, I do appreciate the civil discussion over the meaning of things like this.

Rod: Besides, did you personally watch thousands of people die when one of the towers collapsed?…No, you didn’t. I did.
Um. http://old.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher091002.asp
(“I didn’t see it with my own eyes”)
Captcha: “herald aways”

Rod, I find absolutely nothing to fault your logic. Your answer is more than sufficient to the questions I posed.
The following is very personal, and while it is capable of causing offense it is not intended to do so.
Sparing yet another summary of my personal connection to the Nazi Holocaust, my simple point is this: Healing starts with the exact level of pain one had prior to the mere idea of trying to heal the hurt. At that point, the biggest obstacle to overcome is the person’s desire to avoid the pain. Some soldiers with PTSD might recognize that from their early attempts at therapy, I have so been told. I know it from my own traumas and attempts to resolve them.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum was, for me, just such a first step. It had two advantages: It is completely impersonal, and any given individual must voluntarily enter it and can simply choose not to. The facility under debate here has both of those strikes against it: It has a human face on it (the imam), and it is validly seen as an invasion of the space surrounding Ground Zero.
I was at USHMM once. That was almost too much for me. I don’t have a clear memory of the last couple of hundred feet I walked, because what I do remember is sitting in the lounge area at the very end, sobbing.
The basic images were not new to me. I saw the unedited news footage ordered by Eisenhower, sitting in my junior high auditorium with my entire seventh grade class. I have the stories told to me by my mother and her few surviving relatives. It wasn’t until that experience of personal confrontation that I realized both how much pain I carried — even just from those previous, vicarious exposures — and how much pain was involved in facing it and overcoming it.
With no humor intended: No sane person would want to experience such pain, but there is sanity awaiting us on the other side of it. Whether it is “easy” as posited by my view of USHMM, or “hard” as posited by Rod and others concerning the facility, the value in the effort is completely personal. An axiom of mental health care I learned from some professionals is that the first requirement of a successful therapy is that the patient must agree or concede that he needs help. No one can do that for him or her. No one.

I’m trying very hard to understand your objections, Rod. I get that a simple “rights” approach shouldn’t be the frame for building the mosque. I also understand that the feelings of 9/11 survivors and New Yorkers should be taken into account.
But should a mosque never be allowed to be built close to Ground Zero? As Peter said above, how long is long enough? And isn’t attempting to show good faith and intention in its very construction a better approach than staying away forever?

jerusalem’s temple mount, the ayodhya mosque (now destroyed by a hindu mob), the hagia sophia in constantinople/istanbul, even the ka’aba in mecca was holy before islam. ground zero can now be counted in this list.
Google “Elgin Marbles” and get a grip.
The comparison is imperfect for several reasons, not least because unlike the 9/11 hijackers, the Nazis didn’t carry out the murders at Auschwitz in service of the Christian religion
And, also, because the Holocaust is a historical crime many orders larger than 9/11. Perhaps you could just say that the Holocaust is considered a world historical event and 9/11 isn’t (or won’t be).

The New America….no flag flying, no national day of prayer,the OB doesn’t like to go church what would one expect? By building this mosque on this very spot simply says to all Americans is “why don’t we have all the victims that were left alone and traumatized forever line up 5 times a day and let the muslims slap you in the face, as they laugh in our faces. This is exactly the way it stands. This is a very sad day and so many to come for “America the weak” because no one wants to stand up and fight for this great country.

I do agree with Rod here – the mosque and ‘cultural center’ are morally unwise at what is functionally Ground Zero. I will not dispute that it appears the mosque’s backers have every right to build it, but I still think it’s unwise.
I truly struggle with striking a blance in these matters; on the one hand a cultural center may be a terrific thing for the local populace, but it may also be a “Muslims only” kind of thing which does nobody any good.
What I really find stupid and objectionable is the almost palpable aura of political correctness: “seed of peace”? Give me a break.

In the Islamic societies, they don’t allow non-muslims to build grand religious architecture. There’s a longstanding rule that a church can only have a steeple lower than the shortest minaret in the city. Historically Muslims took over great Pagan, Christian and Hindu religious buildings and made them into mosques; other religions have done the same.
Interfaith centre probably means a place to push islam to others, who are allowed in for that purpose. Islamic Spain was tolerant in the sense that others were allowed to exist happily under their power; a bit like Protestant America in the 1920s.

Just a reminder that the 9/11 attacks were directed at the United States. New York was a target as was the Pentagon and Washington. This is not merely a local New York issue; it concerns the United States of America as a nation and every citizen should have a say in it.
A mosque anywhere near that hallowed ground is an affront to all who cherish the liberty of America and contemn the slavery of Mohammedanism.
Would Rome having defeated Carthage have sited a pit of Moloch amid the temples of her gods? Fuit, fuit quondam in hac re publica tanta virtus …

every citizen should have a say in it.
Um, no. You have a good part of the country that rails against NYC (and other urban areas) as a modern day Sodom, and mock the values of such places as unAmerican. The idea of giving those people any voice at all in anything that regards NYC is patently ridiculous.

John E. wrote:
“Or should no new mosques ever be built in NYC?”
I’d be willing to consider this. Then perhaps it would spread to the rest of the country.
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/05/a-mosque-at-ground-zero-insane_comments.html#ixzz0p8wEWrJ3

Man from K Street, can you actually read? The thing I said in that essay that “I didn’t see with my own eyes” was not the collapse of the South Tower, but what the Catholic priest on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade did. I realize you can’t stand me, but it’s sad when your ire impairs your ability to comprehend the English language.

After it gets built, it will just be another building in NYC.

Do we forget that Muslims were among the victims?
Would you support preventing churches or temples from being built in a similar place?
Do all you think about the terrorists is that they were Muslim?
captcha: south lessened – if only

In the left-wing circles I used to move in over here (the UK) I became something of an ‘Islamophobic’ pariah for fully supporting the War Against Terror and demanding that we tell the hard truths about Islam as well as about other religions (not trying to pick a fight here – I’ve added further to my pariah status by pointing out that contra many militant atheists the Vatican is in fact not the prime locus of evil on this planet…).
So it seems strange to find myself not wanting to pile in with the rest of you here.
I believe the problem with the Carmelite nuns was not that they were praying for the souls of victims NEAR Auschwitz but that they were doing it AT Auschwitz – and while their intention was a beautiful one Jewish remembrance of Polish Catholic anti-Semitism before and after the war was too recent and bitter for it to be appropriate at that time and place.
So for me the first issue is simply how near is the mosque to Ground Zero?
Nobody AFAIK objects to Catholics praying for Auschwitz victims in the town of Oswiecim just down the road from the camp.
Similarly if we are talking about New York Muslims needing a mosque in Manhattan a few blocks from Ground Zero then it is genuinely bigoted to deny them one given that they are a significant segment of the population in the wider area.
If it is really adjacent to Ground Zero (and ‘adjacent’ means very different things in a built up urban and a rural setting) and this consideration and not the need of NYC Muslims for a new mosque in Manhattan is a primary consideration in its siting then it is as inappropriate AT THIS TIME as the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz.
I hope and even pray that this will not always be the case and that in a generation or two Carmelite nuns will be welcome at Auschwitz and Muslim Imams will be welcome to preach in the shadow of whatever replaces the World Trade Center.
The second issue for me is who is paying for the mosque?
If as is almost the case with big urban mosques in the West the money is coming from the very country that supplied 15 of the 17 hijackers and it will be used to promulgate the Saudi brand of militant Salafism that ultimately motivated them then it is even more inappropriate.
But I don’t just want emotion (and as a visitor to the WTC before 9.11 I am in as incapable of being unemotional about this subject as anyone in the US), I genuinely want to know what the facts are on both of these issues.

“We want to create a platform by which the voices of the mainstream and silent majority of Muslims will be amplified. A center of this scale and magnitude will do that,” Khan said. “We feel it’s an obligation as Muslims and Americans to be part of the rebuilding of downtown Manhattan.”
Why do you want to deny them this?

Al-Dhariyat, I think that the day might come when a mosque built so close to Ground Zero wouldn’t be problematic. But not just yet. If, by the way, there was a Muslim community in the area that needed a place to worship, I think I would feel differently about it. But the stated intention of Imam Feisal is to build a mosque on the borders of Ground Zero for the purpose of cultural understanding. While I honor his intention, I think it’s an insensitive and poorly-conceived idea, at least at this time, for the reasons I’ve said.

The name, Cordoba House, is troubling and quite possibly revelatory. Cordoba was the capital of the medieval Al-Andulus caliphate. That name itself seems to me to be needlessly inflammatory and suggestive.

CAP, thank you very much for speaking for me, reading my mind in the process, and illustrating for all how your post is a complete waste of space and time.
Understanding does not equal agreement. Disagreement does not equal dislike.
I disdain attempting to do the thinking of the “public at-large”, whether they ask it of me or not, but I have distinct contempt for your attempt to do their thinking for them, let alone mine.

“Just a reminder that the 9/11 attacks were directed at the United States. New York was a target as was the Pentagon and Washington. This is not merely a local New York issue; it concerns the United States of America as a nation and every citizen should have a say in it.”
An interesting concept. Was the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City also an attach directed at the United States? How about the murders committed by Paul Hill, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder also directed at the United States?
Or perhaps a better analogy…since the 9/11 attacks were directed at the United States, should all of us have had a say in the manner in which the site is being redeveloped?

“Al-Dhariyat, I think that the day might come when a mosque built so close to Ground Zero wouldn’t be problematic. But not just yet.”
How far away is far enough? Ten blocks? Twenty? Ten miles?
[Note from Rod: For pity's sake, man, do you just get on these threads and post like mad, not even taken time to read when I've once, and possibly twice, answered your question? -- RD]

.With Islam, respect and tolerance is always a one way street.Can we build a cathedral or a synagogue in Mecca? Will the Hagia Sofia or Solomon’s Temple be allowed to be restored to Orthodoxy and Judaism, respectively? Will the persecution of Copts in Egypt and Hindus in India ever stop? Muslims in NYC refuse to assimilate. In fact they openly profess seeking to turn the US into a sharia state.And at the Atlantic Avenue mosque, a few subway stops away, the 1993, the Atlantic Avenue plotters(who wanted to bomb brooklyn because it had so many Jews) and 9/11 terrorists worhsipped. It’s still there spewing hate. There is no outrage among them for the Times Square bomber. May be we should ask Major Nidal and Shazad’s pal “Imam” Alawaki or the imam of the 96th Street mosque, but since they fled back to Yemen.

Here’s my two-cents (which apparently costs 10 cents to stamp)…
“Appropriate” is a subjective thing. Personally, I think it’s stupid to build obviously so close to the wounded area. Truly, those mosque leaders MUST understand how such symbolism can enrage many New Yorkers/Americans (even the majority of non-racists among us).
But many people want the symbolic attention. Freedom of speech allows people to shout all sorts of absurdities in the face of opponents for no other reason than to get Warhol’s 15 minute spotlight of fame (making them feel more important than they really are).
Perhaps public pressure will make the NYC council reverse the decision, or delay it at the very least by returning the plan to its P&Z-like committee to be re-studied. At times, you CAN fight City Hall.
One more anecdote: I have been to Pearl Harbor; in fact, my wife (on our honeymoon) were one of the first visitors permitted back to the memorial after 9/11. It IS one of this nation’s finer national park sites and is worth the trip to Oahu.
Prior to actually ferrying to the flotilla, you watch a 25-minute film (with many previously undisclosed video) detailing Pearl’s improtance in American history and the REAL truth about who was responsible for what on Dec. 7, 1941.
The boat ride is not a noisy affair; you understand you are going to a gravesite. Passengers are allow but 5 minutes on the actual memorial (which sits directly over the USS Arizona) and there is NO talking permitted. It is a solemn time and respect is demanded.
When you return to land, you are greeted by survivors of the attack (soldiers, sailors, residents, etc.) and many questions are answered on a 1-to-1 basis.
While we were there, a large contingent of Japanese tourists were walking through the book store and museum areas, led by a NPS tour guide fluent in the language. I HAD to wonder what these aparticular people thought of the place, what they were seeing and … what they had been taught about our/their history. For years, we had heard that Japanese students received a somewhat different POV of WWII and its reason for engagement.
It seems to be a slight Twilight Zone moment.
The anecdote moves me to this question: what will the people operating that mosque teach THEIR students about the site they occupy and the neighboring memorial (provided it EVER gets built) and the history of its being?
THAT Twilight Zone moment has yet to come. Personally, it’s a moment that needs to be cancelled.

The Saudis are funding it ~ and no one asks them why they don’t erect a church over there!!
The whole thing is constructed around Muslim sensitivities and Muslims sensitivities only!!
Whatever anyone feels just makes you a racist and intolerant!
The double standards are incredible.
And the name Cordoba ~ harking back to a time when all non-Muslims lived as dhimmis ~ or second class citizens ~ required to pay a subjugating special jizya tax for non-conversion and protection from Muslim attack ~ under Muslim ruled Spain!
In addition ~ the Imam ~ to add insult to injury ~ doesn’t believe Muslims had anything to do with 9/11. He claims it was a US conspiracy against Islam!!
I think we are going to have to start demanding more of Muslims.
If Saudi Arabia wants to fund mosque building in the Western world ~ let them build a church in their country.
When the Saudis approached Russia to build a grand mosque in its capital ~ the Russians told the Saudis that they were welcomed to build one ~ when they allowed a Russian orthodox Church to be built in Arabia.
Never mind freedom ~ what about smarts!!

I second what “Mark Gordon” has said. Doesn’t anyone find the NAME of this building revealing? Cordoba was the capital of the caliphate in Muslim controlled Spain…the one and only time that Islam has had dominion over a Western nation.
Frankly, I think everyone needs to realize that while we are all concerned about being politically sensitive to Islam, they are being aggressively calculating about obtaining domination of the West. On Google News today the head of Counterterrorism for the United States Government, John Brennan, described violent extremists as victims of “political, economic and social forces,” but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in “religious terms.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/27/counterterror-adviser-defends-jihad-legitimate-tenet-islam/
Please people! Don’t be stupid about all this! I personally don’t trust a government who tries to be “sensitive” to our sworn enemy! Allowing the Cordoba Center is just another example! what about this whole new “tone” of focusing on “home grown terrorists?” What?! Who is that? Who do you think it might be?

yr name – i know/have seen the elgin marbles, and think they should go back to greece. please, enlighten me; how is this even remotely relevant to this discussion? how does this equivocate the muslim ‘habit’ of building mosques in places with deep significance to non-muslims?

So…because Saudi Arabia does not allow Christians to worship freely in their nation, we should not allow Muslims to worship freely here.
All it has taken is 19 “soldiers” in four civilian planes to defeat us. Wonderful. And here we were worried for a generation or more about the Soviet threat from nukes. Who would have thought that we would lose our freedoms from such a comparably small attack.

Mr. Dreher, I am completely and fully in agreement with you. There are, indeed, some things you just don’t do, out of senseitivity for those who have suffered so much. Your example of Pope John Paul II is poignant. He knew the nuns meant no disrespect at all. Yet, he also knew it was just not right to locate their convent at Auschwitz. He did the right thing. A mosque anywhere near ground zero is the wrong thing to do. Just say No — don’t do it. We need to send this message.

They are building a memorial to their 19 dead “martyrs”. they even call it Cordoba, the symbol of World caliphate, the old capital of Muslim empire in Spain/Europe. Those who think that fundamental Muslims are only after Jerusalem, because the built mosque there in place of Jewish Temple, are wrong. Those fundamentalists are after Spain as well, because Cordoba was their capital. As soon as this Cordoba mosque is built New-York will become a new Cordoba for them. Again, I am not talking about all Muslims, but 10% or so fundamentalists are all that counts. The rest are silent and will support the “strong horse” and it is not America under Obama and the Left.

From my earlier post: “The building’s first lease was announced on March 28, 2009, as a joint project between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Vantone Industrial Co. based in Beijing, that will create a 190,810 sq ft (17,727 m2) ” China Center”, a business and cultural facility located between floors 64 and 69, that is said will represent business and cultural communities in China and serve as a hub for Chinese firms developing United States operations, as well as for US companies that wish to conduct business in China. The lease is for 20 years and 9 months.[30]”
Meanwhile: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/business/global/21energy.html
China and Saudi Arabia Form Stronger Trade Ties
By HENRY MEYER
Published: April 20, 2010
RIYADH — Li Wei, a Chinese diplomat in Riyadh, had only just seen off a Chinese Ministry of Commerce delegation to Saudi Arabia this month when he started preparing for another governmental visit in two weeks.
“Every month we have delegations coming to Saudi Arabia,” said Mr. Li, who works in the Chinese Embassy’s commercial section in the Saudi capital. “We are too busy.”
China, one of the world’s largest oil consumers, and Saudi Arabia, holder of about a fifth of global crude reserves, are forging closer ties as the Gulf kingdom responds to a Chinese drive to supply its rising energy needs. In November, China overtook the United States as the main buyer of Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabian Oil and Saudi Basic Industries are investing in refinery and petrochemicals projects in China.
The partnership between Saudi Arabia and China is part of a broader strategy by the Saudis to supply Asian markets and extend their global influence. It also helps Saudi Arabia reduce reliance on the United States, which since World War II has protected Saudi security in return for stable oil supplies, said Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist in Hong Kong for Royal Bank of Scotland.
“China’s rise has provided Saudi Arabia with an excuse to knock on Washington’s door and to say, ‘You are not our only partner,”’ he said.
I’m left to wonder which desecrates Ground Zero more…a mosque built two blocks away or Saudi’s primary oil customer having a five story office complex some 70 stories directly over it.
Strange Captcha: Pro-Somali poulin

If Saudis are allowed to fund mosque building in the west ~ we should ask them to build a church in Arabia.
That’s exactly what Russia did. When the Saudi asked for permission to construct a grand mosque in the Russia capital ~ the Russians told them they could do so, if the Saudis would permit a Russian Orthodox Church in Arabia.
Of course in the West ~ the Russia request would be called intensive ~ there would be a parade of Muslim spokespersons on TV to explain to us how we need to understand Islam better ~ and how it is wrong to deny Saudi financiers the pleasure of putting up mosque after mosque ~ without offering anything in return.
The chief Imam of the ‘Cordoba’ mosque project denies Muslims had anything to do with 9/11, that it was all just an American conspiracy against Islam. Insensitivities could not reach a lower depth.
Cordoba a time when the non-Muslims of Spain were subjugated under Islamic rule. Pretty much like all Christians /non-Muslims live today in the Islamic world. Is this the Cordoba Initiative’s plan for America?
In exchange for the Cordoba Mosque in Ground Zero let us build a church and a synagogue in Arabia!!

Chuck thanks for the description of the Pearl Harbor visit.
As to what Japanese tourists might think I’d cite my own visit to the Yakasuni Shrine – which is effectively Japan’s Arlington Cemetery, Vietnam Wall, Monument to the Unknown Soldier and National War Museum all rolled into one.
What is profoundly unsettling to a western visitor is its open glorification of Japan’s Wars.
Entering one passes by a locomotive from the Siam railroad with a plaque declaring it to have been a heroic triumph of Japanese engineering and a multi-national labour force – rather than a living hell that killed many thousands of slave labourers and Allied POWs.
Within the main building one finds great displays celebrating the heroism of the kamikaze pilots, the sword used by their commanding general to commit seppuku rather than accept the Japanese surrender and so on.
They also went to considerable trouble to secure the ashes of Tojo and other executed war criminals and bury them there with full honors.
And as it is a literal temple to the heroic dead – each and every one of whom is a Kami or Shinto God it is still visited officially every year by the Prime Minister.
The contrast with German museums and monuments relating to the Second World War and Holocaust is truly astonishing.
The only positive thing about this unsettling experience was how sparsely attended the site was and the evident complete lack of interest in their history of every Japanese I ever met….

9/11 , get the f*ck over it.
42,116 people died in 2001 on our nation’s roads, an order of magnitude larger that those who perished on 9/11. And we’re going to honor the freedoms of this country by denying them to other people.
As other posters have pointed out, Ground Zero ( turn towards it and pray 7 times a day ) is still going to be a commercial space.
We have become a nation of cowardly wimps, cowering behind our flags. The attacks kill less than 10% of our total annual traffic death numbers, and yet we’re paralyzed.
captcha “romes falls” LOL!

If there is no legal objection, as by and large there does not seem to be, than people can obviously protest and write letters and etc. to their hearts content. It will probably get built.
Just like the wind farm spoiling rich Cape Cod residents’ beachside views, or the big construction project that makes me cough as I walk by my apartment…
It’s even less of an objection, in one way of looking at it- Rod doesn’t object to the LEGAL RIGHT of the Imams in question to build this mosque, he objects to it MORALLY. So he might even agree with the city representative body that approved the project! All that’s left to be angry about is a disagreement with the Imams (assuming their motives are as stated)- Rod says it is insulting and thoughtless (and worse), the Imams say it will lead to better understanding.
Time will tell.

I see any Muslim building of any sort that is erected in New York as a slap in the face regardless of how close it is or is not to ground zero.
The Muslim religion, fanatical or not, is being lumped into the gutless terrorist crew that took down the towers. BUT it is no different than the main stream media lumping all Protestant religions in the group that protests the soldiers funerals.
We worry too much about offending Muslims but couldn’t care less about offending protestants/catholics. How about we stop worrying about offending or being offended. How about we as a nation get a thicker skin and just deal with it. If you don’t like it, speak up. Keep speaking up till someone in authority tells you not to.
We let the minority speak for far too many people in this day and age. The small amount of Athiest get offended by the Ten Commandments. Are they offended or feeling guilty and want them removed because it keeps them feeling guilty?
IF the residents of New York don’t want the Mosque there, I am more than sure they will speak up. And I am also sure that there are some pretty far out there individuals who will speak with far more than words if they feel like no one is hearing them. I’m not saying I agree with it, I’m jst saying that it wouldn’t surprise me.

To Cole and others- I prefer to set the bar for the behavior of the United States of America much, much higher than the likes of Saudi Arabia.

Demanding a church in Arabia misses the point.
The US unlike that benighted clerical-fascist hell is a free country where church and state are separated.
If you allow the Reverend Phelps and whatever the Aryan Nations call their blasphemous ‘church’ the right to build houses of worship/hate then it seems highly problematic to deny Muslims that right.
Freedom has more than one price and being forced to tolerate the intolerable is sometimes the hardest price of all.

Rod, please accept my sincere apologies for my earlier suggestion that your experiences on 9-11 in NYC might have any influence on your thoughts concerning this subject.
[Thanks, John. -- RD]

“According to your logic, we should get “over the Holocaust,” since more people have died as a consequence of first being alive than have died in the Holocaust.”
We WILL get over the holocaust, much like we got over the 20 million or deaths related to Napoleon’s campaigns across the Europe. As the direct survivors of a said event pass on, the impact on our collective psyche lessens. What I object to is the conflation of the 9/11 attack to some monumental event in Human history and the resulting death cult leads to these , rather absurd, discussions about a zoning board decision.
So what should we do?
Erect a 1000 foot billboard with “We Never Forget” emblazoned with the American flag and giant Cross? Should we outlaw Islam, and embark on our own holy crusade? Or should we shuffle along in our own passive-agressive mode and then are whipped up into a frenzy once in awhile?
I chalk this up to the fact that our government still has gone after the actual perpetrators of this crime. At least with Pearl Harbor, we had an Emperor surrendering on the deck of a Battleship, and that served to cleanse the stain.

Do I detect a breakdown in civility here…
Another aspect of the Carmelite Convent at Auschwitz is that that as far as I recall there was never any question about the right of the nuns to build a chapel on land just outside the camp that they had legally bought.
It was JP2 who to eternal credit listened to both cases and gently pointed out to the nuns that however truly Christian there intentions this was not the right time and place for this.
Other than technical zoning and planning issues I can see no way that Muslims can be prevented from building a mosque in any part of NYC.
That doesn’t mean its morally or even politically the right thing for them to do.
Screaming abuse at them is however no more the way to persuade them they may be mistaken than it was for the Jewish community leaders who achieved their goal by dignified protest.

Wow, it’s interesting how even once you’ve reached a certain age, now and then you can still genuinely be surprised. It never would have occurred to me to object to the building of this mosque and cultural center. Hearing about it leaves me feeling completely neutral, though perhaps with a _slight_ feeling that it’s a good thing for a symbol of Islam to be nearby, sort of representing in a pacific way.
Mainly, my reason for not objecting to the construction contradicts that last sentence. It’s this: I don’t particularly associate 9/11 with Islam. I think that’s a really goofy view. 9/11 was all about the intersections of global politics and local politics. (And yes, politics also involves culture, and on their side culture involves Islam, but… eh.) On our enemies’ side those politics have an Islamic gloss, but that really has limited depth in explaining what’s going on, which is basically that they want us out of their lives and their countries. And I want them all dead, but that doesn’t prevent me from dispassionately recognizing what it is they want, and not adding to it.
As for arguing this issue from authority: I’m a lifelong New Yorker who grew up on the north shore of Staten Island (right near the water) in direct line of sight of the WTC. South Manhattan, because it’s so close to where the SI Ferry drops passengers, for me is more emotionally resonant than any other part of Manhattan. I have many fond childhood memories of going there, including going to the WTC and running around on the pavilion between the building, and running over to the bottoms of the towers, standing directly at the bottoms of those grooves which (amazingly!) ran alllll the way up to the tops of the buildings, and just being awed by them. Years later, I have a great memory or a really, er, successful date which started in “Windows on the World.” My parents worked most of their lives near the WTC, and my dad was working yards away from the ’93 bombing, as well as the 9/11 attacks. There was much, much worry for his safety in my family on both those days.
Did I lose friends and acquaintances in the attacks? Er, ha. Yes. Was I in the city that day? Yep. My beloved girlfriend at the time worked only about a half-mile from the WTC, and though in retrospect she was in no danger at all, any one who was there that day can tell you how terrifyingly uncertain everything was for hours. I was panicked for her safety. Afterward, did I go downtown and gape at the ruins, on many occasions? Sure. Awful, awful, horrible stuff. Hard to believe you weren’t hallucinating.
I still have no particular reaction to the news of this construction. It just doesn’t connect for me.
-M

“IF the residents of New York don’t want the Mosque there, I am more than sure they will speak up. And I am also sure that there are some pretty far out there individuals who will speak with far more than words if they feel like no one is hearing them. I’m not saying I agree with it, I’m jst saying that it wouldn’t surprise me.”
But that’s just it…there does not seem to be a groundswell of opposition to this mosque from New Yorkers. It’s folks elsewhere who are concerned about this, and even then it seems to be a minority of people who are concerned.
“We let the minority speak for far too many people in this day and age.”
Indeed.

Third sentence of my second paragraph: My lousy writing might make it appear I’m calling my own view goofy, which I’m sure my unsympathetic readers will appreciate. However, what I meant is that I think the opposite view is goofy. (That is, in a Venn diagram, I don’t believe the “Islam” circle and the “9/11″ circle overlap much, certainly nowhere near enough to make my outrage bells jingle-jangle at news of this construction.)
Also, in paragraph 3: This: “…I have a great memory or a really, er, successful date…” should read “I have a great memory OF a really, er, successful date…” So crucial to get that straight, as it’s key to the issue at hand. :p
Marifasus

Is there a need for a mosque in this neighborhood? You tell me…
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/17/muslims-nyc-planning-build-second-smaller-mosque-near-ground-zero/
“Unlike the massive $100 million Cordoba House mosque, the Masjid Mosque is small – and it is no stranger to the neighborhood. Since 1970 it had been located at 12 Warren Street, about four blocks north of the World Trade Center, in a neat but nondescript industrial space that once housed a printing shop. It lost its lease in 2008 when the building was sold, and it was evicted from its second-floor prayer space on May 25 of that year. Since then it has been operating out a cramped basement space in a nearby building at 20 Warren Street.
On Friday evenings the mosque, which is popular with street vendors and taxi drivers, becomes so crowded that worshipers spill onto nearby sidewalks to pray in what has come to be a community event.”

Rod,
This one shows how stupid I am.
I view the Auschwitz situation as existing in the context of European history, not just a single event on a single day.
It also appears that there is a Muslim community in lower Manhattan that is establishing its communal house of prayer, which is a very different thing from a group from outside the community establishing a cloistered place apart from the community on the site of a systemic murder of a third community.
And the fact is that while Muslims make up only about 0.6% of the American population, Muslims made up nearly 2% of the victims of 9/11.
So I don’t get it. There’s no longstanding history of Muslims carrying out pogroms against Americans, there’s a local community establishing its house of worship in its neighborhood, and that community was as victimized as any other on 9/11. So please help me out, how is this “insane”?

Europe is nearly at the point where, even once their collective survival instinct kicks in and they realize that their own ethic of pluralism is being used successfully to destroy them, it will be too late. I would prefer not to go that route.
If pluralism is our ultimate aim, that’s what we’ll have. I don’t see why that should be a paramount concern, honestly.

Strangely, a question I haven’t seen raised above (though I haven’t read all 99 comments):
How many blocks away can the adhan (Muslim call to worship) be heard in New York City?
Will New Yorkers AT Ground Zero hear a muezzin five times a day?
Two blocks won’t seem like a whole lot in that case.

There’s no longstanding history of Muslims carrying out pogroms against Americans,
No, but there is a longstanding history of Muslims warring against the West, and against Christians. The ‘context’ of history puts America in the West, and most of its people are still Christian. And of course one of the first military actions after Independence was directed against Muslims, their piracy against our ships and capture of our men is of a piece with Muslim corsair raids against the Northern Med, Cornwall, and elsehwere. All of this is sanctioned by Islam (search for Ghazi).
And how are Polish Carmelite nuns ‘outside the community’?

Also, “two blocks” (a figure apparently specified in the original piece only in a photo caption) is a highly imprecise measurement without specifying whether they are north-south (short) or east-west (long) blocks. Two blocks E/W is far; two blocks N/S, not so far.

A few thoughts:
1. As many of the commentators supra have asked, how close is “too close”? Are mosques to be banned from a five block radius? From south of Canal Street? From Manhattan island? From all of New York City? From metropolitan New York? How large is the Islam-free bubble emanating from the World Trade Center site?
2. And if we do recognize some kind of Islam-free bubble, how strong is the prohibition on Islam? Should Muslims not be permitted to pray publicly within X yards of the World Trade Center? If a Muslim woman wants to wear hijab around the area, should she be permitted to do so? Should it be permissible to speak Arabic in lower Manhattan? Should Muslims not be permitted to visit the site at all? Those may seem like silly questions, but no doubt the presence of Islamic prayers, or Islamic dress, or Arabic language, or Muslims would genuinely upset some New Yorkers. And since sensitivity is being invoked to oppose the construction of the mosque, what’s to prevent us invoking it to oppose the mere presence of Muslims? After all, they’re gonna upset people! My opinion is that Muslims are a part of Manhattan and a part of New York. If the sight of a mosque or a halal store or a scarf upsets or enrages you, then grow up.
3. The terrorists of 9/11 were Muslims – but more precisely, they were ultra-conservative Wahhabis. Still more precisely, they were from the farthest most militant fever-swamps of Wahhabism. Attributing their actions to all Muslims as a whole makes about as much sense as blaming all Protestants for the acts of the Reverend Fred Phelps. And yet that is precisely what is going on. The opposition to this mosque is founded not on any charge that it’s Wahhabi, let alone jihadist or Qaedaist. The opposition to this mosque is founded solely upon it being a mosque. Rod, you say you have no desire to blame all Muslims for 9/11. I believe you. But you claim that the generic Islamic character of this project is alone sufficient to make it wrong. What is that, if not attainting all of Islam with the crime of 9/11?
4. Our friends Hitchens and Dawkins have blamed 9/11 on monotheistic religion as a whole. No doubt some New Yorkers agree, and will be upset by any displays of religion (especially those rotten Abrahamic religions) in lower Manhattan. Should we ban all monotheistic religious buildings from the vicinity of the WTC site? An idiotic question, obviously – but there’s not much difference between attainting all monotheists for the actions of 19 monotheists and attainting all Muslims for the actions of 19 Muslims.
5. I remember the de-christianization of Auschwitz in the 1990s, and I remember (as a Christian) being upset and offended by it. I was angry that all Christians were being attainted for the crime of a minority; angry that the Christian victims of Auschwitz were being ignored. I’m a little older now. I recognize how radically different Auschwitz is from lower Manhattan. There’s the nature of the places -a historical preservation versus a reconstructed cityscape. There’s the scale of the crimes – the number of human beings done to death at Auschwitz is not just astronomical, it’s unique in the history of our species. And there’s the nature of the criminals. This last is especially crucial. The Jews of Europe were murdered by tens of thousands of guards and soldiers. Their murder was paid for with public funds. Their murder was planned by multiple governments and mass political parties. Their murder was, in short, an official pan-European project (with mass popular participation in the Eastern territories, where the locals embraced Jew-killing with true zest). In contrast, the murders of 9/11 were directly carried out by 19 young men with $2 boxcutters. Their logistical support came from a band of ex-mercenaries in the wilds of Afghanistan. To speak of the Holocaust as being a crime committed “by Europe” is problematic but not ridiculous. To speak of 9/11 as having been committed “by Islam” simply doesn’t work in the same way.

Americans can be so naive, that if you are nice, others would apreciate, well the wold see it as weakness. The Coran tells it followers that to kill infidels is to win a place in their Heaven. Muslims are going to see the Mosque as a monument to the “martirs”.
Who are this people that are in the Board? They are traitors to the USA, they are like Jane Fonda, they are spitting on the people that died.
We should have a sign petition , NOT TO.

[Note from Rod: For pity's sake, man, do you just get on these threads and post like mad, not even taken time to read when I've once, and possibly twice, answered your question? -- RD]
And your answer has left me even more confused than before. You have said that anywhere from 10 to 20 blocks away would not concern you as much, and that if there were group of Muslims that needed a Mosque in this area it would not bother you.
I would ask you if you bothered to read my post from earlier [1:52PM] regarding the second Mosque that is proposed for this area.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/17/muslims-nyc-planning-build-second-smaller-mosque-near-ground-zero/
This group met until 2008 just four blocks from ground zero, and now meet in that same neighborhood every Friday afternoon, with their gathering spilling over into the street.
So I am honestly confused. If, as you said earlier, there were a group of Muslims in need of some sort of space this would not bother you. Does this group meet that criteria?
You also said that if the mosque were farther away it would not bother you (10-20 blocks, for discussion). Should this group that lost their space in 2008 be forced to move outside that radius?
I’m just trying to understand fully where you are coming from, Mr. Dreher. That’s all.

Rod,I totally agree with you. This is insanity, not only on the part of those responsible for approving the proposal, but all those, anywhere in America who would support such an idea.
While at the same time,I can’t help but think something far darker than mere mental illness motivates the builders.
I should also hope the members of that Board will not be re-elected.

One thing Americans are going to have to deal with honestly and so far do not; we refuse to take Muslims and the Koran at face value. We pretend to be nice to go along and get along. None of us are Islamic theologians, but in the wake of 9/11 where neighbors, clients and a dear friend were murdered, I, armed with 12 years of Catholic school, started to read the Koran.
Newsflash-this whole idea that 9/11 and the various other terrorists were distorting Islam is nonsense. It’s not a live and let live religion, it’s all encompassing. Mohammed made it clear; if the infidels won’t convert, kill them and take their stuff or force them into dhimmitude. There is no distortion here; it’s a backward brutal death cult, and not at all peaceful. men are instructed to beat their women and treat them like property. It’s afterlife is akin to 13-year old boys looking at porn mags. The prophet met his favorite wife, Aliyah, when he was 50+ and she was 6,a nd consumated the relationship when she was all of 9.
Andrew McCarthy, the prosecutor of the 1992 bombers, has made this clear. Every pantywaist liberal who jumps on their “tolerance” high horse say the terrorists are distorting Islam. And in fact if you can credit all of the terrorist with one thing it’s that in fact they are follwoing Mohammed’s isntructions precisely.
I’m tired of having this PC nonsense forced down our throats.How many more Americans have to die like too many people I knew on 9/11 for this idiocy? They don’t want to be AMericans, they want to as Axel Rose sand, start some Mini-Iran theocracy with sharia law. They ahev neither tolerance nor respct for outr Constitution. And they tell us that every Friday with hatred form their mosques and with their silence for outrage after outrage. A cult that’s going to murder cartoonists it’s what truly messed up, not America. And sadly when these animals kill soemoen you love or knwo, then it will hit home.

“how does this equivocate the muslim ‘habit’ of building mosques in places with deep significance to non-muslims?”
I think it might simply be human nature at work rather than any particular religious drive. When humans come into an area they wish to build things that represent their culture/community. As Christianity spread through Europe, especially the northern regions, churches were built in areas once used by the pagans for their worship. Some of these churches even incorporated images of pagan deities in their beams. And, as these sites were explored by archeologists they found evidence that several pagan cultures had built places of worship in these areas, one over the other as various tribes and groups gained control of the area.

zFreedom has more than one price and being forced to tolerate the intolerable is sometimes the hardest price of all.
Thank you. You get it. Freedom isn’t free. The cost is that other people are free to do things we don’t like.
We bar discrimination against religion in this country. We don’t like the idea that government gets to pick and choose what religious groups do or don’t do. I can certainly understand why people might feel this is insensitive. But would you people, who are screaming about this, like to turn over to the state the ability to deny religious groups their right to build or rebuild on private land? What if an Evangelical Christian group wanted to build a mission house in Greenwich Village to save (more like continuously harrass and berate) the ‘evil’ homosexuals, and the local residents protested loudly. Do you want to give City Hall the power to deny that group the right to build?

Insane, indeed. I can’t believe how naive we, Americans, should be to allow this in the name of peace. Why, they want mega mosque anyway? If you want to go and pray in mega mosque – maybe you need to live in Saudi Arabia??? I personally, not into any organised religion, which manipulates and brain wash people’s minds. If I feel like praying to god – I need some quiet time at home to read a bible, and think it through. Anyway, America is the place to hide from relligious persecution – I don’t think they would be persecuted to pray in their Mega Mosques in Saudi Arabia, and other places like this. Why they want to live here, anyway??? To convert others… That is what I think.

Rod, I agree with you. I have one point that I would like to share, which I am sure others probably already have. What if the situation was reversed? What if a “Christian” extremist group made up of 19 people hijacked several planes and tried to crash them into important symbols of Islamic nations? Say, Mecca, for one. Then let’s say after it was destroyed, other mainline Christians wanted to build a church near the site. What do you think the response from the Arabic world would be? Do you think they would allow this? Not on your life.

By the way, I heard from CNN last night Saudis will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the construction…Does this tell you something?

“The Coran tells it followers that to kill infidels is to win a place in their Heaven.”
And the Bible instructs believers to kill homosexuals and witches, and gives several accounts where God told the Israelites to destroy all the residents of cities they were attacking, down to even babes in arms and unborn.
Most, even almost all, Christians will tell us that these passages, properly interpreted, are not instructions for believers today, nor should they be used to condemn the entire Christian faith. They say that those who would follow “real” Christian teachings would never resort to such violence. Only a very small fringe element calling themselves Christian believe that these instructions are valid today.
Now, unless you are going to apply the same criteria to the text of the Bible as you are to the text of the Quran, I would suggest that you not pursue that argument. Just as Christian theologians and teachers will tell us that these passages no long apply, so will Muslim theologians and teachers make similar explanations.
Of course, it’s easier to accept such explanations when it comes from folks who believe like you, isn’t it?
All religious groups have their zealots, and some within these zealots will resort to violence, and then point to their holy scripture as justification for it. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Taoist…all religions have this problem.

“By the way, I heard from CNN last night Saudis will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the construction…Does this tell you something?”
Our oil money is finally going to come back home.

“And the Bible instructs believers to kill homosexuals and witches, and gives several accounts where God told the Israelites to destroy all the residents of cities they were attacking, down to even babes in arms and unborn.”
And don’t forget stoning woman who wear pants

@hlvanburen. I’m Christian Orthodox believer, which read New Testament. It is a Jesus’s life experience and teaching that I’m inspired about..

RE: Brian
[May 27, 2010 8:39 AM
I see the First Amendment is in full force in this debate. I love how "christians" only think it should apply to them. Why don't we go one step further: no mosques in New York City? Why not ban the practice of Islam in the U.S.?]
Simply, YES. I think Islam should be banned in the U.S. Why do they want to live here, in a place they abhor, a place with LAWS they especially abhor? They want to live under their own special set of laws? To heck with them. Go to a country with such laws. Go home.
Do I sound insensitive? Tough.
How do you think the victims of 911 sounded. Islam lost the right to worship here on that day.
I still remember television shots of Muslims all over the world CELEBRATING. This was not an act of a few demented individuals — 911 was an act of the ENTIRE MUSLIM FAITH.
I have read the Koran. It sucks.

By the way, they want to have the grand opening of the Mosque on the 9/11. What the XXXX is this? – Again from CNN.

Mr. D. Richards,
Do I sound insensitive? Tough.
No, sir. You sound ignorant blending into bigoted.

Some of you are clearly not here to contribute to the conversation, but just to air your opinions that Islam is a terrible religion and all of its followers are at best deluded and at worse enemies of the people who must be banished forthwith. Or maybe killed, judging by your level of vitriol.
Don’t you know who you sound like? You’re parroting the Final Solution.
Do you really think Islam is going to take over this country? They have neither the numbers nor the resources nor the desire to pursue violence. And the only ones WILLING to commit violence – the actual terrorists – are such a tiny minority that you and everyone you know face a better chance of being struck by lightening three times tomorrow morning before breakfast than actually being harmed, let alone killed, in a terrorist attack.
Those terrorists I mentioned don’t even aim to take over this country. Their true goal? Sowing fear and discontent, making Americans turn against each other, making young Muslims BELIEVE that it really is us against them (they may start to believe it if more people like some of you keep spouting off,) and above all luring us into lashing back on THEIR terms. And not ours.
Don’t fall for their tactics. We fight this fight on our terms, not theirs. We do that by taking terrorists at face value – a real, but not existential, threat.
Captcha says “chief bathes.”

“Don’t fall for their tactics. We fight this fight on our terms, not theirs. We do that by taking terrorists at face value – a real, but not existential, threat.”
Amen

If this was a church going up in at Ground Zero, no body would care. But its “muslims” and all muslims are terrorists right? They worship God. They aren’t worshipping any of the hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, anything. As a matter of fact, almost every Muslim-American condems the act of terror by the terrorists on 9.11. The people who go to mosque aren’t looking for jihad or anything. They are just ordinary people who have families and kids.
Its not the everyday muslims fault that they only time you see Muslims on the tele or anything, is when an extremeist is screaming “allaho akbar”. Someone said something about Saudi Arabia not allowing Christianity be freely practiced, so, in the freest country in the world, lets ban Islam from being freely practiced? Some people wrote “the Koran teaches to kill infidels”. show me where it says that. In nowhere does it say to kill innocent, civilian infidels. It does say however, kill infidels on the battlefield. But the Koran also says to be friends with the nonbelieves and be friends with them.
This pretty much proves my point:
“Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.” [60:8]

Build the freakin’ mosque already and get on with it.
Jesus, the things people wet their pants over never ceases to amaze me.

i seems inevitable that something bad is going to happen to this place once it’s built. There’s too much obvious resentment still present. so conspiracy theory time, what if the long term plan is to give us a target that’s too appealing to pass up? what kind of response would such an attack draw from the middle east?
i’m just thinking random stuff here, it seems too deliciously evil to be true. but it’s one of many unlikely possibilites.
Me: hey Captcha, what would offend Christians and Muslims alike?
Captcha: heresy would

There is a sense of what is and is NOT appropriate. A mosque SO close to Ground Zero might be legal to build BUT IT IS INAPPROPRIATE! The Carmelite nunnery was probably legal to build BUT IT WAS INAPPROPRIATE!
A shopping center on the edge of the Gettysburg Battlefield – sacred, holy ground in the USA, might be legal to construct BUT IT IS INAPPROPRIATE!
That’s the bottom line! Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you should.

I’m Egyptian – and quite frankly i don’t agree with the mosque on ground zero. There are a million other mosques in the city, they can pray at all of those mosques when they need to. If someone you loved was cold bloodedly murdered (in any other way) would you want the killer’s face on your loved one’s tombstone? No you wouldn’t. And neither would the families who never got to retrieve any bodies or body parts from the site, they consider that their loves one’s grave – and that gives them the right to protest this if they want. They visit that grave every year. And if I had to see that I myself would be disgusted. That is their right and no one else’s took their opinion on what will be at their loved one’s grave.
And by the way – for the person who read the Quran and tried to defend it, you obviously have not read it in Arabic (or any of the Hadiths). Read it in Arabic my friend – and you will never defend it or the religion again.

Islamic Spain was the most religiously tolerant society in medieval Europe
You may want to amend that to “Umayyad Spain”. The Berber rulers who followed the Umayyads were viciously intolerant, expelling the Jews, destroying Christian churches and persecuting lax or dissident Muslims. Even many Muslims came to prefer Christian rule (which was not particularly intolerant in that era) and the Reconquista got a major boost from this fact.

This is absurd. There is more concern with offending ‘the religion of peace’ ( which it isn’t ) than offending the sensibilities of the families and survivors with such an obvious and blatant affront. This is a suckerpunch. Has nothing to do with freedom of speech and more to do with supreme banality a la Neville Chamberlain. Wake up.

This is a complete outrage. Where are you America? Because of the fact that I have been asked to be civil, I can no longer make any more comments.

I think you make a very good point convincingly.

I totally agree with Egyptian Girl’s comments. Well said.

I really do not understand that when the folks use the term terror, they used the word with the Islam or Muslim. Any terroristic activity has no religion, terror is terror. As a Muslim fellow, we do not accept those people ,who killed the innocents in 9/11, as Muslim. They are just out of mind, brain-washed and they are not muslim. The media just trying to create the stereotype of the muslim as if they are all terrorists. The building the mosque near grand zero will be the testimony of american toleration over the freedom of the religions. If the officials do not allow to build, how far from the grand zero the mosque should be built?
A lot of the commenting people have no idea who the Muslims are, they use the term ‘terror’ with Islam and Muslims. I summon everybody to learn who the Muslims are and what the Islam is all about. Americans just hear it from the media, not by reading.

Kill the infidel. If you don’t reflect this sentiment, you’re just not a good muslim. How is this incorrect? Why should this be tolerated within the United States? Anyone who does not follow the Koran and worship Allah is an infidel. I don’t think any religion that instructs it’s followers to kill all who don’t agree should be tolerated. Period. But that’s just my silly opinion.

Matthew 5:43-48
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Do I really need to point out that according to Islamic tradition Christians and Jews are not infidels? It’s only the nutcase Salafists who think that. All of the children of Abraham are called “People of the Book” because we all reference the same history and scriptural stories.

washingtonindependent.com/85863/treating-american-muslims-like-citizens-vs-treating-them-like-threats

You are wasting your electronic voice, AnotherBeliever.

and if i may, hlvanburen . . .
Matthew 5:38-42
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Of course, given that I am a non-theist (and a former Christian, to boot), I am sure that many of the stalwart Christians here who are so willing to interpret the Quran will reject my interpretation of the Bible. After all, as they will tell us, only a believer can properly interpret the Bible (indwelling holy spirit and all that). Of course, then they will turn around and tell believing Muslims where they are wrong in interpreting their holy scripture.
*shrugs* Go figure.

well, it seems we live in a world full of mysteries. don’t we?
(10:42:51 EST)

I really wish moderate Muslims would stop calling terrorists/extremists crazy. They are not crazy. They are rational people, just like us. They count amongst their ranks persons with medical degrees, PhDs, laywyers, and theologians. Extremists are not out of their minds, they simply have a radically different (and dangerous) ontology than most Muslims and non-Muslims. They pose an intellectual as well as a physical threat to everyone. It’s the older generation of moderate Muslims who have “epic failed” by being so dismissive of them- they never bothered to engage them in the battle of ideas. You can call someone crazy and that works only until they open their mouth and unleash a scathing critique of modernity and religion- then your only recourse is to sit there and look like an idiot.
Oh and to Hlvanburen,
No one cares about your interpretation of the Bible because you are ill-equipped to offer any substantive explanation.

JohnK: “Oh and to Hlvanburen,
No one cares about your interpretation of the Bible because you are ill-equipped to offer any substantive explanation.”
Why, thank you JohnK. Coming from you I consider that high praise.

Oh Rod, look at the bottle here you uncorked … the genie slips out and doesn’t look ANYTHING like Barbara Eden.
And as a U-M alum, why is my Captcha words, “buckeye and???”

Check out this reasonable article from the NYT’s Clyde Haberman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/nyregion/28nyc.html
“A strip joint, a p***o store and a government-run bookie operation. No one has organized demonstrations to denounce those activities as defiling the memory of the men and women who died a few hundred yards away.”
“Still others share the opinion of Donna Marsh O’Connor, who is on the steering committee of a group called September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. She said it was “the American way” to have a cultural center that its founder, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, asserts is dedicated to interfaith tolerance.”

Any chance we could encourage a moratorium on reporting in this blog’s posts what the Captcha said?
brutal sleigh
milk tucan
monster redux
choice rotate
plum banana
normal madness
mainstream mud
chopped midnight
bull remorse
futile strawberry
peach redemption
salmon tender
money hairline
delicious scalp
burlesque pen
coral milkshake
joyous academic
feminine harp
cruel fig
distinct savage
music filth
remote carnage
gruel groan
school cocktail
toothy parrot
prehistoric yew
pariah act
sauce defrost
duel mister
left scrotum

As Rod noted, I don’t think some posters here really understand how short of a length 2 blocks in NYC is. It’s basically right on the site.
It might be well intentioned, but the entire project makes me uneasy.

Re: They are not crazy. They are rational people, just like us.
They may not be clinically psychiotic, but they are not ratioinal either. They are in teh grips of a deep delusion, denying factual reality in favor of a fantasy. It’s typical cultic behavior.

Re: Do I really need to point out that according to Islamic tradition Christians and Jews are not infidels?
I’m sure that the various Hindus, Buddhists, neopagans, and practicioners of other faiths in the United States are happy to hear that.
John K,
Did you listen to the NPR feature on Pakistan last week (actually it might have been BBC, can’t remember). They were covering the emerging culture war in Pakistan between the Islamists and the secularists. And they interviewed some conservatives, including a well-educated young engineer who advocated Shariah law, as well as some ‘secularists’- the secularist they chose to interveiw included a young fashion designer as well as one of his models. Suffice it to say that the Islamist conservatives came off as a lot more intelligent and thoughtful then the ditzy, witless fashion designer who kept babbling about ‘fundoes’.
These are not stupid, or crazy people that we are talking about. They have a compelling narrative of history, and a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives, and until we are willing to provide an equally compelling narrative, this is a war we aren’t going to win. And no, “Democracy, Porn, and Starbucks” doesn’t cut it.

As always Muslims coo and prattle on in English to the Diversity Uber Alles choir in the west.And we want to get along and think the best of others. The Muslims know how to play this game, to make themselves the victims.
But then they say the exact opposite in Arabic away from us. So it is with this tolerant,worldy and inclusive imam. he wants sharia law here, there and everywhere-
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/ground-zero-imam-i-dont-believe-in-religious-dialogue/?singlepage=true

Insane? You bet it is. But unfortunately, it’s what’s to be expected when you have a bunch of loony, “politically correct” liberals making the decisions, as is the case in New York City.

While I may not want a Mosque built right on top of Ground Zero, they must be allowed build it there. While we may all vehemently disagree with where they are building this mosque, to deny someone the right to build on their land as they see fit is un-American and flies in the face of what this country stands for. Far too often, those of us on the other side of the argument have been victims of government intrusion and now we must lead by example in showing them that even when we disagree with someone else we so strongly believe in freedom that we will not only allow this to happen, but stand up for our enemy’s rights.
Freedom and liberty must be present especially when we disagree with something, lest the government complete nuder our ability to dissent. While the Obama administration continues its all out assault on our personal freedom and liberty with Obamacare, buying every business with a big enough union or PAC and just about everything else they are doing, to become like them is to lose the fight before it even begins.

What this is going to be for the muslem world is a monument to the fact they took down the Trade Center and they replaced it with their mosque. I can see the post cards with the mosque towering above the New York skyline. When will the American people ever wake up? We are so easy to be sucked in, and this one day will come back to bite us in the you know what. These folks operate on our stupidity and generousity, it is a slow pprocess but that is the way they operate, way to go New York, Remember what the monument in Pennsylvania was to look like, it was going to look like the Crescent that they use, who ever designed that, it was not accidental. So the only place they haven’t been able to mark is the Pentagon in D.C., but don’t be surprised if one of our elected officials comes up with something there.

What if someone flies a plane into the mosque while they are all praying and a giant cross is built atop of the ash heap to honor the dead?

I think what gets me most about this crazy idea is what it represents.
Remember, what attacked us on 9/11 was not a country, it was not a standing army….it was fanatics who learned their beliefs from a Mosque. They learned their fanatacism from a house of “worship”.
So, in the place of their most successful attack they will do the equivalent of planting a country’s flag….they will build a Mosque. They have no flag or banner to fly, they have the Koran so in the place of radical Islam’s most successful attack, the Koran will be found.
I think another way of looking at this is how would it be viewed if we decided to plant Old Glory in the middle of Hiroshima and instead of mentioning Col. Tibbets crew of the Enola Gay, we have plaques testifying to “Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet”. I think the Japanese citizens would not look kindly upon this action of sheer stupidity.
It is, as i have always said that our “tolerance” that will be our downfall.
We should be telling that Imam to get the hell out of here and quit being ridiculous but no…everyone wants to look moderate and intellectual and open minded when in fact that is what radical Islam is counting on.
We will be the cause of our own national demise.

I suspect the Mosque will end up being an expensive ego driven boondoggle. I mean 100 million is an enormous amount of money and simply put who is going to use this huge structure? The percentage of Muslims in the US is less than 1/2% according to ARIS so there just aren’t that many in NYC to justify a structure that large.
Throw in the magic of MTD and that 1/2% could wind up getting smaller, not large.

Muslims around the world cheered on 9/11. They’ve never expressed any condemnation, outrage. Instead, they keep issuing more death threats against authors, cartoonists, and all critics of Islam. This is indeed “an outrageous act of nerve and arrogance”.

Having actually been to Ground Zero several time (because I attended college just north of there), I can tell you there was already Muslim worship services going on there. No one was complaining about it then. Besides, they don’t have the money to do it. ” The Cordoba Initiative listed assets of less than $20,000 in 2008. Its tax filings do not disclose at least $60,000 in private contributions, a New York Post analysis found, raising questions about where the money went.”
Source: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/new-yorkers-outraged-by-muslim-groups-plan-to-build-grand-mosque-near-ground-zero_100365020.html
This is an example of the media getting all the tea party people into a frenzy over nothing. Calm down, and get back to REAL news.

The continuing problem with western thought regarding Islam and Mulims is the idea that somehow there are both good muslims and bad muslims, in the sense that there are good christians and bad christians. It is that thinking that makes it impossible for the west to ever completely understand Islam. It denies the one incontrovertible fact that Muslims all believe exactly the same thing. The only difference between so-called “peace loving” mulims and Jihadists is their respective willingness to take action on what they believe. Major Hassan, who killed all of those soldiers at Ft. Hood, was just acting on his beliefs and we are fortunate that more American mulims do not act on theirs. But, make no mistake, they believe exactly the same things and are inwardly proud of the jihadists. Contained within the Koran is Mohammeds prescription for world domination and the elimination of all but the faithful. Unlike christianity, Islam does not await the next world for that to occur but demands subjugation even now.

Hector,
No, I did not see that NPR/(BBC?) segment, although it sounded interesting.
I completely agree with you that there must be some sort of MEANINGFUL counter-narrative to the one provided by fundamentalists. It distresses me to no end to hear people say that radicals will have their zeal tempered by modernity (and by “modernity” I mean Democracy, Starbucks, and P0rn) when it is PRECISELY that conception of modernity they are rejecting.
As for actually building the mosque…
Of course they have the legal right to build the mosque there (barring some weird building codes or zoning regulations or whatever). That was never the question, and I don’t know why people are so hung up about that. The real question should be, “is building a $100 million dollar mosque that close to Ground Zero a good idea”? I think it is not, for the same reason that the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz was not a good idea, or for why a hundred million dollar Japanese cultural center in downtown Nanking would be a good idea as well.

Have you ever been to New York City? Well I live in New York (Upstate, but a short train ride away) and yes, there are Muslims there. You imply that theres no way that the $100 million can be justified because theres such a small Muslim population. So what could they be spending their money on? A death ray? A strain of mad-camel disease? Could they all jump up and down at the same time and cause an earthquake? Or just maybe they, like most Muslims here and around the world, feel bad about 9/11 and want to use their building
9which the Constitution gives them every right to own and operate) to educate their flock and prevent something like that from happening again.
There are Muslims who live in Manhattan (and every other non-gated community in America) and to tell them they can’t worship because some people they never met did something bad near where they want their Mosque is not very Christian. Shouldn’t you be turning the other cheek? Telling them where they can and can’t build a mosque makes about as much sense as listening to this dufus give advice on ethics.

Look, they’re not just building a mosque. It’s a 13 story 100M structure. It’s a very poor excuse to say just because services were already going on in the area, which is true, and “no one was complaining then” that they are now entitled to build this inglorious shrine of “peace.” The reason it’s morally wrong is actually embedded in their own marketing, going out of their way to call it a “seed of peace.” Please, other mosques have been built in neighborhoods across the U.S. Quietly, without much fanfare and certainly not with any justification that their right to worship is governed also by a “seed of peace” doctrine. (of course ,that’s how Islam portrays itself over all. The “seed of peace” jargon is specific precisely because of its proximity to ground zero. Given how much many of us know about radical islam, why provide an outlet for it right in the heart of where the war on terror began? Perhaps they’re a seed of peace. What,exactly, is to stop any jihadist from co-opting their resources to plan other attacks? Maybe if 100% of the past terrorist attempts hadn’t been Muslims, some of this would not be a problem. But it’s a religion that bears a disproportionate responsibility for death and destruction globally due to terrorist attacks. They’ve lost the moral war on this one before they’ve even started it. While the vast majority of muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim. IN the words of our president, let’s be absolutely clear.

Let’s cut a deal with Islamic “Leaders”: They can have a mosque at ground zero when we can build a Jewish Peace Center in Mecca.

I totally support this Facebook Page. It keeps us updated on ALL of the media links and information so we make an informed opinion. All of us say NO! 1) It is a slap in the face to victims, victims families, NYFD, NYC Police, New Yorkers in General, Americans, Military. Also there is links to Sharia Law, being financed with Saudi money like the terrorist who brought the WTC down, and what are all the floors going to be used? That is a huge amount of space for the things they listed. Also why is Scott Stringer comiting political suicide when he plans on running for mayor in 2013? We discuss this all on our page. The answer is NO NO NO NO!

Forget the mountain range of fuming indignation felt by the victims’ families and the rest of America…forget that. “Seed” of Peace? The very fact that run-of-the-mill Islamist would want this mosque at the time and place reported shows their deep-seeded disregard for what happended to our country on 9-11.

Are we at war with Islam? And are our leaders just multicultural cowards? I think so. Polls show over and over again that the majority of people in Islamic countries consider themselves at war with the non-muslim world and especially the West. When someone declares that they are at war with you, you are at war whether you like it or not.
Who thought up the idea of putting a mosque in this location? Weren’t they thinking that this would be an especially good place, given its history, to forcefully assert multicultural truth over patriotism?

Even politicians aren’t that stupid. They’ll look the other direction for enough money though.

Well Norm, that would make sense execpt that Mecca is a holy site with religious significance, which Manhattan, is just about the opposite.
And katie “how much we know about radical Islam” M, How much do YOU know about radical Islam, or any Islam for that matter. Can you tell me the sects, the five pillars, what the word ‘Islam’ actually means, anything? Far from knowing “much” about Islam, the vast majority of Americans are woefully ignorant about the religion and geographic region we have invaded. And we have American terrorists. The ones who kill abortion doctors or fly planes into IRS buildings. These middle-class white who would rather lose their health insurance when they get sick than have a smart black guy in charge of it are the new breed of terrorist, led by their exalted leaders Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Pallin. These wealthy, privileged white hate-mongers are bringing out the worst in Americans and are trying to make us regress to the 1950s…which is fine if you were a white straight Christian male (you know, the guys who are spreading all of the hate these days)but for everyone else, those days kinda sucked.
Say what you want about the terrorists, but they are neither subtle or masters of disguise. If they wanted to use this mosque as a base of operations for the destruction of the infidels, then they would tell us. Unlike us, they have ideals, and truly believe they have God on their side. If they wanted it for unseemly purposes, they would advertise it the same way the advertise their calls of death to cartoonists or their proclamations of jihad. Chill out and try to learn something from these guys

Just a thought, who’s actually funding this site would be question #1!
When Iran’s President wanted to come to Ground Zero my first thought was that he wanted to go there to Pray, not for the lost 2700, but for the 19 who were victorious in their sacrifice to Allah. Other countries are having a difficult time with immigration as people that come into their out Country do not become assimilated. I feel an agenda coming to practice Shia law in the United States which would be inconsistent to our American way of life. Some would have you believe that putting up a Mosque is an act of kindness … to me it’s a trophy clear and simple. I cannot refer 100% but isn’t there a 100 year program that radical Islam has to defeat America??? America has forgotten who we are … and were becoming a nation of individualists … it’s nice to bring with you your homeland, but leave it at Elis Island when wanting to enjoy the freedoms we offer to become an American to live here is to love her more than what you left.

A reader above asked, “Are we at war with Islam?” The answer of course is “no.”
If America stands for anything, it is freedom of religion and freedom of expression. We show our strength when we are open to non-violent, peace-seeking Muslims. We show our strength when we embrace a Muslim community which wants to embrace the best of America.
I thought this author was a conservative. If this is so, what problem does he have with the Constitution and with the embrace of the foundational principle of free exercise of religion?

Ask the Saudi’s if it would be ok if we built a Cathedral next to Mecca and see how well recieved that is from the religion of “Peace and Tolerance”. We have become a nation of cowards. Let’s not offend anyone while we’re licking there boots on our necks!

Religion of Peace? Ask the Ahmadis whether or not there is tolerance within Islam itself, let alone towards western culture. There is a singular purpose to Muslim immigration to subvert democracy and impose Islamic law. As far as upholding freedom of speech, well, if someone was to build a pork slaughterhouse next door to this mosque, how would the de-sensitized leftists react?

Oh Brian. It’s nice to tell Middle Easterners to leave their culture at home, but to say so shows a serious lack of understanding of the American experience. If someone told your ancestors when they landed here (yes, we were ALL immigrants at some point) to leave their culture at Ellis Island, we would still be living in longhouses and trading with wampum. We have only ever progressed as a nation by expanding our horizons. Throughout history there have been different waves of immigrants moving to the US. The Irish, the Chinese, the Jews, the Mexicans, and every time a new wave starts theres a group of fat angry white guys saying that this new posse of different skinned people is trying to ruin our country. And guess what; they’ve been wrong every time.
We’ve killed hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi civilians, yet if they told we couldn’t be a church there you would be up in arms calling them bigoted. All religions try to do good in the world, but have a few crazy fringe people who can ruin the image of the whole. If something happened to stop this mosque from being built then the terrorists have won on a scale that they could never have imagined, made possible only be the fear and irrational hatred of middle-class white people, a group in which I unfortunately find myself

@ kevin decker re: your comment:
“wealthy, privileged white hate-mongers…are trying to make us regress to the 1950s…”
Seriously?! You are really trying to compare 2 terrorist incidents in which a white non-islamist was involved, to literally thousands upon thousands of terrorist acts by radical muslims? muslims, who, I might add, don’t want to take us back to the 1950′s, but rather, to the 7th century.

Um, as a desensitized liberal, I believe I can for most of us (all 7) when I say you can put whatever you want next to the mosque, and thats my point. I don’t believe it’d be very practical to put a slaughterhouse in downtown Manhattan, but if you just want to stick it to those snooty Muslims, you can. Thats the great thing about America. Opus Dei have a multi-million dollar facility on Lexington St. in Manhattan and those guys are batsh-t nuts. But it’s their right to have it there which is why, even though we may not agree which what they teach there (corporeal mortification, self-inflicted poverty etc.)I still believe it’s their right as tax-paying Americans to worship whatever they want inside their own private property.
In America we have freedom of and freedom from religion. They can build their mosque wherever they want, but they cannot force you to enter it. That sounds fair doesn’t it?

One has to wonder what was the frame of mind of the Muslims who decided to seeks such a mosque, and continue to do so in the face of public opposition. If American Muslims are truly loyal Americans who were offended by the murder of thousands in 2001, why would they even conceive such a plan? Where are the Muslim sensibilities toward the rest of America?
The very fact that they seek to move this plan forward speaks volumes.

Let’s check how many Muslims died on 9/11, they were also Americans. How many Muslims are serving US army, they are Muslims too. We have to open our eyes, the extra conservatives are the real enemy of America. Extra conservatives and extremists are same irrespective of religion.

OK, but only after the synagogue is built in Mecca.

My point is that the terrorists don’t even need to try anymore, because eventually one crazy Rush fan is going to believe what that dude says and will attack the country that allowed Rush to spew such ignorance.
We now have Christians who are gathering, killing police and then planning to attack the funerals. The Timmothy McVeighs, Eric Harris’s, and Lee Harvey Oswalds aren’t going anywhere. They just have the same skin color as us so we don’t tend to freak out as much. When a white person snaps, it’s just that, an isolated incident brought about by a mental illness or something. When a brown person does it it’s because they hate America and want to kill your children and rape your statue of liberty.
There are those in the Middle East who mean to do us harm and we should swiftly and forcefully pursue them, but preventing a mosque from being erected does nothing to prevent to hatred, it strengthens it. If it isn’t built in Manhattan then it will be somewhere else, except we will have given them a reason to be pissed at us. Stopping one mosque will do nothing but embolden our enemies.
And I have no idea what the nocturnal emission of urine has to do with national security. If thats how you come to logical conclusions then it’s easy to see why you believe what you do.

KAZ
When was the last time a extreme conservative flew 2 planes into sky-scrapers, and killed thousands of people? Seriously. The Christian faith has the NEW TESTAMENT of love and peace. The Muslim faith has no equal to the NT. It yet says to kill the infidels. There is NO comparison.

I go with the “outrageous act of nerve and arrogance” interpretation. As usual, Muslims don’t miss a chance to assert their “rights”, even when it shows a gross lack of sensitivity, but they don’t want to be held accountable for their religion’s own human rights violations. Maybe they could take the money they would use to build this mosque and spend it on an outreach to their murderous brethren in Afghanistan — you know, the guys who throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls.

I don’t want to take up all of the space on your comment board, so if anyone would care to discuss this further give me the url to a chatroom or somehting and you’ll see me there

Vance….agreed! Roger…good point.
KEVIN…………I don’t recall reports of McVeigh or Oswald yelling God immediately prior to their actions. I don’t recollect Christianity reportedly being involved with their actions. How many times did the terrorists yell ALLAH b4 their acts. Their motivation was religion based upon their eternity-and they wanted to get there fast. Mc Veigh and Oswald were emotionally disturbed people that didn’t take their own lives to get to paradise…

Rod, I gotta disagree, deeply. Your analogies are both completely off the mark. In the Second World War, the duly elected representatives of both nations mobilized substantial numbers of their populations in service of atrocities. In 9/11, however, only the *tiniest* fraction of adherents to the religion — adherents whom even their fellow Muslims despise — committed this act. Building a mosque is thus exactly the opposite of what you seem to think it is; building a mosque is a sign that Americans do NOT hold Islam responsible for the acts of its radicals.
To use a better analogy, it would be like building a Lutheran church a few blocks down from Auschwitz. Yes, there were quite a few Lutherans who went into Positive Christianity, and yes, Martin Luther himself indulged in the tradition of anti-Semitism by writing “On the Jews and Their Lies,” but as a whole, the devout Lutherans worldwide were NOT anti-Semities and in fact were frequently predisposed to fight AGAINST the Holocaust. Letting them set a church up near Auschwitz would honor the memory of the moderates and would not, IMHO, be a controversial step at all.
So also with this mosque.

sorry the above was from B girl…..

Roberto
Gotta disagree. More like putting a building with a nazi sign outside Auchwitz. What those men did on 9/11 was in the name of their religion…

Well, conservatives fly bombs into hospitals and schools killing thousands, and wasen’t the NT teh driving force behind teh Crusades, the Inquistions, the Salem Witch Trials, the Holocaust, abortion clinic bombings
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. — Luke 19:27 (Jesus speaking)
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war”, “His eyes were as a flame of fire”, clothed in a vesture dipped in blood“, and “out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” Revelation 19 (Jesus speaking)
Peaceful religion it is not

I agree with the author. A mosque at Ground Zero is a serious insult to those who were murdered there in the cause of Islam. We need to start drawing lines. You can say what you like about tolerance but America was founded as and still is by and large a christian nation. Being tolerant does not need to entail demeaning ourselves and forgetting our roots. Tolerance does not need to include veneration of our self-declared enemies. Tolerance does not need to involve spitting on graves.

Kevin Decker, look how far back you have to reach for the white mass murderers — and you’ve got 3 of them. Also, I believe people generally think of Timothy McVeigh’s mass murder as a hate crime, not so much a mental illness issue. And the reason so many of us view the (mass) murders committed by radical Islamists, as hate crimes and threats to national security is not because the perpetrators happen to be brown — it’s because they adhere religious/political beliefs that call for the killing of “infidels,” and the destruction of America. Please don’t ignore facts for a liberal fantasy.
Muslims can build their mosques, but to do so so close to where the twin towers once stood is in very poor taste and will not help their image with non-Muslim Americans.

Being civil is what leads to outrageous ideas like putting a mosque at Ground Zero. Maybe Americans need to be a little more uncivil.

Why so near Gound Zero? Why on September 11? Any sane person would know that this is an affront to our nation, and that’s exactly what it is. And for those pinhead bureaucrats in New York to unanimously vote to approve the construction of a mosque to be opened on the anniversary of the day in which 2 commercial jets piloted by extremist Muslims killed 2700 innocent people is an act of utter disrespect to our country and the memory of those killed. Maybe someone should go to the graveyards where members of the councils families are buried and throw crap at the headstones of their dearly departed.

Sooooooo, how far away can they build it? 5 blocks? 10 blocks? Should we just criminalize Islam in Manhattan?
Yes we have more Muslims attacking us, but this is in the course of American history a very recent phenomonon, beginning in earnest in the last couple of decades. Maybe they would stop if we stopped bombing their villages and schools.
How would stopping this make us any safer? All it would do is reinforce any negative views that they already had towards us. All the terrorists want us to do is a)die and b)be afraid, and on the latter, they have been more successful they could have possibly imagined.
Whatever happened to Christians turning the other cheek? Could one of you address that please?

“Insane” is about right. I don’t think Islamic terrorism is a threat to “civilization.” I do think it reflects deep-rooted problems in Muslim societies that must be resolved by improving the relationship between orthodox religion and modernity. And it requires encouraging governments in the Middle East and elsewhere to create opportunities for their citizens to advance economically, socially and politically. I would never advocate a ban on building mosques.
That said, a mosque at Ground Zero will never be widely seen as a symbol of American largesse. Rather, in many, many quarters of the world it will be viewed as a symbol of moral confusion and of Islam’s potential conquest of the West.
At least one historian of Islam reminds us that for Muslims, the mosque is a powerful symbol of “the locus of religious faith and jihadic indoctrination. (See http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/Civilization-and-Mosques.htm)
“It is a place of prayer that serves as the barracks for gathering the soldiers. In the early days of Islam the mosque was a center for forging military preparedness, awaiting the spiritual command to go out and fight the enemy.”
Neither do I subscribe to the somewhat hysterical view that mosques built in non-Muslim societies are “modern-day Trojan Horses.”
But a mosque built at Ground Zero can never be seen as either a symbol of healing or the benign construction of a house of worship.

So I’ve read a bunch of posts and blogs on this site and there seems to be a common theme throughtout; you guys are afraid. You are terrified. Of everything. Atheists, Lady Gaga, mosques, pirates, Nietzsche etc. You guys need to chill. You are safe. Yes there may be people out there who want to kill you, but they aren’t going to. You are much more likely to die in a car crash or from not exercising than from some moron named Ahmed blowing you up.

Forget the muslims and their plans. Who are the people in New York on these commisions approving this? If anything, a center to promote understanding for all of the worlds religions would be a better choice. The muslims who want this must know the outrage and hurt they are causing. Does this sound like a building block to “understanding”?It does not seem to matter to them.

BGirl,
Here’s a partial listing of atrocities committed by Christians, using explicitly Christian rhetoric, just in the period between 1994 and 2004.
In the name of Yahweh, supposed Christians performed acts of genocide in Rwanda (1994; priests, nuns, pastors, and congregants have all been indicted), killed abortionists and bombed abortion clinics (John Britton/James Barrett, 1994; Barnett Slepian, 1998; see also the Army of God terrorist organization), killed and abused children in Nigeria (early 2000s-present), performed forced conversions at gunpoint (church-funded National Liberation Front of Tripura, 1998-2000), bombed a U.S. Consulate (Russian National Unity, a Christian terrorist group, 1999), performed ethnic cleansing on native peoples (Guatemala, 1994-96), performed ethnic cleansing against Muslims (Srebrenica Massacre, 1995), and even gone on a Ft. Hood-esque shooting spree against fellow soldiers (William Kreutzer, 1995).
More recently, you may have heard that some our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are using rifles engraved with Bible verses — rifles that are used to kill Iraqis and Afghans, and not just insurgents; “collateral damage,” i.e., the killing of civilians, is fairly high.
And lest we forget, the Nazis themselves were a movement that frequently employed Christian rhetoric — or, as merely one example, have you never seen the Wehrmacht belt buckles that read “God With Us” (Heb. “Immanuel,” lest we forget)?
I somehow doubt that you think this makes Christianity a violent religion, even though “what these men did was in the name of their religion.” Likewise, I doubt that you think Christians have lost the right to build churches in, say, Iraq, or Auschwitz, in spite of the fact that thousands lost their lives at the hands of people employing expressly Christian rhetoric, just like 9/11 resulted in deaths at the hands of people employing expressly Islamic rhetoric.
The bottom line, BGirl, is that religions are (and should be!) judged by the overwhelming majority of their adherents, and not by the handful of fanatics you can always dig up if you look hard enough. Imagine if all Christians were judged by the actions of the Westboro Baptists!
So, no, sorry, but your analogy fails utterly. Perhaps you’re an anti-theist and believe all 90% of the world population who believes in God is fanatical and evil, in which case there’s nothing more I can really say except to point to atheistic fanatics like in Maoist China who killed millions — and I hope you wouldn’t want to be judged by *them.* I’m an atheist, but such prejudice against Islam (or indeed any religion) is a seriously blow to the freedom of conscience which makes our society great.

A mosque at Ground Zero is as symbolic for radical Islam as the Marines planting a flag on top of the mountain at Iwo Jima. For it to happen ten years later without a shot being fired is despicable.

BGirl,
Here’s a partial listing of atrocities committed by Christians, using explicitly Christian rhetoric, just in the period between 1994 and 2004.
In the name of Yahweh, supposed Christians performed acts of genocide in Rwanda (1994; priests, nuns, pastors, and congregants have all been indicted), killed abortionists and bombed abortion clinics (John Britton/James Barrett, 1994; Barnett Slepian, 1998; see also the Army of God terrorist organization), killed and abused children in Nigeria (early 2000s-present), performed forced conversions at gunpoint (church-funded National Liberation Front of Tripura, 1998-2000), bombed a U.S. Consulate (Russian National Unity, a Christian terrorist group, 1999), performed ethnic cleansing on native peoples (Guatemala, 1994-96), performed ethnic cleansing against Muslims (Srebrenica Massacre, 1995), and even gone on a Ft. Hood-esque shooting spree against fellow soldiers (William Kreutzer, 1995).
More recently, you may have heard that some our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are using rifles engraved with Bible verses — rifles that are used to kill Iraqis and Afghans, and not just insurgents; “collateral damage,” i.e., the killing of civilians, is fairly high.
And lest we forget, the Nazis themselves were a movement that frequently employed Christian rhetoric — or, as merely one example, have you never seen the Wehrmacht belt buckles that read “God With Us” (Heb. “Immanuel,” lest we forget)?
I somehow doubt that you think this makes Christianity a violent religion, even though “what these men did was in the name of their religion.” Likewise, I doubt that you think Christians have lost the right to build churches in, say, Iraq, or Auschwitz, in spite of the fact that thousands lost their lives at the hands of people employing expressly Christian rhetoric, just like 9/11 resulted in deaths at the hands of people employing expressly Islamic rhetoric.
The bottom line, BGirl, is that religions are (and should be!) judged by the overwhelming majority of their adherents, and not by the handful of fanatics you can always dig up if you look hard enough. Imagine if all Christians were judged by the actions of the Westboro Baptists!
So, no, sorry, but your analogy fails utterly. Perhaps you’re an anti-theist and believe all 90% of the world population who believes in God is fanatical and evil, in which case there’s nothing more I can really say except to point to atheistic fanatics like in Maoist China who killed millions — and I hope you wouldn’t want to be judged by *them.* I’m an atheist, but such prejudice against Islam (or indeed any religion) is a seriously blow to the freedom of conscience which makes our society great.

Blah. Sorry for the double post. :-/

Kevin, do stick around. Except for a suggestion to tone down your rhetoric just a bit, you are for my money contributing to the discussion here. I say that as one who has to watch his own tendencies to post a few times in the course of 30 minutes (or less).
That said and before I leave this (must control my quickly-becoming morbid curiousity for this thread), I’m struck by the all-or-nothing nature of the general debate both here and elsewhere. Then there are those who insist on making this a p*ssing contest between Islam and Christianity, and keeping score on how many and when people were injured or killed in the name of religion. Besides that, we now have a shouting match to determine which religion is the “religion of peace.”
Some might forgive this Pagan’s view that none of them qualify.

Well, maybe someone should buy the tallest structures in London & Paris and put a replica of a WW 2 German bomber on top of them. After all, not all Germans supported Hitler. How about in Miami we build a large statue of Castro. This would help with understanding between Cuban’s in America and in Havana.
Question 1: I would like to know if they would approve building a synagogue or a church?
Question 2: How long until this becomes one of the most holy sites in Islam & to touch it or defile it my non-muslims would be considered cause for Jihad?

Kinda like the parents of a serial killer putting up memorial sites in the name of their killer offspring in the neighborhood of each of the victims. A cause for anger and resentment is all. Stupid.

BUGG – you actually get it. I love you!
And yes – their plan is to eventually take over. It may not be in your lifetime. But that’s the plan.
And Amy – if America is not in a so called war with Islam, then you go to Afghanistan and pull my husband out of the trenches before he dies trying to protect you from another attack in the name of Islam.
See, what you’re missing here is the bigger picture. Islam only preaches tolerance for its own and death to others. Ground Zero is not the only act of terror that occurs. In the name of Allah, Muslims do dispicable things every day in several places around the world. Every day. And they always will.

Any friend would be a lot more sensitive than to try to put a mosque at the site of a horrible loss of American lives at the hands of radical Islam. To not recognize how that would sting us is just to be oblivious to anyone else feelings.
Let’s face it. The standard operating procedure in the Middle East is for the conqueror to build on the symbols or power or religion of the vanquished. It is a powerful symbol of dominance and will be a powerful symbol incentivizing future jihadists.
Political correctness can kill us and this is a perfect example.

Do ANY of you live in New York? You all talk about the feelings of those who live and have lost therebtu it seems like you’re all assuming you know how we feel. I am from New York and guess what; nobody cares here! We look at every box on the street, every unmarked van and every airplane with morbid curiousity, but none of us can see how allowing a mosque to be built will make us any less safe. What will make us less safe is being intolerant and giving Muslims a reason to be mad at us.

I strongly feel you are wrong about this Rod. Personally I do not follow either the Muslim or the Christian religion, both of which entail rather fantastic and implausible claims. However the religion of Islam per se is NOT our enemy. Our enemy (which perpetrated 9/11) are the small minority of Moslems who are fanatics and terrorists. America remains a country of religious diversity — there’s NO good reason not to have an Islamic Center in lower Manhattan.

This comment board has been abuzz all day yet as soon as I ask why you aren’t turning the other cheek you quiet right up.
[Note from Rod: Kevin, I deleted the rest of your comment here. I've had it with your repeated inability to engage people here without personally insulting them. You need to leave. -- RD.]

I think we should let the New Yorkers decide this and everybody else should stay out of it, don’t you?

Historically Islam has spread its religion by force. First destroy and then build religious buildings (mosques) preferably on top of the sites where they just destroyed existing religious buildings. That is why there is so much conflict currently e.g. in Kashmir and also in Jerusalem (dome of the rock). This new mosque is definitely a continuation of this strategy.

A hundred million dollar mosque at Ground Zero! What will it serve? Taunt to the sufferers. Tolerance of America to freedom of religion. Prayer service for some Muslims. These are certain. What else?
That brings me to the next question. Can a moderate Muslim institution raise such a big sum of money?
I’m highly skeptical.
Since 9th century the Shariah has become the governing law of the Muslim Society. The Shariah is not a moderate philosophy. For example, it prescribes against freedom of religion (for example it prescribes death penalty for an apostate). Freedom of religion is the cornerstone of modern society and all Abrahamic faiths (“There be no compulsion in faith …” verse 2:256 The Qur’an. Read also verses 22:40, 2:193). Please note that despite its stated claim, the Shariah is inconsistent with the Qur’an.
To be moderate one has to be able to question and differ with the Shariah without fear. But differing with the Shariah is an act of defiance – often draws fatwa of death sentence from the clergy. Exmaples are numerous.
I do not know the Imam other than that he wore a tie made of American flag to the city council meeting. But I know this – it will be very difficult to raise money if he dares to question any aspect of the Shariah.
Finally, I’m not convinced that a hundred million dollar mosque at ground zero will serve much good. All over the Muslim lands there are hundreds of thousands of mosques, but there is no freedom or freedom of religion. I don’t expect it will be any different inside the proposed mosque.

Would ANY of you Christ-enthusiasts care to tell me why none of you have proposed turning the other cheek? It seems like the thing Jesus would do in this scenario, or do you take off your WWJD? bracelet when it comes to hating other groups of people, usually brown ones who don’t believe in the same imaginary friend as you

It is not on WTC grounds. It was a Burlington Coat Factory previously. I don’t see a problem, provided we do a thorough investigation of the founders and the financing of this Mosque. We should no more allow hateful Muslims founding that mosque than we’d allow an anti-Muslim hate group to build a meeting place there.
I wonder what happened to the little Greek Orthodox Church that was also in the shadow of the WTC (and destroyed). Maybe a Mosque opponent will put their money where their mouth is and outbid the mosque for the property and then donate it to the Greek Orthodox.

Freedom of religion is just fine.Religions that require repeated killing as a religious duty should not be free.The idiocy, by the way, of comparing the Crusades and the Inquisitions, which are historical events many centuries removed, to Islamic atrocities against others which are current events, does not pass even the giggle test and demonstrates eloquently, the stupidity of it’s purveyors.Christianity has evolved since 1100 AD, but Islam remains as non-violent and inclusive as it was then. While there are moderate Muslims (we are told) there is no moderate Islam and allowing a mosque at or near Ground zero is an obscenity.

And who decides which religions should be free Susan? I must have missed the part in the Constitution that says “Freedom of religion to all, except the bad ones.” All religions kill, all will continue to kill. Except for the Amish. How about we put them in control of which religions should be free? Anyone have a better idea?

Kevin,
Can you demonstrate from my writing that I suggested ‘ban of the mosque?’
Muin

And I will continue to ask all day if I have to (yeah, sad as it is, this is how I spend a day off) why no Christ-enthusiasts are going to turn the other cheek on this one. It’s what Jesus would do. I mean literally, if you asked Jesus “What do I do”, the answer is to turn the other cheek. It’s the Christian thing to do, yet I only see the non-religious respond in such a way. The Christians just see this as an excuse to proudly display their hatred for a people they do not understand

It is disturbing to read comments that equate Christianity and Islam vis-a-vis violence.In truth, Christian dogma does not require or even countenances anything even remotely comparable to jihad.While mankind can always be counted on to pervert anything, adherence to Biblical teaching has not resulted in Kevin’s mythical 38 million victims(indeed, the Inquisition resulted in a relatively small number of deaths, contrary to popular myth and the Crusades,last I heard, were conflicts involving Islam against Christianity).Just look at the world we live in and you’ll see Islam at war (literally) with African animists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews , Catholics, Protestants, Copts and virtually every other belief system including atheists ! Moral relativism is nothing more than accomodationist thinking that blinks at reality.

Muin, I don’t care enough about you or what you have to say to justify reading your post again, but what I can say is that all of the good ol’ cheek-turning Christ-enthusiasts in here say that the mosque should not go up, which implies that if it were in their hands that they would in fact ban it, giving the terrorists yet another excuse to hate us and want to cause us harm you tool

Kevin… repetition, like SHOUTING, has a very quick diminishing return. I respectfully suggest that you embrace the netiquette view of silence: It means silence, nothing more. If people read your posts and decline to respond, that is their choice and not yours to impose upon them.
Speaking of which: You are also traveling down the “whispering down the lane” path. Your recent reiterations of your original challenge have become sarcastic. If you want a reason why at least some people decline to respond, I would put my money on that.

The aatack in the name of Islam occurred in NY, but it is those in the military who fight back and die doing so.

I am a decendant of christian survivors of moslem murders. My paternal great grandfather was murdered by moslems and his wife was told to get her sons out of the village before they were old enough to seek revenge, or they would also be killed.
She came to the US with her 5 children in 1895.
My maternal grandfather came here in 1908. Several of his siblings were murdered by moslems.
My mother in law survived the turkish genocide of the Armenians.
So, therefore, let moslems build a mosque when a Catholic Church or a Synagogue, is built in Mecca.

Kevin, writing Pagan to Pagan: You are displaying a rather large chip on your shoulder. Regardless of your motivations, I suggest you have piled more than enough onto the challenge heap. Keep it up, and I might decide I have enough data to conclude that you are more of a Pagan by reaction than by any more sincere path.
Besides, there are few enough of us already, here or elsewhere. I am quite motivated to see you stick around rather than wear out your welcome. I am 100% engaged in Rod’s personal approach to civil discourse as well as his blogger obligations to the Beliefnet rules of conduct. You’ve been treading over both lines. Please, at least take a breath.
[Note from Rod: Thanks for trying, Franklin, but I'm unpublishing all his comments. He's a troll. I've said to him, like you have, to quit baiting people with personal attacks, but he won't listen. I don't have time for trolls. Folks, please don't respond to Kevin's comments, or I'll unpublish your remarks too, not because there's necessarily anything wrong with them, but because they won't make sense without the antecedent. -- RD]

Look at the bright side: It’s bound to be good for Muslim tourism in NYC…

Rod: I completely agree with you. Islam is an intolerant religion and according to the Qur’an, anyone who does not believe in their religion is an infidel.
Try building a Bible believing Christian Church in the middle east – it will never happen. Yet, they’re allowed to come to the US and build a mosque. This is a slap in the face and an insult to our founding fathers (who founded America on godly principles) and to the families of the victims who remain (9/11).
They are even persecuting the Ahamdi (recent bombings in Pakistan during one of their prayer meetings) because they have differences of opinion regarding Islam.
This is a really bad decision on the part of the “corrupt” city of New York officials to have a mosque built close to ground zero. I wonder how much money the Muslims are paying them under the table.

“Oh, if we could justh be nithe to the Muthlims, they would like uths.”
Anyone with this attitude, wake UP! Educate yourself. You make yourself look foolish when you make such silly arguments.
Some Koran verses for your enlightenment. Here is also a website that compares Christianity and Islam, and has many quotes listed from each faith having to do with specific topics.
Here is the site, quotes to follow: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Jesus-Muhammad.htm
“Allah:”
“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who
disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads
and strike off every fingertip of them.”
(Qur’an 8:12)
Muhammad:
“Fight everyone in the way of Allah and
kill those who disbelieve in Allah.”
(Ibn Ishaq 992)
Jesus:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
(Matthew 5:14)
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/05/a-mosque-at-ground-zero-insane.html#ixzz0pFo4vEba

Every American should see this, every six months. Just so we don’t forget.
Watch this:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=216_1207467783

Okay, here’s the real deal regarding the construction of this Manhattan mosque: The basic muslim strategy for the conquering of an infidel land is that of the slow infiltration of its culture via (1) intermarriage (in which it is required that the non-muslim converts) and (2) the birthing of large numbers of children (the muslims traditionally have far greater fecundity than their non-muslim neighbors). The construction of a mosque, in addition to it being a place of religious fortification, serves as a catalyst for this dynamic of ever-expanding muslim population percentage. Once the population reaches a critical mass of approximately 25%, the muslims then begin to agitate for societal accommodation of sharia law. The societies almost inevitably cave before this steady encroachment in order not to rock the societal boat. As the muslim population percentage relentlessly ascends, more and more of the local culture is subsumed under the muslim social order. Before you know it, the kafirs are on the run or enslaved–or converted.
We Americans take great pride in our tolerance toward followers of other belief systems. Sadly, the muslims take full advantage of such accommodation and use it to the destruction of its purveyors. Fair play? Absolutely not. Effective toward goal of islamification? Absolutely yes.

Kevin,
I must say I disagree with your assessment about how to prevent terrorism.
People’s fear about many Muslim organizations is based on facts – one just have to consult the writings of some of the radical Muslim scholars. A few of them has wide followings.
For two reasons I don’t support the ban
1. the mosque by itself does not pose a public safety threat.
2. such a ban is inconsistent with our constitution
A bigger threat (than the mosque) to our security is our pc-ness. Safety of individual Americans must be the first line of response of our administration.

Okay, Matt, here’s the real deal with the use of the Broom of Sweeping Generalizations…
Paragraph 1: Just as one example, it would seem that Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam didn’t get the memo.
Paragraph 2: Just as one example, I don’t see much tolerance in the disruption of Pagan public gatherings by proud fundamentalist Christians with bullhorns.

I’d like to add a further comment regarding the differences between Islam and Christianity: Some of the posters have correctly pointed out that in addition to His words of love and mercy, Jesus also laid forth very harsh words toward those not accepting His gift of salvation–the fires of Hell, etc. Yet one has to look carefully at how His “harshness” was directed. In other words, what were His goals with these words?
Jesus used His harsh words in a “descriptively warning” manner rather than in a “prescriptively destructive” manner–in marked contrast to the “war” passages within the Koran. Jesus NEVER REMOTELY indicated to His [true Christian] followers that they should take up arms against unbelievers–particularly for the purpose of converting them! Yes, he “descriptively” warned people of the fires of Hell and the coming judgment of God,…but then He proceeded to supernaturally HEAL them of their diseases in the hope that they would repent of their sins and believe in Him as Savior and Lord–and thus be SAVED from the fires of Hell. It was up to them. He wasn’t forcing His belief system upon anyone–like Mohammed and his subsequent muslim disciples have done routinely throughout history!
Ah, history… I can just imagine the fiery secularist poster revving up a stinging refutation drawn straight from the annuls of King Richard the Lionhearted, the “Christian King” who butchered untold thousands of muslims, orthodox Christians and anyone else he could lay his hands on during his noble journeys abroad. King Richard and his ilk have throughout history taken the 9-letter word “Christian,” placed its authoritative stamp upon their foreheads, and then proceeded to use whatever brutal means necessary to enslave and destroy all who stood in their way. King Richard wouldn’t have known the Apostle James from Anton Levay! Bottom line here: Islam, the violent brutal religion that it is, is in no way remotely comparable to TRUE Christianity–to false Christianity, maybe yes, but not to TRUE Christianity.

Matt, I’ll spare you my Pagan “stinging refutation” (which, btw, is neither stinging nor ignorant of the full scope of history), but I will wonder if you can forgive a Pagan’s jaundiced view of “TRUE Christian” and the perception that somewhere between most (as in more than half) and the vast majority of those who claim to be Christian are not “TRUE Christians” by your definition.
It begs the question: If there really are thousands rather than millions of Christians, wouldn’t it seem that we are wasting our time here?

The Muslims consider the Mosque in that location as a monument to their victory over the West. And the 9/11 horror will now be memorialized in a house of evil where the members will be encouraged to do more of the same. Are we crazy? Or what?

Don’t quite get the Auschwitz analogy. The actions of the Nazis had nothing at all to do with Christianity. Indeed, the Nazis slaughtered Catholics as well as Jews.

Yes, I’ll have to say that I readily concede to Franklin’s implication that I am indeed ignorant of the full scope of history. I look forward to meeting the only One in the universe who is not following my departure from this temporary–and very depressing–abode. My hope is that many [former] muslims will follow me there as well–fully repenting of their old life/sins and then trusting in the blood of Christ shed upon the Cross for our sins. At the church where I attend I’ve gotten to know a couple who has recently converted from Islam to Christ. They beam with happiness knowing that they’ve finally found the Truth–the person of Jesus Christ.
In response to Franklin’s doubts about my definition of TRUE Christians, I’ll first have to say, “You’re not alone!” Untold billions of people possess breathtakingly twisted definitions for this 9-letter word. It’s no wonder that folks like Franklin are left with a skeptical frown upon their faces whenever they hear someone like me bantering around the phrase, “TRUE Christian.” You have my sympathies. Nevertheless, Jesus in His own words is very clear about it. Just take a month and read through the Book of John about five times in a row–calling out to God for clarification all the while. You’ll see what I mean….

This article is saturated with that very *particular* sort of concern for the supposedly delicate sensibilities of New Yorkers that conservatives and Republicans just can’t express enough. . . but which almost literally *none* of my fellow New Yorkers share or have the tiniest scrap of support for.
Most of *us* believe that what brought the Towers down was fundamentalist zealotry, not Islam; and we have no trouble drawing a perfectly straight line between the Christian fanatics who like to blow up abortion clinics and the Islamic fanatics who like to fly planes into buildings.
Most New Yorkers would be happy to tell the author of this article the same thing they told the RNC’s hypocritical “well-wishers” in 2004:
**PLEASE, WE BEG YOU, JUST STAY OFF OUR SIDE!!!!***

Scott G., About your citation of verse 8:12 of the Qur’an –
1. According to widely accepted view, the verse refers to an ongoing war – the battle of Badr. Instruction is to fight the Kafirs (Arabic word that you translated as disbelievers) – particulary the Makkans who were dead-set to kill Muhammad because he sought to practice his own faith. There is no precedence that an Abrahamic prophet was engaged in killing non-Muslims just because they were non-Muslims. The idea that Muhammad did such a thing is simply not true – facts won’t bear out.
2. There is a widespread misconception about the meaning of Kafirs or disbelievers. Let me elaborate on this point.
Verse 2:62 (The Qur’an)
VERILY, those who have attained to faith, as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Christians, and the Sabians -all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds-shall have their reward with their Sustainer; and no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve.
The verse say – as some Muslims will be in the heaven so will be some Christians and Jews i.e. they are not disbelievers. The same God can’t order killing of christians and jews while promising them heaven.
3. I would not treat a particular reference in vacuum. One should follow the legacy of all the Biblical prophets. Let me cite some examples from the life of Muhammad to show how he conducted his affairs with non-Muslims.
- He was saved by non-Muslims. When the people of Makkah wanted to kill him, he fled to Madinah. The multi-faith (Jews, Christians, Pagans) society of Madinah gave him refuge and in fact chose him as their leader.
- People of all faiths and no-faith fought alongside Muhammad against the Makkans in at least two wars (Battle of Uhud and battle of trenches).
- Even after the Muslims returned to Makkah, Muhammad chose to stay in Madinah with the people of all faiths.
4. To learn from the lives of other Biblical prophets.
- Joseph served a King who was not his religious authority (might not even be a believer in Abrahamic faith).
- Abraham, when faced religious persecution, migrated to Canaan. He chose not to fight the persecutor.
- Moses initially migrated away from the fear of persecution of Pharoh, but later came back to fight Pharoh to free the children of Israel from slavery and persecution.
- Noah did not fight non-Muslims/non-believers, he migrated.
- Lot did not fight non-Muslims/non-believers., he migrated.
- Jacob did not fight non-Muslims/non-believers
- Isaq did not fight non-Muslims/non-believers
In conclusion, some of the Biblical prophets fought persecution, some simply migrated. Some did not fight (Joseph for example) at all in their lives – they possibly did not face any persecution.
Therefore a Muslim ought to fight disbelievers without cause is simply not based on the Qur’nic view.

I think this is another issue for professional hand-wringers to wring their hands over. So they’re building a mosque near ground zero. I think that’s as right-headed as having a convent on the former Auschwitz. Having no way, of course, to prove it, my thoughts are that this is how Jesus would have it. Build God’s house where you need to meet with him most.
They don’t all need to be in the suburbs. I think a mosque, or a church, or both, or something like that, is as appropriate a building on ground zero as any high-rent high-rise skyscraper. Moreso, maybe.
So get over yourself already.

I wonder how visitors to Ground Zero will feel when they hear the sounds of the Muslim “call to prayer” issued from loudspeakers two blocks away?

Dave:
By “visitors to Ground Zero,” do you mean all those busloads of angry-looking, gray-haired tour groups from places like Oompa-Loompa, Missouri who show up wearing matching sun visors and matching XXXXL T-Shirts decorated with flags and hollow slogans? The ones who I’m constantly having to maneuver around while they’re triumphantly posing with their hands on their hips and one foot hiked up on a fire hydrant, being photographed in front of a pit that they saw on TV?
If that’s who you mean, they’ll probably be freakin’ **terrified**, stampeded into dropping their hot-dogs, Big Gulps, and “commemorative” Twin-Tower snow globes and sundry maudlin tchotkes as they run to get back on the bus.
“Run, Mable, run! Lord ha’ mercy, them crazy, squiggle-writing devil-worshippers is BACK!”

RE:Thrasymachus
May 28, 2010 5:03 PM
This article is saturated with that very *particular* sort of concern for the supposedly delicate sensibilities of New Yorkers that conservatives and Republicans just can’t express enough. . . but which almost literally *none* of my fellow New Yorkers share or have the tiniest scrap of support for.
**************************
Please do not confuse New Yorkers with Manhattanites. Manhattanites are usually from somewhere other than New York, and unlike real New Yorkers (who Manhattanites refer to has Bridge ands Tunnel) do not have the sense to realize that $5000 rent for a walk in closet with a view of homeless defecating on the sidewalk is a true sign of dementia.
Most of those that died in the Towers were Bridge and Tunnel New Yorkers. You know, the police and firefighters that protect Manhattanites so they can sit in coffee shops, look down their noses and through their hipster Clark kent glasses at those that ensure their safety.
The overwhelming majority of those who suffered at the hands of the terrorists that morning ask that this Mosque not be built in the proposed site. Their voices, though often muted under the shouting of the faux intellectuals of Manhattan, should be paid the most attention

DC Law:
Actually, I live in Brooklyn. And our city government isn’t run by the “faux intellectuals of Manhattan.” Unless you mean Mayor Bloomberg, in which case. . . ok, fair point.

Guessing Brooklyn Heights, and not from Brooklyn. Although I agree that the idea of ground zero as a tourist attraction complete with gift shops is repugnant, your comments reveal your Manhattan soul. Lets build a NAMBLA center across the street from the home of a molestation victim while we are at it. This issue is not the proper way prove some academic principle of diversity and tolerance. Real people will feel real pain. This plan is not about building bridges and reaching out in friendship, it is about poking victims in the eye.

Rod, I was doing some thinking about this, and at first I kind of agreed with you, and while I’m not one for “moving on” (those commenters are reminding me a little of Fahrenheit 451 right now) and if it were anywhere else in the world I would certainly agree that these people need a good talking to, in Mannhattan, two blocks is a long distance! That is a tiny island with 8 million people were talking about, and skyscrapers unbelievably tall! To deny any faiths houses of worship within a two block distance of anything in a place where people are not used to walking a block for groceries would be severly harmful for the neighborhood. Now perhaps they should agree to be sensitive by keeping a low profile and take a storefront rather then a separate building or something respectful like that, but we can’t deny in any way, not privately, not publicly, their right to a full house of worship in a place with that many people!

Simple compromise: build the mosque, and we can put a big picture of Mohammed at Ground Zero.

I offer an apology to Matt for not being clear that my question had no critical, let alone sarcastic, implications to it, but that becomes overshadowed by regret that I actually expected a reasoned response to my question. I’m left to wonder if disclosing my being Pagan has something to do with it.
And for those who missed it, there was a classic “lather, rinse, repeat” approach to personal faith. The implied no thought needed was a bit overdone, though.

Guessing Brooklyn Heights, and not from Brooklyn. Although I agree that the idea of ground zero as a tourist attraction complete with gift shops is repugnant, your comments reveal your Manhattan soul. . . .This plan is not about building bridges and reaching out in friendship, it is about poking victims in the eye.
**************************************
DCLaw:
You’re about a quarter right: I live in Park Slope, which is *almost* like Brooklyn Heights as of 2010, but my family’s been here since the 1840s and this place was about as “gentrified” as Gary, Indiana for about half of the intervening decades.
Granted, I left home to go to Georgetown Law, but based on your handle and your style of argument, I think there’s a pretty fair chance that you did too.
Anyway, my underlying point is that I’ve never been able to understand why conservatives who bristle and froth at the mouth at the very suggestion that pencil-necked “pseudo-intellectuals” from New York could dare to comment on (depending on the era) race relations in the South, womens’ rights in the Midwest, the status of immigrants in the Southwest, environmental issues in Alaska, etc. etc. etc. seem to be perfectly comfortable telling New Yorkers *exactly* what to think and how to react to a terrorist attack that happened (television coverage notwithstanding) to *us*, first and foremost, not to you. The people who burned up when the planes hit the Towers were mostly New Yorkers. The people who died trying to rescue survivors from them were ALL New Yorkers, as were the people who swarmed to Ground Zero after the buildings collapsed to dig out the bodies. It was *our* city that smelled like roasting human flesh for days, and like rotting human corpses for almost a year, not *yours*. . . and it is *our* city government, elected by *us*, whose cultural and religious zoning decisions you have the temerity to so loftily condemn as akin to harboring NAMBLA.
If you want to claim that New York doesn’t understand Middle America (as, God knows, you conservatives do on an almost constant basis), then at least have the courtesy to admit that incomprehension is a two-way street. The decision to allow the construction of the mosque was not devoid of *all* moral considerations; only yours.

Nothing shocks me anymore when it comes to the political correctness attitude of elected officials & the way society has become a floor matt for the disgusting insensitivity for victims such as what happened at Ground Zero. I can’t believe our gutless officials and non-vocal New Yorkers didn’t make a bigger stink of this disgraceful project! This is WRONG & I’m sick of patrons just sitting on their hands and not clinching them in defiance to this garbage! Where are the Christians?? Why aren’t my brothers & sisters angrily protesting this planned contruction? GROW A SPINE AMERICA & STOP LETTING OTHERS GET AWAY WITH DISGUSTING ACTS LIKE THIS, STAND UP & FIGHT!
Brother in Christ Jesus,
Gary

I think that this mosque may foster peace. I personally dont think it is appropriate, but it may show Muslims all over the world that we in the US are not at war with their faith, only those who seek to endanger us under the guise of it.

Personally, It’s the perseverance of the American character that I admire the most in this country. If this mosque gets built, it says far more about us than about our enemies. It says unequivocally that our values win.
Unless you believe that we are actually at war with Islam itself (which I suspect some do) you can’t possibly be advocating that a secular government deny religious people the right to build because some Muslims are terrorists. It would make as much sense to ban churches from areas bombed by the IRA in England, or in the vicinity of the Waco Texas massacre and the Federal building in Oklahoma.
This mosque probably won’t get built – I can almost bet on it. That’s a shame. Reactionaries will once again win, and one more American ideal will fall to the wayside. Our freedom of religion will be a farce, much like our claims of “we don’t torture”. No enemy could ever achieve what we have done to ourselves; what we continue to do to ourselves.

I’m sorry, readers, but I’m going to have to close this thread. There have been a number of excellent comments, on both sides of the issue, but there have also been a number of abusive comments that I’ve either had to edit or delete. I’m not going to be able to monitor this thread closely over the weekend, so I’m going to have to shut it down. Again, I apologize, and thank everyone, no matter what their viewpoint, for participating.