The poison behind the Ground Zero mosque furore

If the guy is truly a moderate (referring to the guy wanting to build the Muslim mosque) then he should put somewhere that is not a hallowed as the 9/11 site. There seems to be questions as to where he is getting the money for the mosque. Many of them are suspected to be supporters of terrorism or at least put blame on America for 9/11 occurring which is hogwash. All that aside, I’m not against the mosque just not at the location they are talking about. If one wants to use the hypothetical that “What about an Evangelical center next to an atheistic center?” Those specifically have been voted down due to so-called “property values”. Why not use that as a rationale for that is a legitimate rationale to have it at another location?

Whatever the thing is called it doesn’t change the previous post and the associations that this guy has and the statements that he has that make his moderate nature questioned (not that he isn’t a moderate just puts it in question). Olberman? might as well say Limbaugh only from the opposite direction.

Just because some people who oppose the mosque are radical, doesn’t mean that everyone is. I live in NYC and have nothing against more mosques in the city- we have at least 10 already-build one on my block if you want. But to build at ground zero lacks sensitivity. Yes, the building is AT ground zero; it was damaged by the landing gear of one of the planes and then further damaged by pieces of the plane. Our govenor offered to meet with the builders to offer city owned property that was nearby, but they declined to attend the meeting. Meanwhile, a Greek Orthodox church that was destroyed on 9/11 has been unable to get permits to rebuild.

To build at ground zero lacks sensitivity.

Sensitivity to whom, Pam? To those who make the erroneous elision of terrorism and Islam.

A thought-experiment: If the terrorists had been members of a radical “Christian” sect, would that make ground zero an exclusion zone for churches?

The building of a mosque/community centre is an opportunity for truth-telling, for the exorcism of false identifications, for hospitality, and indeed for healing.

Btw, born in Queens, I too am a New Yorker. And being an expat has not lessened but rather deepened my sense of roots.

Richard, sorry, on this side of the lake, “Keith Olberman is an extreme liberal who is a blow hard and Rush Limbaugh is a conservative who is a blow hard. Keith Olberman was referenced in a positive way in the url from the Huffington Post you referenced in support of the Mosque. My comment was to point out the extreme bias an “blow hardness” that Olberman has as a liberal as being similar to Rush Limbaugh being a “blow hard” on issues as a conservative. In other words, Olberman or Limbaugh are people who are not a good reference on these issues in either direction. Does this help? I can see how you can say “huh” to my comment by not knowing these commentators.

Richard, my view being against the Mosque is not based on hatred or fear but on what are the views of the guy attempting to build the mosque and where he is getting the funds and the contacts he has made for funds. Those contacts were to organizations who supported terrorism. The Cordoba organization is that sort of organization to which he has changed documents to have the name changed since it has been made public. How interesting (sarcasm). I’m with Pat on this one.

Kim, no it does lack sensativity. Center for truth telling and excorsizing of false ideas when the guy has made contacts and is raising money from known financial supporters of terrrorist organizations? Sounds like you might not fully understand or fully comprehend who we are dealing with. The fact is 9/11 was not contrived and this guy says it was (period).

Paul F., it wasn’t racism toward Islam that lead to the attack on Iraq but the torturous regime of Saddam, the WMD that in the end were transferred to Syria and the bomb caseings found, etc. In fact if you have read many transcripts from Bush you will find many positive statements for better relations towards Muslims. The true calling out is for people to do the heavy-lifting by looking into the facts of the guy building the mosque. When one sees this it has nothing to do with being against anything Islam but the connections and where the money is coming from on those connections. What is true “dung” is people not understanding.

I will challenge you on this. I also would say that there is a double standard. The same people for the mosque would be against having an evangelical center next to an atheistic center due to a lack of consideration for the atheists. Yet the supporters of the mosque are not asking consideration by the mosque builders toward the survivors of 9/11. No one is against the mosque being built. Just build the mosque or community center or what not somewhere else. You all would be saying the same thing toward an evengelical center being proposed near an atheistic center. So why not feel the same on this. The double standards are clearly evident.

DH: ‘How about US Christian church placed right specifically on the sight of the Nagasaki bomb?’

The analogy is not exact because what is being proposed is not a Saudi Arabian Muslim Centre, but simply a Muslim Centre. A true analogy would be a (non-nationality-specific) Christian church built on the site of the Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombings (and in fact, about six orders of Christian Catholic nuns were wiped out by their fellow-Christians at Hiroshima, but we won’t go there again, will we…???). Or how about a Lutheran church being built on a bomb site in London after the Second World War? Would you have been against that?

I would be delighted to have a Christian centre (not necessarily evangelical - Christian will do!) beside an atheist centre, and I’d also be delighted to have an atheist centre close to my church. I’d be knocking on their door for coffee right away!

By the way, the Anglican church where I was baptised, St. Barnabas’, Leicester, is about to be sold to a Muslim group. The city of Leicester, where I grew up, is now a ‘visible minority’ city (actually, they’re in the majority, not the minority!).

Paul F and Richard, just for the same reason Evangelicals would be told to be sensative by not having an Evangelical center next to an atheistic center is the same reason people are asking the Muslim who is building the center is told to not having a Muslim center on the site proposed. It is insensative to have it on that site. Why does it need to be at that specific location? That AND the Raif guy are rational reasons for not having the site at that location. I also support for the reasons mentioned above what Palin said as well. “It is unecessary provocation”. It is not solely the leader running it to be against it but it is one of the reasons and should not be neglected by you.

The fact is people SHOULD care if a guy is getting funds from fincial people who support terrorism. Your ignorance and those who don’t care proves my point.

“When has any of the frequenters of this blog suggested a concern for offending atheists, to the point that they’d like to shut evangelicals up?” Nowhere but there are a supermajority of atheists who calim “insensativity” in the way I’ve described and some of the statements here in the past have shown more sensativity to atheists than to Evangelicals but that is just me.

With regard to premptive. The people of Iraq deserved to not be under the regime of Saddam where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered . Even if there wasn’t a link between Saddam and Al Quada the people of Iraq didn’t deserve Saddam torturing the people. Interesting that you and others use WMD and then when WMD doesn’t fit your argument you use some other argument as a reason. I refuse to fish at “straw-men” and “red-herrings” and when I spot one I point it out in its tracks.

Simple question: what does a proposed Muslim community centre have to do with the 9/11 attackers? What real, tangible connection is there? Because if you’re worried that the guy behind the centre has terrorist connections, DH, then that’s not just an argument against him building at ground zero, it’s an argument for him building it anywhere. So there has to be a rational argument against him building it at this site.

As for the hundreds of thousands of people who were murdered by Saddam - well, the figure I’ve seen is 600,000 people killed as a direct result of the US invasion in 2003. Do you think those dead people care who killed them? They’re still just as dead.

And who do you think Jesus would kill?

The Imam involved in the project has publicly said that the 9/11 attacks were in part due to American policies and actions. It is an affront to the families who lost loved ones, and the people who escaped before the towers fell, to have him build at ground zero. Attacks on civilians are not an appropriate or understandable response to the perceived policies of any government

I’m not sure if I should respond, as this could go on forever, and the invasion of Iraq hasn’t much to do with the original post. This will be my last post in this thread–and my last response to dh–because this conversation is too frustrating.

“Even if there wasn’t a link between Saddam and Al Quada the people of Iraq didn’t deserve Saddam torturing the people. Interesting that you and others use WMD and then when WMD doesn’t fit your argument you use some other argument as a reason.”

Please elucidate what you mean by using WMD in an argument when convenient, because I’m utterly confused. It seems defenders of the war are being evasive. For example, when the WMD was the principal reason for the invasion, but it never materialized, then the war was the right thing to do because we needed to liberate the Iraqis–which is a disgusting argument I feel I must confront.

You talk as if Saddam’s rise to power is undocumented, as if there wasn’t a decade-long alliance with the U.S. during his worst crimes. Saddam received weapons, chemicals, strategic info and billions in funds from the U.S. And we conveniently blamed Iran for the gas attack on the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. Not a peep from the Reagan White House during the al-Anfal Campaign. It wasn’t until the late 90’s that the official U.S. position was “oh, yeah, Saddam did it, and that was bad!”

Despite the fact that all this and more is a matter of public record, war apologists like yourself use the suffering of the Iraqis as your last resort, an insult to anyone who Saddam killed with our weapons and on our dime.

The Imam involved in the project has publicly said that the 9/11 attacks were in part due to American policies and actions.

That may be a hard thing for Americans to hear - and for all those who lost loved ones on 9/11 - and of course the atrocity was by no stretch of the moral imagination justifiable - the attack was categorically despicable - but it is indisputably the case nevertheless (sometime, somewhere, some kind of attack on the US as a result of America’s duplicitous foreign policy and its “rampage[s] in the name of virtue” [Noam Chomsky] was always going to happen - what goes around comes around). Denial gets us nowhere, particularly when it comes to the healing of memories, not to mention forging a foreign policy that merits the term “ethical”.

Kim writes,
the Palinesque pea-brains ultimately feeds the propaganda

This is my last post on the matter. It is a waste of my time to read or respond to someone who hides behind such rhetoric and thinks it is conducive to a coherent discussion. The people killed on 9/11 and their friends, families, colleagues, and government were not responsible in any way for the attacks, and to have a person head the building project who believes otherwise is an affront to them. Alternate sites are available, very close to the current proposed site. If this leader wants healing, he can best promote it by moving. It was only after a lot of pressure was put upon him that they agreed to a 9/11 memorial within the structure; further pressure and a lot of prayer may help him to see what is best for all in the community.

Richard, some folk just don’t get the difference bewteen condoning and explaining; or rather they do but wilfully ignore it in order to smear their opponents.

The distinction isn’t rocket science. So if they’re not wilful, they’re very stupid. With someone like Palin, for example, you may be right: she’s certainly as dumb as a bag of hammers.

The situation of German Christians in London during World War II may be an interesting parallel. Here’s an illuminating account:

‘As already mentioned, the German congregations in Great Britain were not persecuted as in 1914-18. They were regarded as “friendly” and not as “enemy aliens”. Thus, for example, when the police were informed that it was thought prudent to use the English language for services and other activities in place of German, the church authorities were requested that no change should be made, and promised police protection if necessary.

Further help came when the Bishop of Chichester founded the German-British Christian Fellowship In Wartime. Not only did this enable believers of both nationalities to meet together, to pray and work for peace and order in a trouble world, but also it brought practical benefits in its wake. An example of this Christian love for the brethren that transcends secular conflicts and divisions was the 250th anniversary of St. Mary’s German Lutheran Church. In 1944, in the midst of the bloodiest war ever between Britain and Germany, two and a half centuries of service were celebrated at a German congregation in the heart of London. The place was a church which had been destroyed by German bombs on a site granted by a sovereign of Great Britain, and the guests-of-honour were the Bishop of London and the Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council. Another aspect of the effectiveness of the Christian Faith in overcoming human barriers is seen in the congregations established in many places by the coming together of refugees from German oppression and of German prisoners-of-war. ‘

I took this from a history of Lutheran work in England: http://www.lutheran.org.uk/history_detailed.php

Approximately 21,000 people were killed in London during the Blitz, and over 80,000 injured, and many thousands of homes were destroyed, so I would suggest that this makes London every bit as much ’sacred ground’ as ‘Ground Zero’.