Let the Mosque Go Up

So, Gary, you're not smart enough to realize that this is a HUGE win for the Islamic fanatics that wish harm to America.

My goodness. Being liberal...being political...is one thing, my man. Not honestly knowing what is happening on things like this and making excuses for things like this is beyond imagination for someone like you that is supposedly intelligent. This isn't about democrat or republican. This isn't about liberal or conservative. This is about a slap in the face and if you don't think that is why this group of muslims...this leader in the muslim religion there has chosed this particular site for their mosque...you're an idiot.

This is going to tell the radical muslims all around the world that America is stupid...ignorant...up for the taking. It is going to supply the radical Islamists with just one more piece of rhetoric to pump those up that they're trying to convince to do harm to our country and our citizens.

Argue it with all the spin and innuendo you want. That's what this is all about and you, Gary Pearce, should be ashamed of yourself for not seeing it.

I'm not a christian so I have no clue what Jesus would do. Why did you ask that anyway? Is it only Christians that are against this? Earlier, I saw a "moderate" muslim on FoxNews saying that a great many muslims are against this also because of the affect it is having on the muslim people here in America that truly are trying to assimilate (sp?).

Again Gary...ask yourself, WHY is this mosque being built on this particular site? Please tell me you don't buy the rhetoric by those muslims that are wanting to build it there. You know you're smarter than that.

Stop with partisanship. This is NOT about that. This is wrong and you know it.

Amen, Gary. I find the denunciations of the muslims who wish to build a mosque there very disheartening. The ignorance about muslims and their faith is also disturbing. I recommend the book *Zeitoun* to people who still think that all muslims are evil and hate Americans. The book is an account of the experience of an American citizen during and after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It ought to be required reading in High School.

Really Gary? "What would Jesus do?"

You mean the guy who said "I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man cometh unto the Father but by me?" You wonder what would be his reaction to a proposal to erect a mosque?

Did you think at all about what the answer to that question might be before you asked it?

I guess I'm agreeing with Carbine. I consider myself a Christain, care about my fellow man, and love the Lord, my family and the USA, in that order. I know I'm not as well-read as some, but Gary, instead of asking "what would Jesus do", I'd prefer to ask..."What would Brigitte Gabriel do?" So who is Brigitte Gabriel and why should we be asking for her opinion? Consider the following excerpt from a Speech she delivered at the Intelligence Summit in DC (she gave a similar presentation some months back at "Dook" University (you know, the one in Durham). I apologize for the length, but it is well worth the read!

"We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted, 'Allah Akbar!' My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word 'infidel.'

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13, dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York , or Britons in London . We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon .
As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves 'Why do they hate us?' The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: 'infidels.'

Under the banner of Islam 'la, ilaha illa Allah, muhammadrasoulu Allah,' (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.
Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamist's are leading us to our demise.

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Cahaba and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared 'Intifada' on the West.

America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don't take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.

This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature life in society is ever capable of giving them.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamist deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.

America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America 's learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect."


Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She's the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com

Bru...it's not about the muslim religion. You just HAVE to be more intelligent than to think that's what this is all about. I mean, as much as I don't care for your "politics", I believe you to be someone that is intelligent.

This is N O T about "religious freedom". Stop for one minute, Bru, and ask yourself why do the muslims here...those that are adamant about building this mosque in this particular spot...why do they want it in THIS particular spot? Are you just so blinded by your progressive ideology and anti-republican/anti-conservative philosophy that you cannot see that these people want to build this to snub their noses at us.....invigorate the radical muslims around the world that desperately want to take America down? Are you THAT brainwashed? I used to respect you for your posts even though I disagreed with most of them. I respected your intelligence. I am amazed that you have distanced yourself from reality so much that you can't see what this is truly about.

Sad that there are some like you. No, it's not the majority in America...but the majority in America doesn't matter anymore. And, that is the saddest thing of all.

It's just me again. Sorry, but I've come up with something I think is very interesting. The real truth is that the VAST majority of Americans are against the muslims building a mosque at ground zero. Now...that's not just a statement...it's proven out by many polls and so forth. I am listing a poll on that very thing below. What's really amazing is that even though almost 70 % of the people in the U.S. don't want a mosque built close to ground zero...a majority believe that gay marriage should be allowed and accepted in the U.S. This tells me that this mosque thing IS NOT a political issue...not dem v. repub issue...not conservative v. liberal issue. It's just an AMERICAN issue.

I want to offer this up:

"Elsewhere in the CNN poll, fully 68 percent say they oppose the Ground Zero mosque." It's CNN, guys...don't even THINK about questioning it.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/11/cnn-poll-52-say-gays-should-have-a-constitutional-right-to-marry/

This is not unlike most all other polls on this issue. I agree with it and believe that any two people that want to marry, should be able to do so.

So...I'm like the majority in this country....I believe that this mosque should NOT be built next to or near ground zero and I believe that gay marriage should be legitimate.

This mosque thing IS NOT about dem or repub. It is not about liberal or conservative. It is about AMERICA. P L E A S E, y'all....take a look into your heart...WHY do you think the muslims want this mosque built at ground zero? Be honest with yourselves and stop with the "religious freedom" nonsense and the "rights" banter. Be honest about what it is going to mean. Be honest what those that lose their loved ones on 911 feel. Be honest how much this mosque next to ground zero will mean to the radical Islamists that want to take America out when they use this as proof that they are doing what is right against the infidels in America. It will be one more thing they will use to brainwash their young that ultimately will wear the bombs on their chests to kill our citizens. BE HONEST with yourselves, folks.

I'm not gonna get into the ongoing debate-- that can be y'alls fight. I will say two things, though (not to any commenter in particular, this is just something I wish I could say to every one in America right now)

First, there are Muslims, and then there are Islamic Extremists. Islamic Extremists destroyed the lives of around 3,000 innocent people and their families. Muslims, especially those living in America, are people who believe in peace and acceptance just like non-extremist Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Those insane Islamic extremists got confused somewhere down the line, and decided that the lesser jihad, the fight against outside evil, was more important than the greater jihad, the fight against evil in oneself. Sane, everyday Muslims take the 'greater' part to heart. Muslims who wish to practice their faith in a harmless and private way have every right to, just like any other religions. If an Islamic extremist group tried to build near ground zero, that'd be a totally different discussion.

Second, there is already a mosque just blocks away from ground zero. It's the Masjid Manhattan, and they have been there since 1970. Just from spending a few minutes on their website, it seems like a very peaceful and open-minded center. They make it very clear that they have absolutely no affiliation with extremists, and they openly condemn violence of any kind. If this Islamic center has been able to remain peacefully on Warren St, maybe two blocks away from Ground Zero, why can't we allow another one to be built even further away?

I just don't see what the fuss is about. Sure, I can understand the sensitivity to having a Muslim center so near the site of a religious attack, but the way I see it, Muslims and Islamic extremists are about as similar to each other as I am to a rock. Let's keep the extremists out of our country, instead of keeping peaceful Muslims from practicing their faith in a location of their choosing.

"...they openly condemn violence of any kind."

Unfortunately, the imam of the mosque in question cannot make that claim about himself and/or his group. He has consistently refused to condemn the on-going campaign of terror against Israel perpetrated by Hamas. And his 'condemnation' of the 9-11 terrorists has been attenuated by statements which come close to blaming American policy for the attacks.

It appears that the only tolerance he's interested in is tolerance for those who target innocent civilians--and for himself, of course.

The imam is part of Perdana Global Peace Organization - which was behind the Gaza Flotilla - which of course included the infamous Bill Ayers, his wife Bernadine Dohrn, and Code Pink activist & Obama fundraiser Jodie Evans. All this info is easily available, to anyone with any degree of curiosity whatsoever.

Following Gary's reasoning (or lack thereof), he'd be perfectly fine with the KKK building a white supremacist "chapel" at the site of the bombed out church in Birmingham Alabama - the 16th Street Baptist Church - where four little girls lost their lives in 1963.

Or how about the Carmelite Sisters' convent, which they wanted to build adjacent to Auschwitz? That would be ok with Gary? Really? They backed off after they realized it would be insensitive, although they simply wanted their convent to be a place of prayer in the face of pure evil.

By the way - it is stunning that Gary could ask the question - What would Jesus do? Too bad he didn't ask himself that question before he wrote the hateful hit piece on Bristol Palin.

I'll wait with baited breath for Gary to do a hit piece on Al Gore Jr., who's been arrested at various times for possession of marijuana, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax and Adderall, and for speeding in excess of 100 mph. Well, at least it was in a Prius, right Gary?

And now the Boy Wonder has weighed in with one of the most pointless and obtuse presidential announcements in years, immediately followed by another announcement that defies logical explanation. First (Friday night) he SPECIFICALLY cites the mosque project near the World Trade Center as something we all ought to 'tolerate,' despite his (much wiser, apparently) press secretary's efforts to keep him out of an issue he clearly has no business getting involved in, and can't possibly profit from.

Not 24 hours later, after the entirely predicatable backlash from the American people (a group Boy Wonder apparently has little understanding of) he tries to claim that he wasn't talking about that particular mosque at all, that he was only defending the deeply-held American principal of religious tolerance, and that when he said that no one should have a problem with the building of a mosque in "lower Manhattan" no one should construe that as an endorsement of the project in question.

I'm not sure what to be most amazed by: his political stupidity in not understanding how inappropriate and insensitive the mosque project at that location would be, his cluelessness concerning the reaction of the American people to the project, or the sheer contempt he shows the people by changing his story so completely (did he really think the people are so stupid as not to notice?).

As much as I oppose Boy Wonder's policies, I've always thought he was at least a smart man, or at least a competent politician. This fiasco is more evidence that he is in fact neither.

Carbine-- I got that from their website (direct quote, actually), which of course means that its not automatically 100% accurate. I actually appreciate you doing a little extra research on the Imam. Now, in all your research, can you tell me what violent acts he has committed, or how he has harmed other Americans? Can you tell me if he was involved in the 9/11 attacks? Personally, what have YOU done to condemn any of the terrors in Israel? I'm assuming not much, like most Americans. He's an Imam living and working in America that you and many others may not agree with, but he hasn't seemed to have caused any harm.

Now, the most basic question I can ask here, what exactly is the issue with having another mosque in Manhattan? I'd love to hear it put simply, logically, and calmly by someone who doesn't support the mosque.

mcp16, did I say that the imam had personally committed any acts of violence? No, I did not (please go back and re-read my previous post).

As for your question, I don't know of anyone who opposes "another mosque in Manhattan," and neither do you. The issue is what's appropriate to build in proximity to the site of a horrific national tragedy. That's why we don't have, for instance, a gun shop across from the Texas school book depository building where Oswald hid to shoot President Kennedy, or a Japanese Cultural Center at Pearl Harbor. It's why the Poles would not welcome a German Consolate at Treblinka. I could go on and on, but the point is very plain and simple if you care to think about it honestly.