If We Donât Build It, They Will Kill You? âPeaceâ is a word so over-used and abused that by now itâs wise to brace yourself every time some self-declared âpeace-makerâ pipes up. But even by those standards, the perversion of âpeace-makingâ hit fresh heights Wednesday evening, when CNNâs Larry King Live, guest-hosted by Soledad OâBrien, devoted a full hour to an interview with the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project, Feisal Abdul Rauf. Asked if itâs really a good idea to go ahead with his plans to build a mosque and Islamic center at an address so close to Ground Zero that it has become a flash point, Rauf gave a reply that boils down to a threat. Rauf said that if his Cordoba House does not get built on his chosen site near Ground Zero, âThe headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.â Citing Muslim attacks on Danish embassies during the riots in 2006 over Mohamed cartoons Rauf went on to say that the result of this current âcrisisâ could be that âanger will explode in the Muslim world.â That, he said, could lead to âsomething which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed.â Please bear in mind that CNN beams this stuff out not only across America, but around the globe. While Rauf might proffer that he was merely giving helpful advice, thereâs an Islamist audience out there who could hear his well-amplified words â âIslam is under attackâ â as a summons to inflict yet more of those explosive onslaughts in which thousands of Americans have already been killed. As for the message Raufâs words might impart to the many Americans who oppose his project, his warning doesnât sound like bridge-building. It sounds like blackmail. Before Rauf rolled out his Cordoba House project for approval by a Manhattan community board this past May, Americaâs annual observations of Sept. 11 were a solemn matter, focused on the enormity of the Islamist murder of almost 3,000 Americans. This year, the run-up to Sept. 11 has become an angry showdown, involving Pastor Terry Jones and his widely and rightly condemned on-again off-again plans to burn the Koran, growing frustration on the part of many Americans who feel they are endlessly asked to defer to the sensitivities of Muslims who respond with ever-growing demands, and at the center of it all, the obdurate and self-promoting Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Raufâs own plans created this âcrisis.â Rauf himself said last December (before his partners began trying to unsay it) that heâd latched on to the Burlington Coat Factory site precisely because of its proximity to Ground Zero â so close to the heart of the Sept. 11 Islamist attacks that it was hit by âwreckageâ from one of the hijacked planes. If Rauf was genuinely clueless at the time that harmony would not be served by trying to create an in-your-face $100 million Islamic hub on the edge of Ground Zero, by now he should be clued in. Whatever support heâs received has been dwarfed by the many objections â the elite hothouse enthusiasms of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama notwithstanding. Repeated public opinion polls show that a large majority of Americans think that while Rauf and his partners may be within their legal rights, they are nonetheless doing the wrong thing. Among the critics are a number of Muslims brave enough to publicly disagree with this self-appointed panjandrum of Ground Zero, such as Miss USA, Rima Fakih, and Muslim American activist M. Zuhdi Jasser. If Rauf ever had the smallest intention of promoting harmony, it is past time for him to quit. Instead, having spurned the U.S. debate while spending a secretive summer in Malaysia and the Middle East, Rauf returned to New York on the eve of Sept. 11, to pronounce that unless his mosque gets built near Ground Zero, Americans might expect from the âMuslim worldâ a new wave of destructive fury. We used to call this kind of stunt a protection racket. The message here is one of implied violence. Not that Rauf himself would do anything violent, mind you. Heâd just like his audience to know that if Americans donât knuckle under and get with his program for Ground Zero, he canât be responsible for whatever devastation the âMuslim worldâ might inflict on his behalf. âMy life has been devoted to peace-making,â he told CNNâs OâBrien. In his CNN interview, Rauf also said that had he anticipated the pain his Cordoba House project would cause, he would not have started down this road. That turned out to be a throwaway remark. He then implied there is no going back, lest it result in â hereâs that threatening element again â âgreater conflict.â Really? All Rauf has to do is announce that he is in the market for a venue less inflammatory and quite possibly more convenient for his planned community palace with mosque and swimming pool â though less likely to land him a permanent pulpit on global TV news. Far from trying to shut down Raufâs plans for an Islamic center, New York Governor David Paterson has offered to help him relocate, at taxpayer expense. On Thursday, real estate magnate Donald Trump offered to buy out the Burlington site, in cash, for 25% above what Raufâs developers paid, provided they build their mosque at least five blocks from Ground Zero. Apparently that would be too great a compromise for Rauf and his partners. They just keep saying no. As for any anger that might boil up in the Muslim world should Rauf decide to build his Cordoba House a few blocks further from Ground Zero, why, here was a real opportunity for the Kuwait-born, Egyptian-fathered, Arabic-speaking naturalized American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to do some genuine peace-making. Instead of warning Americans to toe his line or brace for something âvery, very, very dangerous,â Rauf could quite as easily have devoted his air time to backing down and issuing a public call for tolerance from that same Muslim world. In battening on to the crater of the destroyed Twin Towers, Rauf and his partners are getting the publicity ride of their lives. They are exploiting the site as an amplifier for their own agenda, never mind who gets hurt. With their newly acquired megaphone, what are they broadcasting to the world? Raufâs wife and business partner, Daisy Khan, who covered for him in New York during his summer excursions abroad, seized the opportunity last month to make a televised denunciation of America as a place âbeyond Islamophobia.â Now comes Rauf, with his pronouncements on CNN that if his Cordoba House doesnât go up near Ground Zero, Americans had better worry â even more than they do already â about ânational security.â The âpeaceâ he would bring to Ground Zero now smacks of an extortionistâs chilling instructions: Do it my way, or else. http://blogs.forbes.com/claudiarose...ey-will-kill-you/?boxes=opinionschannellatest
New Building Permit My friend recently applied for a permit for a new building. It was going to be 40 ft tall and 400 ft wide with 9 gun turrets at various heights and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system. It would have parking for 200 cars and he was going to paint it snot green with pink trim. The City Council told him to forget it,,,, AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN !!!! So he sent in the application again, but this time he called it a Mosque. .........Work starts on Monday...
America is perceived as a bunch of PUSSIES... Weak... soft... even stupid... Islamic extremists want to take advantage of this... then LAUGH THEIR ASSES OFF.