Fouad Ajami, writing in the WSJ:
From his recent travels to the Persian Gulf—sponsored and paid for by the State Department—Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf returned with a none-too-subtle threat. His project, the Ground Zero Mosque, would have to go on. Its cancellation would risk putting “our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world.”
Leave aside the attempt to make this project a matter of national security. The self-appointed bridge between America and the Arab-Islamic world is a false witness to the sentiments in Islamic lands.
The truth is that the trajectory of Islam in America (and Europe for that matter) is at variance with the play of things in Islam’s main habitat. A survey by Elaph, the most respected electronic daily in the Arab world, gave a decided edge to those who objected to the building of this mosque—58% saw it as a project of folly.
Elaph was at it again in the aftermath of Pastor Terry Jones’s threat to burn copies of the Quran: It queried its readers as to whether America was a “tolerant” or a “bigoted” society. The split was 63% to 37% in favor of those who accepted the good faith and pluralism of this country.
This is remarkable. The ground burned in the Arab-Islamic world over the last three decades. Sly preachers and their foot soldiers “weaponized” the faith and all but devoured what modernists had tried to build in the face of difficult odds. The fury has not burned out. Self-styled imams continue to issue fatwas that have made it all but impossible for Arabs and Muslims to partake of the modern world. But from this ruinous history, there has settled upon countless Muslims and Arabs the recognition that the wells are poisoned in their midst, that the faith has to be reined in or that the faith will kill, and that the economic and cultural prospects of modern Islam hang in the balance.
To this kind of sobriety, Muslim activists and preachers in the diaspora—in Patterson, N.J., and Minneapolis, in Copenhagen and Amsterdam—appear to be largely indifferent. They are forever on the look-out for the smallest slight.
Islam in America is of recent vintage. This country can’t be “Islamic.” Its foundations are deep in the Puritan religious tradition. The waves of immigrants who came to these shores understood the need for discretion, and for patience.
It wasn’t belligerence that carried the Catholics and the Jews into the great American mainstream. It was the swarm of daily life—the grocery store, the assembly line, the garment industry, the public schools, and the big wars that knit the American communities together—and tore down the religious and ethnic barriers.
There is no gain to be had, no hearts and minds to be won, in Imam Rauf insisting that Ground Zero can’t be hallowed ground because there is a strip joint and an off-track betting office nearby. This may be true, but it is irrelevant.A terrible deed took place on that ground nine years ago. Nineteen young Arabs brought death and ruin onto American soil, and discretion has a place of pride in the way the aftermath is handled. “Islam” didn’t commit these crimes, but young Arabs and Muslims did.
Well, to be fair, Islam did commit these crimes — just not Islam as it is understood by all those who lay claim to it. Still, the motivations — and justification — for the attack came from Islamist religious zealotry, itself inextricably tied to a largely theocratic culture.
Beyond that quibble, however, the numbers cited here are encouraging (if they can be believed); making the kind of exportation of radicalized Islam that appears in western countries all the more disturbing — particularly when we realize that it is our insistence on appearing “tolerant” that plays into the hands of radicals who insinuate their way into western societies by claiming victimization.
The U.S. is demonstrably tolerant; there is no need to prove such a thing to radical imams hoping to build triumphalist monuments to barbarism — no matter what identity-politicking “progressives” tell you about how colonialist or oppressive or racist you all are.
Having said all that, is anyone else disturbed that our tax dollars are being used to fly this guy all over the Arab world?
I sure do hope we’ve flipped this dude, and what we’re seeing is not really what we’re seeing. Which, this is the Obama administration we’re talking about, so, you know, doubtful.
(h/t TerryH)
DEATH TO THOSE WHO SAY AMERICANS ARE INTOLERANT.
Sorry. I got carried away.
Carin, I’ve read your future- you will be visited by a short dark jihadist. Hopefully, you haven’t drawn any pictures of the prophet or you may further inflame him.
Having said all that, is anyone else disturbed that our tax dollars are being used to fly this guy all over the Arab world?
Can’t be any more damaging than what Obama and Clinton do when we fly them around.
“…is anyone else disturbed that our tax dollars are being used to fly this guy all over the Arab world?”
Oh yes – he stands for the opposite of everything I have seen come from almost every American I was with, since I first started to deal directly with folks in the Islamic world (1997).
Bosniaks saw us help save them from “Christian” Serbs. Afghans saw us learn Dari, Pashto, their customs and help them with wells, schools, roads, aid of every kind – and stop scum from burning their schools, beating or killing them. Iraqis saw us learn Arabic, learn their manners, put ourselves between them and the “emirs” of AQ or their old slavemasters in the Ba’ath.
What came in our wake? Cell phones, better radio, better papers, TV… information. They can see us and see information where we criticise ourselves, amuse ourselves, explain all sorts of wonders, tell the stories fo who and what we are…. then this knucklehead flies in to say we suck and that the people who have fought alongside us, braved death to vote, are learning to love the freedoms they have paid for in blood – will riot and try to kill us unless he gets his mosque/dialog center/community building/development right where he wants it, dammit!
Piss on him.
“…is anyone else disturbed that our tax dollars are being used to fly this guy all over the Arab world?”
Yes! To no end. I have no trouble saying that I doubt his motivation for building the mosque and representing the US abroad.
It ain’t much different than public funds going into NPR or PBS when we get right down to it.
Or Planned Parenthood.
All true. And hell, unlike NPR or PBS, at least this guy is authentic.
“Having said all that, is anyone else disturbed that our tax dollars are being used to fly this guy all over the Arab world?”
Yes! That is one of the most bizzare parts of this whole fucknut of a project.
Lots of people are authentic. Castro, circa 1959, was authentic. Well at least he appeared so.
Come to think of it, Ahmadinijad comes off a lot like Castro.
I am very disturbed that the taxes I’m paying allows Imam Rauf to promote his religious interests. This should not be. On the other hand, they should not use religious tolerance of America to get their own way. As Geert Wilders have said and I quote:”The tolerance that is crucial to our freedom requires a line of defense…A tolerant society is not a suicidal society. It must defend itself against the powers of darkness, the force of hatred and the blight of ignorance. It cannot tolerate the intolerant – and survive.” Let us unite to protect what is important to us.
Why is the phrase “American is demonstrably tolerant” so exhilarating to me? Why doesn’t everybody just frickin’ take it for granted?
Sigh. Every time I think I know my own ground, I realize that I ceded it long ago to the other side of the debate, and am fighting for the square foot I’m standing on.
wallah Jeff….are you really as stupid as Bush? We just spent a trillion dollars and 5000 soldier lives to make another islamic state where a lot of muslims hate us, because Bush was too dumb to get that when muslims are democratically empowered to vote they vote for Islam.
Rauf is an american citizen. He can do what he likes under the Constitution you assclowns are braying about all the time.
You are just pissy because amerimuslims can build mosques in america while WECs can’t build megachurches in Mecca.
tant pis.
And the ASG better get their heads out of their asses too.
This is the important story coming out of Afghanistan.
Not on FOXnews is it?
they don’t want us there, cudlips.
its time to go.
otherwise its going to be Blackhawk Down Redux, coming to a theater of war near you.
we can GTFO now while we still have a few rags of pride to dress in, or later, running with our tail between our legs.
“its time to go.”
Don’t talk to yourself, go tell Obama.
The Battle of the Black Sea, was one of the finest engagements that American fighting men, were involved in, despite the idiocy from headquarters, of course Clinton ultimately sold them out, showing Osama the full measure of his fecklessness
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2189/raufs-group-claims-credit-for-training-ny-times
sdferr, i did.
now you ‘slines quit telling your bigselves that you give a shit about american soldiers or muslim schoolgirls.
you just can’t bear to admit WE LOST.
You are certifiably insane. Get help.
Evidently Barry isn’t listening to you. Keep trying then. Maybe louder next time, or go to the White House with your placard and pace up and down in Lafayette Park with the rest of the loons. Grow your anti-war movement. I’m sure Barry doesn’t like not being liked. He’ll come around eventually. As for the rest of your idiocy, meh, your an idiot, so I’m supposed to care?
She should make a bigger paper mache head next time, sdferr. That usually gets leftists excited.
to be fair, Jeff cher, lets admit that the ‘global war on terror’ was always a war on Islam. Bush attempted to ‘stand up’ western style democracy (aka judeochristian democracy).
We were never enlightenment liberators– or even ‘armed social workers’ ……..we were missionaries with guns.
And our attempt at nationbuilding, to REPLACE their culture with our mores and values, was always doomed to failure.
The reason you are all up in Rauf’s grill is Islam WON.
We lost.
Can we go home NAOW?
Let’s not “admit” that, since it is a demonstrable lie. But yes, by all means, go home. Your village yearns the loss of its idiot.
“Can we go home NAOW?”
What is it about “go tell Barry” that you don’t understand? It isn’t hard to grasp is it? Go tell Barry. Simple. No-one here has any power to do a thing about your concerns. So, go tell Barry. He’s the CinC.
Oh, and if Islam won, then how come they’re such an unhappy lot, continuing to blow up innocents, shoot up crowds of women and children, kill their co-religionists, find their nations mired in gastly poverty and ignorance, suffer under the rule of one dictator after another, cower in fear before a tiny nation of six million?
western style democracy (aka judeochristian democracy).
Pericles and the boys might disagree with your defininition. But be that as it may, is there any other kind of democracy than western style judeochristian democracy?
sdferr…..you relly dont care that we are probably going to see american soldier bodies dragged through the streets of Kabul because Bush was stupid?
you don’t care that one out of every 200 Iraqi citizens DIED over the last seven years? that a fucking genocide you retard.
you don’t care that 5000 american troops DIED FOR NOTHING and that American soldiers are STILL DYING FOR NOTHING in the Graveyard of Empires?
you can’t do anything to anything to stop Rauf.
Park51 is constitutional.
accomodation and tolerance are all you have left.
show some class for once.
Oh, I’m shocked to find that nishi doesn’t understand the Constitution.
I don’t care about all the bullshit you spout nishi, no. I don’t care about the stupid words you make up, “facts” you make up, names you call, idiocies you imagine, false predictions you make, or policy guidance you offer. I think you a sort of imbecile, really, and all this nonsense you pile on my prejudice against you, built on years of observation, doesn’t tend to move the needle in a more favorable direction. You are a graveyard of reason, a place thinking goes to die.
show some class for once
And it would behoove you to reason more and emote less
Now you are worried about genocide?! That is, ignoring the fact that it was not a genocide and you are a lying kwazy person.
Class?! Did you really tell someone to show some class?! Idiot, heal thyself.
islamic democracy, like Turkey. islamic democracy, like Iraq.
:)
you retards don’t get it……american separation of church and state comes largely from Martin Luther, not the ancients.
that is why the conservative base is schizo on religion….why Palin and Demint slyly dogwhistle the national god-and-country religion, but still want to claim the founders.
sure the founders and framers were elite highly educated deists for the most part, but the yeoman farmers were protestants.
What do you think Jeff? am i getting the hermeneutics correct?
Brietbart says he is judeochristian…..so does Cantor….what does that MEAN?
sdferr read the link.
It means you are a fucking imbecile. A person that drools while standing up. A person people look at, and avert their gaze so as to not make eye contact.
How ’bout you go read Spinoza instead?
Who fed the Gizmo after midnight, and then threw it in a pool with a spotlight on it?
When you get done taking your demands to Urkel the Magnificent, you ought to take that little nugget up with the Muslims that killed them. You don’t “fucking genocide” your own kind, jeenyus.
Turkey’s democracy is (or rather, increasingly was) secular. It’s population is muslim. I submit that, the more Islamic Turkey becomes, the less democratic it will be. Submissive obedience to the will of Allah, it seems to me, is inconsistent with the principles of self-government.
Maybe the right only seems schizo on religion because the left is so paranoid about the religious? (Except of course for exotic religions like Buddhism.)
And for the most part the founders and framer’s weren’t deists, although they were highly educated –in that classical tradition you too readily dismiss. As much as you may wish they were, Jefferson and Madison aren’t representative examples.
How ’bout you go read Spinoza instead?
I’m thinking that won’t happen sdferr, too kosher.
well you see Pablow, that might even be true….but the Iraqis are not going to BLAME other muslims……they are going to BLAME US.
ax yourself why 911 happened in the first place.
and now ax yourself if the Epic Fail of the Manifest Destiny of Judeoxian Democracy in Iraq has made us any safer?
MORE muslims hate us than ever.
And Imam Rauf wants to build perfectly constitutional bridges and you are still throwing hissy fits over 911.
wallah, our foreign adventurism has made us the laughing stock evil stupid clowns of the world.
the torture nation. the debtor nation. the fat nation. the stupid nation. the chickenshit nation.
“the stupid nation”
And you vouchsafe the claim in your person everyday. Well done.
Turkey’s democracy is (or rather, increasingly was) secular.
Lie. Ataturk was a benevolent despot. A secular tyrant like Saddam and the Shah.
Ataturk IMPOSED Kemalist occidentalism as a dictator.
Democracy means representative government.
this is what is happening in Turkey.
so what if the people vote for Islam? it is their DEMOCRATIC choice.
that might even be true
No, it is true. Period. End of discussion. That you choose to claim something else does not change this fact.
Now, 9/11 was our fault too. Good Allah.
Get help.
you are right sdferr.
im american trash too.
at least im ashamed of it.
the torture nation. the debtor nation. the fat nation. the stupid nation. the chickenshit nation.
You know, you’re always free to vote with your FEET.
american trash
sdferr hit the nail on the head, nishit proves that we as a nation are getting stupider by the moment.
you are right sdferr.
im american trash too.
at least im ashamed of it.
That explains a lot.
The idea that you are capable of shame does not compute.
you wish Ernst…but it aint gonna happen. the old white christians are dying off.
we are taking America back, not you. the Real America of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and representative government for ALL citizens.
we are taking America back demographically.
NWBCW!
so what if the people vote for Islam? it is their DEMOCRATIC choice.
and that’s why pure democracy is a fail. See: last election.
Democracy means representative government.
Not actually, no.
so what if the people vote for Islam? it is their DEMOCRATIC choice.
So like the Soviet of old, you’re down with people “voting” themselves into slavery? That’s interesting.
ut it aint gonna happen. the old white christians are dying off.
we are taking America back, not you. t
Two years and you haven’t learned a thing.
Sad.
“we are taking America back demographically”
And no kidding, you will find vast numbers of your demographic in Lafayette Park everyday. It’ll be a blast! Go, enjoy!
Saddam got 101% of the vote too!
YEA!
Ah, faux fucking genocide is what matters then. Those stupid muslims weren’t there or anything. It’s not like they really know who did what to and/or for whom. Say hello to TrollHammer, lunatic.
Islam is a false religion created from the Qu’ran, a work of fiction that was solely written by a warrior-class thug who liked to screw children. Since it’s inception, Islam has warred with every other religion on the planet, and seeks the domination thereof. It needs either a sweeping reformation, as had Christianity, or a worldwide smackdown.
GLASSIFY MECCA~!
still wasn’t our bidness Ernst.
was it worth it? a trillion in treasure, 5000 soljahs in blood, to make an islamic state with shariah law in the constitution where a lot of muslims hate us.
Iraq has religious political parties, and the imams and ayatollahs still call the shots. the much vaunted surge failed too. the Iraqis made a national holiday the day american troops left their cities.
we have bigger problems.
like no jobs.
and check this out. Sony showed it to their shareholder meeting.
The 25% of Indias population with the highest IQs is greater than the entire population of the United States. That means India has more high IQ children than America has children.
Can you say globally non-competitive?
Muslims never blame each other for anything, right?
You know who else they’re going to blame? The JOOOOOS.
The Jews are behind everything.
Can we send nishi a ticket to India?
WHO’S WITH ME?
My brother has a high IQ. He works for someone else, and doesn’t invent or create anything.
Tell us, Nishi, Ms High IQ – what have you done?
She can find it all in Lafayette Park Carin. India is there. Iran is there. Iraq is there. China is there. High IQ is there. All the world is there, truly. Even Mecca.
Nishi is an example of a citizen of the United States, by birth, who is an alien to to the thing that is “America”.
the old white christians are dying off.
If that’s the case, wouldn’t that be bad news for that expirement in Protestant social formation you brought up, was that just a naked appeal to authority?
the Real America of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and representative government for ALL citizens.
So whom is it who doesn’t have these, I’m wondering?
NWBCW!
Alas, I’m an old dog, not a hep cat. I’m not hep with the jive. I have know idea what that means.
a measly trillion? Hell, Barry Harry ‘n Nancy have spent almost twice that in less than a quarter of the time. And you know what? Still no jobs!
IQ doesn’t mean much when you’re making your living by subsistence farming Nishi.
we have bigger problems.
like no jobs.
How do you suppose we can fix that problem?
Well, that’s fucking stupid. The 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ is 25% of India’s population. The bad news, of course, is that the 25% of India’s population with the lowest IQ is also bigger than the entire population of the United States, so the idiots are going to be causing a lot more havoc over there.
Another fun fact: India has more illiterate people than America has people.
I’m sure that this means something, but I’m not nearly as much of a grasping-at-straws interlocutor as onion girl is.
Notice how nishit the demonic genocidal clown simply ignored the post, the info contained therein, and went right into about 4 of her standard memes?
Also, India has more people living below the poverty line than America has people.
Gawrsh, Mickey, this sure is a fun game!
I bet India has more literate people than American has people as well.