Obama, America, and the Ground Zero mosque
No one should be surprised at President Obama’s defense of the planned mosque at Ground Zero. It’s another in a long series of stands Obama has taken that runs counter not only to the opinions of the majority of Americans, but of the vast majority of Americans—and what’s more, they’re the ones who’ve got the principle right while he’s the one who’s got it wrong.
Polls show that 64% of Americans disapprove of the building of the mosque there and only 30% approve. But in the same poll, 61% noted that the mosque-builders have the right to construct it there, while only 34% say the group doesn’t have that right.
All in all, a pretty good demonstration of the fact that Americans get the concept of freedom of religion, and they also get the concept of what is appropriate and what isn’t. Our supposed con law expert president appears to not understand these things—or not to care about making such fine distinctions, when it happens to suit his purposes to ignore them.
Here’s a transcript of Obama’s remarks on the subject. Note that he says:
The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.
But the above paragraph proves that he doesn’t understand. To call this a “deeply traumatic event” is both true and inadequate. It uses the language of grief counseling rather than political leadership. The 9/11 site is not hallowed ground merely because there was a trauma and people died there; that would be true of any site where tragedy occurred. This was more, far more. It was a place where radical Islamicists, bent on our destruction, set out to kill innocent and unarmed citizens in a craven act of terrorism and assymetrical warfare, and succeeded in doing so to a degree unprecedented in our history.
Most Americans know that. But when Obama defends the building of the mosque in freedom of religion terms (“I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”) he is refusing to make the obvious distinction most ordinary Americans have managed to draw: that just because there’s a right to do something doesn’t mean it should be done.
To Obama’s credit, he does mention terrorism and al Qaeda and uses the words “our enemies” in a later part of his speech. Let’s take a look:
And let us also remember who we’re fighting against, and what we’re fighting for. Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam — it’s a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children. In fact, al Qaeda has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion — and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11.
But although the first two sentences are correct, the next part of the passage is misleading. Al Qaeda’s cause is not random or non-religious; its leaders espouse a subset of Islam that is in conformance with many of the religion’s basic and traditional positions, although it goes against some others.
In fact, there is an internal religious war going on in Islam, and al Qaeda is part of it. The fact that its members have murdered so many Muslims around the world is evidence of that war and part of its religious aspects and the jockeying for power in many countries between factions of Islam that are less tolerant and those that are more tolerant. And the Muslim victims of 9/11 were accidental collateral damage as far as the perpetrators were concerned; they were not their targets.
The left loves Obama’s position, of course. Perhaps that’s part of his motivation; he’s given and taken a lot of flak from them lately. This may be part of a kiss-and-make-up routine.
But the 9/11 families are not happy with the president’s words. I’ll close with part of a statement by Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the pilots who was killed that day and co-founder and spokesperson for a group representing 9/11 families:
Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see…Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a “deeply traumatic event,” it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit…
No one who has lived this history and felt the sting of our country’s loss that day can truly believe that putting our families through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace.
Well said, Ms. Burlingame. But it will fall on deaf ears with this president.
[NOTE: Powerline weighs in.]
[ADDENDUM: In his usual attempt to talk out of both sides of his mouth, Obama is now attempting damage control. Like most of his efforts, it will probably please no one—nor should it:
I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.
Yes—and as I tried to indicate, by talking about their right to do so without talking about the wisdom of their actually building a mosque at the 9/11 site, Obama was committing a (purposeful) sin of omission. And if he somehow thinks he shouldn’t comment because the whole thing is a local New York issue (which it is not), then he should have shut his mouth on the whole topic and explained why.
Sometimes I think Obama is like Arafat, in that he—more than most politicians and more than most presidents—tailors his remarks to the occasion and changes them in very basic ways depending on his audience. He also seems to expect not to be caught in the act. At least Arafat did this long before the internet was born, and he did it in two different languages. Obama has no such excuses.]
Do you suppose that this same usually staunchly PC group, having suddenly gained a newfound respect for freedom of religion, would applaud efforts by Fred Phelps to build a Westboro Baptist Church in San Francisco?
Obama as Arafat. She shoots. She scores! Nothing but Net!
9/11 was a Declaration of War, the ground zero Cordoba mosque is a declaration of superiority and a monument to a victory, That we would entertain what is happening in terms of legalities and rights suggests we haven’t yet caught on.
From Blogger Robin of Berkeley, on the American Thinker blog site: A Shrink Asks: What’s Wrong with Obama?…
(Emphasis mine)
“If my assessment is accurate, what does this mean?”
“It means that liberals need to wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid…and that conservatives should put aside differences, band together, and elect as many Republicans as possible.”
“Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.”
–
Note to the GOP: When your opponents are totally focused on digging themselves into a hole, don’t distract them.
I think a much more truthful name for this Mosque would be “The Triumphal Mosque of the Nineteen Martyrs” which, if built, would be the equivalent of the U.S. having allowed the Japanese after WWII to build a Shinto victory shrine over the USS Arizona where they sank her in Pearl Harbor.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitoré³he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nationé³he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a cityé³he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared…….Cicero, 42 B.C.E.
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”
>>Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam – it’s a gross distortion of Islam>>
I’ve been having a long back and forth with Mata at Flopping Aces. In fact, I haven’t figured out exactly why we disagree – but I suspect this is at the heart of it. Mata sees muslims – that I assume she knows personally – as peace loving people who are just trying to escape the religious tyranny of the lands they have left, and cannot imagine that they will once again accept that tyranny. She does not see islam as the enemy. I think maybe this is the underlying idea – that what Al Qaeda kills for is not true islam. But if _that_ is true, then why is the muslim on muslim killing so universal? (to say nothing about the kufirs!)
My problem is that I see the mosque as constitutionally permitted solely because for practical reasons, we cannot declare war on islam. It doesn’t mean that islam is not the enemy – and I’d support _any_ legal means used by anybody to prevent the building/conversion of the building from going forward.
I think there is a property rights / freedom issue… and it’s odd to see a progressive leftist tout that.
But (had to be a but right?) it seems some politicians and organs of the state are aiding having the mosque built at that site… despite the provocative statements of the imam organizing its construction. Would the same permits be issued to someone else? Would the state department help fund future fundraising for the project?
Anyway, there is a property rights issue and I think the government should treat this project the way it would any non Muslim project… but that is not happening and it is a good reason for people to be upset. We also shouldn’t whitewash that this is a project being funded by our enemies as a provocation. So, the rest of us have right to fund a liquor store, gay bar, and maybe a strip club on all sides of the Mosque… and if the people visiting the Mosque cause problems for the other property owners, they should loose their city licenses allowing it to be a public Mosque at that site.
Wolla Dalbo,
My name would be Monument to the Insensitivity, Arrogance, and Stupidity of Muslim “Activists ” –MIASMA, for short.
Legally the can build it, occupy it and physically own it, but we sure ought to own its message.
Articulate arguments and beautiful words don’t matter in this context.
The dtermined enemy is within … Time for talks is over.
There are legitimate differences.
There are irreconcilable differences.
This is an existential threat …
he did it in two different languages. Obama has no such excuses.
But he does speak two different languages– standard English and Transnational Orwellian.
It seems to me that the issue is that, just as a person should not be required to ingest poison, a state should not be required to allow activities within it that will greatly endanger its security—-and a look around the world, at virtually any country, will show that Muslims are committing terrorist attacks against unbelievers in each one of them–by one count, 15,000 such Muslim terrorist attacks to date worldwide since 9.11–and that very often the ideology, the incitement, the funds and weapons, and the terrorists who commit these attacks originate in Muslim mosques, and this is the clear justification for very strictly limiting their numbers and locations, and for keeping them under close surveillance.
I also think that, had we more confidence in our own Judeo-Christian values and ideology, and a lot less induced self-loathing and a lot more self-confidence in the rightness of our cause, and were most concerned with protecting American citizens, and not so worried about political correctness and multiculturalism, and providing “accommodations” to the “Other,” a good case could be made for the proposition that Islam is not a “religion,” and entitled to all the protections and benefits that religions enjoy in this country, but that it is, instead, a militant, totalitarian, and predatory military-politico ideology hiding under a very thin, gauze-like covering of religion and, as an “ideology,” should be stripped of those protections and benefits that only true religions should enjoy.
Andy McCarthy reminded us today that “Islam is not merely a religion but a comprehensive social system that rejects the separation of the spiritual realm from secular matters.” The Left doesn’t get that. Muslims claim that theirs is “a religion of peace,”yet for a ‘religion of peace’ they spend a remarkable amount of time killing each other. Perhaps the “peace” bit only refers to the inner workings of Islam — to encourage them to get along with each other.
Surveys taken in Iraq after the surge and relative peace arrived, showed that many Iraqis do not go to mosque, and don’t much practice their religion. Bars began opening around the same time.The “extreme” part wants to return to a centuries earlier version of Islam, keeping women barefoot, in chador, pregnant and subsurvient, and Islam triumphant and expanding throughout the world.
It’s pretty obvious that the Ground Zero mosque is meant to stick a thumb in the eye of America — celebrating their triumph on 9/11. Surely we have not forgotten the videos of celebrations across the Islamic world on 9/12.
Accepting this view of Islam would mean discarding a lot of leftist beliefs. Why, if they were honest — which they won’t be — they might even have to accept the idea the Bush was right.
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Now you’re talking, Wolla Dalbo. De-legitimizing Islam as a religion is the most reasoned approach I’ve heard thus far and has the virtue of recognizing the truth about the ideology.
Michael Medved explained that like Christianity, Islam is universalist (both believe the world would be improved if everyone were Christian/Muslim) and like Judaism, Islam is political (law-based, but whereas Judaism only demands adherence to the Law for Jews, Islam would have all of society under Sharia). The combination moves Islam beyond religion into the realm of ideology.
Westerners had better regain some cultural confidence quickly, because Muslims have figured out how to use our liberality against us, including such ideals as property rights, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. This won’t end peacefully.
Obama thinks he can change his vote on the Ground Zero mosque back to PRESENT, and that no one will really notice…
How about we go back to 50 years ago, when “common sense” was common? How about we go back to a world when we didn’t all want to “just get along”? How about we realize that Islam is a false religion? How about we forget the LIE of “political correctness”?
Oh sorry–the truth hurts….
To take that one sentence from Obama’s speech, Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam – it’s a gross distortion of Islam for a moment: it is not a gross distortion of Islam. That is the problem. There are passages in both the Quran and the Hadiths that justify AQ’s approach to “infidels” (that would be us), “hypocrites” (Muslims who don’t share their interpretation of Islam), and “oppressors” (nominally Muslim governments). There are other passages that argue for tolerance and peace. The “extremists” say that because most of the chapters and verses justifying aggressive war and conquest were written later, they override and invalidate the earlier ones propounding more humane values. The “moderates” disagree, and say the time and order of writing do not affect validity, only the context in which the passages are applied.
“”All in all, a pretty good demonstration of the fact that Americans get the concept of freedom of religion, and they also get the concept of what is appropriate and what isn’t.””
Because Americans live discriminating lives and Obama inhabits the cult of liberalism that sees any discrimination (such as steering clear of ghetto liquor stores at 2 am) as bigoted prejudice.
Barry is practising his taqiyya.
Hussein gets it. He is just on the other side. He wants his religion to win, to make the bitter clingers pay the jizyah while he humiliates them, he wants to help the Iranians wipe Israel off the map.
Lots of good comments here. It’s time to take a stand right now and tell people over and over until they get it that Islam is the Religion of Murderers.
Sure, we can talk about our friendly Muslim neighbors, freedom of religion, property rights and all the things that make us Americans.
BUT (you knew this was coming), we’re just wasting time with fools who want to pretend that Islam is a religion. It’s not. It’s a Slave Cult.
Probably 80% of people who are Muslim today had ancestors who were forced to become Muslim. Check out the history of any country that is Muslim today.
As far as I know, only Indonesia and the Silk Road countries became Muslim because of Muslim traders. I believe that Islam established itself in the Balkans because of persecutions of Christian heretics.
On the other hand, the peoples of Africa and South Asia were massacred on a scale beyond belief. (Hey, whatever happened to Darfur–the cause du jour of a few years ago????) (And those massacres of Christians in Nigeria????) (And the on-going persecutions of Copts in Egypt????)
We should stop letting wishy-washy liberals divert Americans from the knowledge that Islam is a Religion of Slavery, which murders those who try to escape its chains.
Islam has no moral component. It’s a Totalitarian Mind Control cult. There is not one good thing that can be said about it.
We must not let it spread in America.
At best this is yet another example of how Obama is completely out of touch with the American people, not to mention politically tone-deaf. At worst is shows that he really is a post-American president. Sadly, I’m inclined toward the latter view.
As for the larger view, I think this may be the moment where a lot of Americans say “he really isn’t one of us.” Once they take that view, this or that policy position will not be quite so important. People will reject him for who and what he is at his core.
We also need to keep using words like
taqiyah (lying to infidels)
jizyah (special taxes for infidels)
jihad (killing infidels unless they submit)
dawa (spreading Islam through peaceful means like bribery, lawsuits, infiltration)
Wolla Dalbo Says:
August 14th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I’ve said before that I would support a constitutional amendment to that effect. It would strip Islam of any First Amendment protection.
The trouble is that such an amendment could never be passed and ratified at the present time. And after we lose a city or two to a nuclear attack, it will be too late for such legal niceties. A righteously enraged American populace will deal with Muslims themselves, as well as any politicians who get in their way.
As far as I know, only Indonesia and the Silk Road countries became Muslim because of Muslim traders.
You are essentially correct, although it would be more technically accurate to say that Islam in Southeast Asia as a whole generally spread through trade rather than conquest. That is one very large reason that Muslims in this region tend, by and large, to live peacefully with their neighbors of other faiths. Islam did not arrive with its scimitar bared, rather it came unarmed, bearing riches from afar. It also did not displace the preexisting dominant culture; it overlaid on top of it, and both combined to form a distinctly Southeast Asian brand of Islam that many Middle Eastern or South Asian Muslims have a hard time recognizing. There are enough extremists in Southeast Asia to cause us and the local governments, as well as local Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, plenty of problems. In Indonesia, where I live, we’ve had the 2 hotel bombings last year, the breakup of a terrorist training camp in Aceh in February, and the recent arrest of Jemaah Islamiyah founder Abu Bakar Ba’asyir. So the bad guys are out there. But they get little support from the run-of-the-mill Muslims around here. Islamic parties lost big to the nationalist parties in the last election in 2009, accelerating a downward trend in their support. Long may it continue.
Since it appears that this argument is lost, what with both the Mayor and city council rolling over to “BIG ISLAM”, I have a proposal that might help put across our viewpoint.
Since “Cordoba House”, an obvious reference to the muslim conquest of Spain, is to be I suggest that Christian Churches band together and construct an equally impressive church or cathedral next door or across the street to demonstrate that it’s not only muslims who have religious freedom in this country.
In regard to the confrontational naming of the structure I suggest that such a church should be named for Santiago Matamoros (Saint James, Killer of Moors). Maybe it could also contain an altar dedicated to the memory of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain who sponsored the voyages of Columbus in 1492 and incidentally bounced the muslim death cult out of europe at the same time. And also one dedicated to the Battle of Vienna…
At the same time, nearby, how about a huge synagogue dedicated to the military heroes of the IDF during the six day and Yom Kippur wars?
They have found a way to get under our skin. We need to start digging back…
I’d rather that the American people refuses in every possible way to allow this outrage to continue.
Islam is a Slave Cult.
This is what Sarah Palin posted on her Facebook page :
“Mr. President, should they or should they not build a mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3000 people? Please tell us your position. We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? And, no, this is not above your pay grade. If those who wish to build this Ground Zero mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive “cross-cultural engagement” and dialogue to show a moderate and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven’t they recognized that the decision to build a mosque at this particular location is doing just the opposite? Mr. President, why aren’t you encouraging the mosque developers to accept Governor Paterson’s generous offer of assistance in finding a new location for the mosque on state land if they move it away from Ground Zero? Why haven’t they jumped at this offer? Why are they apparently so set on building a mosque steps from what you have described, in agreement with me, as “hallowed ground”? I believe these are legitimate questions to ask.”
George Weigel, a serious Catholic writer (and a darn “o”rthodox one) wrote in a book that we needed to discredit islam as a religion. I totally agree.
I’ve also read elsewhere (in the last day or two) that a Greek Orthodox Church next to the WTC still has not not been rebuilt due to permit problems. If true, I am more than enraged.
JuliB,
Reference Greek Orthodox Church:
A Commentor at Newsbusters.org mentioned something similiar but provided no link.
Might bare looking into……
For some reason I can’t help but think the left would be up in arms if Pat Robertson wanted to build a church anywhere near Ground Zero. Or any other Christian church. The dems would be marching in the streets. Their self righteous anger would be pumped up and spewing their indignation.
“I’ve also read elsewhere (in the last day or two) that a Greek Orthodox Church next to the WTC still has not not been rebuilt due to permit problems. If true, I am more than enraged.”
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Been there for about a hundred years until it was destroyed with the WTC collapse.
“Permit problems” = the Port Authority has refused to grant them permit to rebuild, even though it has a LEGITIMATE CLAIM to its property.
St. Nicholas, a Christian church directly affected by a terrorist attack perpetrated by MUSLIMS, can’t rebuild. But Bloomberg’s happy to grant permission for a mega-mosque nearby!
Yes, I’d be spitting mad!
…And also one dedicated to the Battle of Vienna…
In honor of the Polish King, John III Sobieski, the victor at the Gates of Vienna. And I also like the idea of commemorating Ferdinand and Isabella, who completed the Reconquista. Some other possibilities: Don John of Austria, who led the Holy League fleet to victory over the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571; Charles “the Hammer” Martel, who stopped the Muslim invasion of what became France at Tours in 732; and the numerous Byzantine monarchs and generals who held the front lines against the invading Arabs and Turks for almost 900 years. Without the Byzantines, the West wouldn’t have had time to get its act together, and Lepanto and Vienna never would have happened.
On my list of things to do is to learn more about the Byzantine empire and how it fell to the Turks. If any of you have a good book to read, please do so.
Maybe Constantinople had a population of elitists who didn’t do what they need to do to protect their civilization. Maybe there is a counterpart to Mayor Bloomberg in the Byzantine story.
There may even be an Obama-like creature in this story–some traitorous scumbag who sold out his country to the Turkish invaders for twisted reasons of his own.
above . . . “book to recommend, please do so.”
John Julius Norwich has written numerous volumes on Byzantium in its various stages.
Wm Lawrence speaks correctly. Cordoba and al Andalus are powerful symbols within Islam of lost territory and dreams of reconquest and revenge against the Western ‘Crusaders’.
9/11 was a Declaration of War
No, it was just a battle in the war that started in Tehran back on 4 November 1979 has been going on ever since.
Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not.
Actually, the war began in 632. America is a Johnny-come-lately to this battle.
Our mayor (who publicly called us, opponents of the mosque’ erection, “bigots” and “those few” – although only at one meeting there were more than 5 thousands present – I know, I was there) apparently is just ass-licking Obama, his fellow lib.
The battle seems to be lost for now. Normally this would be the end of it, but the subject is so outrageous, they have outdid themselves in their hatred to American values, in their self-identification with enemies of our civilization – that I refuse to believe the mosque is going to stand. Even if it will be erected…I don’t think it’ll remain standing for long.
And – something else. I demand to know
-the architect
-the contractor
-all the trade unions
-all the consulting engineers
who are being paid by the enemy to erect this atrocity and conspire with the city officials in treason against this country. I want them bankrupt, out of business, personally ruined.
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This mosque says all we need to know about Islam and muslims. The fact that muslims think their mosque will be a place to celebrate cultural sensitivity at the site where America was bombed by muslim terrorists in the name of jihad means that yes, there indeed does need to be some cultural sensitivity education going on, and it’s not for Americans. It’s for the muslims who have moved here. Time to assimilate folks. And we don’t do sharia law.
One thing that really gets under their skin is ridicule. Like this, for example.
Tatyana, it shouldn’t be too hard to find out who some of the responsible entities are. I don’t know how NYC works particularly, but usually when a project files a request for site design review, their application materials instantly become part of the public record. Additionally, they usually need to prove ownership and the financial capacity to complete the project. Does NYC/Manhattan have a planning office by chance? I would start there. They probably have a stack of documents a foot high.
Well I took a look through the NYC planning department’s data base and did not find much but I did find this – the minutes of the community meeting on 5/25 that started it all. Caution – PDF ahead.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb1/downloads/pdf/FBM_Minutes/10-05-25.pdf
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My significant other is Muslim (Persian; I am Christian). The father of the family is a scientist and the mother is a physican. They are living the Americian dream– a swimming pool, a little dog in the frontk yard, paying into the system, a station wagon to bring the kids to footbal practice, everything. They also happen to be worshiping Muslims. We must not think in terms of “us” and “them,” we’re all “us.” Don’t let those evil terrorists divide our amazing, learned Muslim community from the rest of America.