NRO editors on the Ground Zero mosque

When this was first presented, I thought it was a political hoax, or a joke cooked up by some nutter in New York. But it's a reality, and it's a reality we're 100% opposed to. We're not opposed to a religion being allowed to build a church, but Ground Zero is hallowed ground. We wouldn't support ANY religion putting up a church at Ground Zero. We would stand against any sort of inappropriate display or building on any ground in America that is considered hallowed. (After all, we believe the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but there's no way in Hell we'd support any sort of display at the USS Arizona memorial in Hawaii "commemorating" that brain-dead decision. We also wouldn't support the Ku Klux Klan erecting any sort of memorial at Gettysburg.)

Point being, there's a level of respect that is due at places like Ground Zero. Over at National Review, the editors have penned a piece on this issue:

The story of the proposed mosque at the site of the World Trade Center has been thoroughly misrepresented, as have the parties behind the project. They present themselves as ambassadors of moderate Islam. Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, says the project aims to put the Muslim community “at the front and center to start the healing.”

Ms. Khan knows better, because she is also Mrs. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the wife of the main Islamic cleric behind the project. Rauf is no moderate. He presents himself as a peacemaking Islamic Gandhi, but he is in fact an apologist for the terrorist outfit Hamas, which he refuses even to identify as a terrorist organization. Nor is Rauf exactly full-throated in his rejection of terrorism, offering only this: “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” While he cannot quite bring himself to blame the terrorists for being terrorists, he finds it easy to blame the United States for being a victim of terrorism: “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”

As National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy has documented, Rauf’s book, published in the West as What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America, had a significantly different title abroad: A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11. “Dawa” means Islamic proselytizing, a process that ends in the imposition of sharia. The book was published abroad with the assistance of the Islamic Society of North America and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, which are two appendages of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization behind much of the world’s murderous Islamic terrorism. The Islamic Society of North America was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism case. The co-founder and president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, Shaykh Taha Jabir al-Awani, was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Sami al-Arian terrorism case.

This dispute has been presented as a question of whether an Islamic center and mosque should be built in proximity to the scene of the worst act of Islamic terrorism — and the worst act of political violence — ever committed on U.S. soil. But at least as germane to the dispute is the question of whether these particular parties ought to be doing so. The fact that an apologist for terrorists and an associate of terrorist-allied organizations is proceeding with this provocation is indecent. We have thousands of mosques in the United States, and who knows how many Islamic cultural centers in New York City. We do not need this one, in this place, built by these people. We’re all stocked up on Hamas apologists, thanks very much.

The libertarians among us are wrong to take a blasé attitude toward this, asking, “If their permit applications are in order, why not?” Here is why not: because this is not just a zoning dispute. The World Trade Center is, in effect, the gravesite of 3,000 Americans who died at the hands of Islamist radicals, and to build a mosque on this site — particularly a mosque with Muslim Brotherhood connections — would be extraordinarily unseemly. We will not appeal to the official powers to use the machinery of government to stop this project. We appeal, instead, to the sense of decency of the American Muslim community, and to its patriotism.

Beyond that, Americans should make their displeasure with this project felt economically and socially: No contractor, construction company, or building-trades union that accepts a dime of the Cordoba Initiative’s money should be given a free pass—nobody who sells them so much as a nail, or a hammer to drive it in with. This is an occasion for boycotts and vigorous protests — and, above all, for bringing down a well-deserved shower of shame upon those involved with this project, and on those politicians who have meekly gone along with it. It is an indecent proposal and an intentional provocation.

That is our overall gripe. The fact that they want it so close to Ground Zero is an affront to this nation, and every American should lodge their formal complaints to the companies involved in its construction. We don't support boycotts because they generally don't work. But in this instance we do support a boycott, including a boycott of New York City. The asininity involved in this decision is astronomical. If those on the Landmark Commission are elected, we hope New York residents boot them from office. If they're appointed by Mayor Bloomberg, then Bloomberg should be ousted. (He is for the mosque being built; such is the life of a disrespectful ass. Giuliani would never have allowed this mosque to go through.)

The fact that this mosque's construction will be funded by Muslim Brotherhood blood money is sickening. This is how the leaders of Islam now are acting. The moderates don't have a voice in Islam. They're shunned, or worse, silenced. The radicals are the ones in charge now, and while they can offer empty platitudes about how this will help "heal the wounds," it's a lie. They will be celebrating their mosque's construction just two short blocks from the most sanctified, honored ground in the entire nation. And readers will kindly recall that this is not the first time hallowed ground has been tainted. The United 93 memorial in Shanksville, PA drew significant ire and controversy with its shape (a red crescent) and alignment (in direct alignment with Mecca).

The terrorist apologists will stop at nothing when it comes to infiltrating this name, and every time we give in, it's a victory for them. For the last time, repeat after me: Lan Astalem -- I will not submit! Enough is enough. We live in a nation where we are being ruled by the minority, and their leadership (if you could call it that) is extremely detrimental to this great republic. It's time to get rid of the politically-correct @$$holes, and take this nation -- it's identity, it's ideals, and it's values -- back from these people who seem intent on wrecking everything good about America. The Landmark Commission should be ashamed for clearing the way for this Muslim front group to erect a mosque so close to Ground Zero.

This will not help "heal" squat. It'll only serve to continue the animosity towards a group of people who can't seem to figure out how to drag their 7th Century, anachronistic asses into the 21st Century.

Publius II