OK–it’s time to just come out and say it. Liberals must be desperate, because–with regard to the Ground Zero mosque (as with so many other past cultural issues)–Barack Obama has sided against the American people–again. How do I know this to be true? Well, let’s just look at the steady stream of hysterical op-eds coming out of The New York Times slandering the American people as racist, Islamaphobic, unpatriotic dumb-dumbs. (Yes, I know, liberals must be pretty desperate to play the patriotism card–I thought they thought that patriotism was gauche.)
For instance, last weekend, TV entertainer, Dick Cavett, wrote a column titled, Real Americans, Please Stand Up. (Did you get that? If you disagree with him about the Ground Zero mosque, you aren’t a “real American”.) In this op-ed, Cavett goes on to lament how “ashamed of us” he is, and he even goes so far as to write the following insanity–
As a war kid, I also heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral “Bull” Halsey: “If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I’d kick her in the belly.”
So now, not only am I not a “real American”, but I want to kick pregnant Japanese women in the belly.
Oh, but Mr. Cavett is not alone in his inane ramblings. On Sunday, theater critic, Frank Rich, wrote a column titled, How Fox Betrayed Petraeus, and on Monday cultural writer, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column titled, Taking bin Laden’s Side.
Now, just from the titles of these op-eds alone, it should be painfully obvious what The New York Times is trying to do–i.e., “otherize” all opponents of the Ground Zero mosque as bigoted, anti-American rednecks with the worst possible motives. However, all of these columns were rich in over the top rhetoric, but deeply lacking in any information about the previous troubling, statements from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (the man behind the mosque), or the fact that that Iman Rauf has not been at all transparent about where the money’s coming from to build this mosque at Ground Zero. So, for flat out slandering the American people as anti-American bigots–and being disingenuous as to why they are really upset about the Ground Zero mosque–The New York Times deserves to wear “The Cone of Shame”.
Speaking of Imam Rauf, I would very much like to take a closer look at him before going much farther. To be specific, soon after 9/11, Imam Rauf called America “an accessory to the crime” (in reference to 9/11–see embed below), has refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization, has stated that, “The US has more Muslim blood on it’s hands than Al Queada”, and has refused to swear off money from Iran or Saudi Arabia for the one hundred million dollar Ground Zero mosque (that could very well be terrorist/blood money).
Second of all, it seems to me that Imam Rauf is being deliberately provocative by calling the Ground Zero mosque “The Cordoba Mosque”, which would be named after The Cordoba Mosque in Spain built by the Moors when they conquered the Christians in 600 AD. (It is a well-known fact that Muslims build a mosque on ground after they conquer it. Why don’t they just call the Ground Zero mosque the “We Conquered Your Ass/Who’s Your Daddy?” mosque and get it over with?)
Furthermore, I find the sheer size of the mosque–or the fact that it looks like a skyscraper or a giant monument to Islam, rather than a house of prayer–to be deliberately provocative as well. Now, in his recent column, Nicholas Kristof shamefully compared the Ground Zero mosque to a YMCA. However, how many YMCAs look like the image below? I rest my case.
[FYI, my husband and I went to Egypt on our honeymoon and we toured a slew of Medieval era mosques--NONE OF THEM looked like that, but I digress.]
By the way, it’s not just me who feels like this. Real moderate Muslims–you know, the ones who don’t blame America for 9/11 and who have no problem calling Hamas a terrorist organization–have stated that the Ground Zero mosque is in poor taste and is deliberately provocative. To be specific, on The O’Reilly Factor, moderate Muslim, Raheel Raza, called the Ground Zero mosque “confrontational, in bad faith, and a slap in the face to all Americans” (see embed below). (Ms. Raza has since received a threatening phone call from the property owner of the Ground Zero mosque for speaking out against it.)
Moreover, a secular/moderate Muslim, named Neda Bolourchi whose mother was killed on 9/11, wrote a column for The Washington Post titled, Build Your Mosque Somewhere Else. Specifically, she wrote the following with regard to the Ground Zero mosque–
From the first memorial ceremonies I attended at Ground Zero, I have always been moved by the site; it means something to be close to where my mother may be buried, it brings some peace. That is why the prospect of a mosque near Ground Zero — or a church or a synagogue or any religious or nationalistic monument or symbol — troubles me.
I do not like harboring resentment or anger, but I do not want the death of my mother — my best friend, my hero, my strength, my love — to become even more politicized than it already is. To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother’s grave, and let her rest. “
Oh, but silly me. I forgot. According to Dick Cavett and The New York Times, Ms. Bolourchi is just an Islamaphobic bigot who wants to kick pregnant Japanese women in their bellies.
However, what I find to be the most troublesome feature of the whole Ground Zero mosque brouhaha, is the fact the Imam Rauf has referred to America as “A Sharia compliant state”.
Now, why is calling America a “Sharia complaint state” so troubling? Well, to understand why that statement is so troubling, one has to first understand what exactly Sharia Law is and what it entails/allows for.
Sharia Law is a particular type of fundamentalist Islamic law that dates back to the time of Muhammed, and deals specifically with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Classic Sharia Law is most famously practiced in Iran and Saudi Arabia (two places that Imam Rauf won’t swear off taking money from). For instance, under Sharia Law, hanging homosexuals is perfectly OK (warning–Allahphundit has the photos of this happening in Iran in this link and they are disturbing)–which is why Greg Gutfeld has called for a Muslim gay bar to be built right next to the Ground Zero mosque. Furthermore, strong adherents to Sharia Law have absolutely no problem with beating women, or even disfiguring them, if they disobey their husband. (For example, we’ve all seen the, now, infamous image below of the woman whose nose and ears were cut off by the Taliban. However, The New York Times was mad at Time magazine for running the image–they called it “war porn”–instead of the Taliban and Sharia adherents for cutting her face up in the first place.)
However, I would say that the worst part about Sharia Law is that it condones honor killings of women (which have recently been on the rise in America)–and, in particular, stoning them to death. Below is an embed of an exert of a film called The Stoning of Soraya M that NewsReal’s own Chris Yogerst has written about in great detail. It is extremely painful to watch (it, literally, gave me nightmares), but it is important that we don’t turn away and avert out eyes from this horror simply because it makes us uncomfortable.
Now, after gazing into the horrible face of Sharia Law, I can’t help but be reminded of David Horowitz’s chilling exchange with a member of the Muslim Student’s Association when he asked her if she would condemn Hamas (who also condones Sharia Law).
Here is a piece of the exchange (see embed below for the entire exchange)–
Horowitz:
If you don’t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I have had this experience at UC Santa Barbara, where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk I kept asking them, will you condemn Hizbollah and Hamas. And none of them would. And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask a question. And I said, ‘Before you start, will you condemn Hizbollah?’ And he said, ‘Well, that question is too complicated for a yes or no answer.’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll put it to you this way. I am a Jew. The head of Hizbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or Against it?
MSA member:
For it.
Horowitz:
Thank you for coming and showing everybody what’s here.
So, in conclusion, I would like to ask all of the liberals at The New York Times who are in support of the infamous Ground Zero mosque–”Are you for it or against it?”, with regard to the US becoming “a Sharia compliant state”, as well as Imam Rauf’s refusal to condemn Hamas. These are not issues that you can sit back and shamelessly sip your latte while you try to morally equivocate by uttering idiocies such as, “Radical Christianity is as big a threat as radical Islam!” or, “But, George Bush!!”. You are either for honor killings, or you are against them. You are either for hanging homosexuals, or you are against it. You are either for stoning women, or you are against it. You are either for mutilating women, or against it. You are either for rounding up all of the Jews and killing them, or you are against it. There is no middle ground on these issues or wiggle room for a nuanced position. And, if you take money from countries who support these kinds of activities in order to build a mosque at Ground Zero, refuse to call out Hamas as a terrorist organization, or support the building of a mosque by someone who thinks that “America is a Sharia compliant country”, then that is the same thing as being “for it” in most sane people’s book, who don’t want any part of America to be “Sharia compliant”, much less Ground Zero.
Moreover, it’s quite obvious to me what happened here–or rather, how The New York Times (and liberals in general, not to mention President Obama) found themselves on the wrong side of this issue and siding with an Imam who actually praised the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The New York Times, as well as many of it’s readers, reflexively and shamefully side against the majority of Americans and always assume that they are racist or have bad intentions. (One only need to look to the fact that Frank Rich wrote an entire column bashing America on The Fourth of July as evidence of this unfortunate fact.) In other words, if the bitter, gun-clingers in Middle America are against the Ground Zero mosque, then The New York Times is reflexively for it, without even looking into it, or asking any hard questions about the project. They, blindly, took this Imam at his word that he was a “moderate”. (By the way, I went to medical school with several moderate/secular Muslims, and they would be insulted if you lumped them in the same category with this Imam.) And now that they got caught with their pants down not having done their homework, they are screaming “Raacist!!” in order to shut people up and distract from their own incompetence. I think that Mark Hemingway put it best when he wrote the following–
It reminded me a of a joke from last season’s “30 Rock,” where Alec Baldwin’s character was being told that in order to protect the feelings of a co-worker, he needed to “lie to her, coddle her, protect her from the real world.”
Baldwin’s retort? “I get it. Treat her like the New York Times treats its readers.”
The media seem to think they must reflexively defend any minority thrust into the public square from intolerant hordes throwing nooses around lampposts. But since 9/11 there’s been almost no violence or concerted oppression of America’s peaceful Muslim community.
At the same time, Americans remain clear-eyed about the fact certain Muslim attitudes are on a collision course with Western society. The mosque’s backers may be tolerant relative to the Taliban and other Muslim extremists. However, their refusal to condemn Hamas and the fact that they won’t rule out taking money from Iran cannot be considered tolerant by any enlightened standard.
Furthermore, Dick Cavett’s shameful ignorance was on full display for all to see when he wrote the following–
“What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldn’t have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people — notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history — would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?”
My response would be if that Christian church was funded in part by white supremacists, and refused to call out the KKK, then no, they should not be allowed to build next to a monument where blacks were lynched by whites. Not to mention, if Fred Phelps–you know, the “God hates F*gs” guy–wanted to build a church next to a military base (or even next to a gay bar in San Fransisco), I would say no to that idea as well. And finally, I think that Charles Krauthammer explained it beautifully when he wrote the following–
“That’s why Disney’s 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It’s why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It’s why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.
And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign. “
Now, I realize that it’s a lot more fun for liberals at The New York Times to use this issue to look down their noses at Sarah Palin and Middle America, than it is for them to actually, you know, look into this issue and do some real reporting on it. However, their inability to recognize real evil here when it is, literally, throwing rocks at their face, is shameful–and it’s actually quite racist. Why? Because they are sacrificing these Muslim women (and gay Muslim men) on the alter of multiculturalism just so that they can pat themselves on the backs about how “tolerant” they are.
[By the way, The New York Times couldn't even bother to report on a recent would be stoning in Iran that we here at NewsReal covered for days. David Swindle, our managing editor, even put up a petition in order to stop the woman from being stoned to death. Full disclosure--I signed the petition.]
I mean, suppose some small town in Middle America decided to try to pass laws allowing for the stoning of adulterous women or the hanging of gay men? I guarantee you that The New York Times would be up in arms over it–and rightfully so (especially Nicholas Kristof who fancies himself as a spokesmen for women’s rights). However, now an Imam–who would take money from countries who participate in this kind of evil, who praised Sharia Law and the Iranian Revolution, who says that the US has more blood on its hands than Al-Qaeda, and who won’t condemn Hamas–wants to build a mosque at Ground Zero, and they are attacking his critics as “anti-American”?! Please! The New York Times would never turn a blind eye like this to the plight of Western women, but they are totally ignoring the plight Middle Eastern women, just so they–initially–could shout, “I’m more multicultural than thou are!”. And now, so they don’t have to admit a mistake.
So for refusing to do any honest reporting with regard to Imam Rauf, and then for calling the critics of the Ground Zero mosque “anti-American raaaaacits!!”, The New York Times ought to be ashamed of itself.
Put them in the Cone of Shame!
This diary was cross-posted from NewsReal, and it is also posted on 73 Wire, Many Faces of Barack and Hillbillypolitics.
