Undoctrination.org

If you watched the recent CNN interview of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the public face of the infamous Ground Zero Mosque, what you saw depended on how closely you watched. A surface glance (or a view through the prism of innocent liberalism) would have favored you with the image of a peaceable bridge builder whose only concern was why we can’t just all get along. All the man wants to do is inspire a harmonious existence between Muslims and the West, dontcha know. What vehicle for accomplishing that could be more successful, more earnest than constructing an inter-faith community center two blocks away from where some bad extremists—radicals, mind you—hijacked some airplanes AND a religion, and, completely disregarding the teachings of Islam’s Holy Prophet, destroyed some buildings and killed lots of people?

The more attuned ear would have heard him refuse once again to call Hamas a terrorist organization without word play. It would’ve heard him almost say that he would refuse funding from terrorist organizations, but then it would’ve heard him backtrack and start playing with words again. That keen ear would have heard a spate of obfuscations, incriminations, equivocations, evasions, and a handful of repetitive psychological catch phrases designed to shift blame and divert attention from the real issue. “The discourse is being hijacked by radicals,” is an example of one of those phrases that the imam seemed to partial to. “The politicizing of religion,” was another. There were others, mumbled over and over again, but as the transcript is available to anybody who wants to type in the keywords, we can skip them here. Besides, those of us who have been following this episode have learned to expect that out of this holy man and his angry wife, and we don’t really hear it any more. What we hear is his more poorly-considered language. In this particular interview, the comments that stood out to us were those that suggested the national security implications of relocating his Cordoba House mosque.

When the imam told us that any disruption of his plans for the mosque would be sufficient to ignite a world-wide retaliation by Islamic jihadists, our ears perked up. What we heard was a threat. What we heard was, “If our mosque isn’t built exactly where we want it built, the Islamic world will make you regret it. Hey folks, my hands are tied here.” And when we let that sink in, we realized that Islam was already purporting to hold us hostage. We could also infer that our cooperation would go a long ways toward our protection. Or at least the protection of New York City. You see, in an earlier interview with the Tribeca Tribune, the imam informed us that he would like to “franchise the concept” of Cordoba House, and build Cordoba Houses “all over America and around the globe.” Now, if the mosque is allowed to be built at Ground Zero (Yes, it IS Ground Zero—the landing gear assembly that damaged the existing building made it so), then the imam and the Muslim world could make the same threat for the other Cordoba Houses. Maybe one would look great casting its shadow over the Mississippi River right alongside the St. Louis Arch. Maybe St. Louis was on the next hit list. Maybe St. Louis can be taken off that list. Either the mosque can cast its shadow next to the arch’s shadow, or it can cast its shadow instead of it. It’s your call, St. Louis City Council.

Far fetched? Ridiculous? ISLAMOPHOBIC? Some of you think so, but I don’t and here’s why:  There was something else the imam said in that interview without saying it, something hidden right there in plain sight. What he said was that the worst of the worst, the jihadists, the suicide bombers, the slow-decapitators, the rioters, the destroyers, the murderers, want that mosque built and they want it built at Ground Zero. We don’t have to ask why. History has answered that unequivocally. We don’t need to know that Imam Rauf told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2004 that the West needs to acknowledge the harm they’ve done to Muslims before terrorism can end, and that Westerners need to learn to see things from the terrorists’ point of view. We don’t need to know about his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. All we need to know is that the imam has spilled the beans. The imam has told us everything we need to know about the truth behind his project. With those words of his in the CNN interview, everything has changed. We (most of us, anyway) knew it was a victory mosque, but now we know it’s much more. If America allows the towering minarets of that giant complex to darken the sun above our sacred 9/11 graveyard, then it will be the worst of the worst who will have that franchised concept established and ready to roll; and with their support, the next Cordoba Houses will be all that much easier to build.

The worst of the worst won’t riot for the sake of “inter-faith dialogue.” They won’t retaliate against a lost chance at bridge building. There will be no Muslim uprising over not being able to make new friends at a gym and swimming pool. They will rise up against the loss of a foothold that was oh so close—a base planted right where their fellow worshippers had done the dirty deed. They will rise up if they lose their verification that America is weak and will allow herself to be treated like a veiled and disobedient wife merely out of fear. This is their mosque. The imam has told us so.