Imposing justice on a terrorist and impeaching the guy who did it

While the nation watches House Democrats conduct secretive impeachment hearings on President Donald Trump, the president was busy planning and approving a successful raid against the world’s leading terrorist.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, the global terrorist organization that is responsible for death, destruction and misery over a broad area for many years, is at long last dead.

The Washington Post did it’s best to downplay the event with this headline: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48.” Apparently shame, at last, won out, and that obit-like headline was later changed to: “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48.” Only slightly better.

“He commanded an organization that, at its peak, controlled a territory the size of Britain from which it directed and inspired acts of terror in more than three dozen countries,” The New York Times wrote of the terrorist.

This triumph against terrorism caps an international five-year manhunt involving the intelligence services of several countries.

In a U.S. Special Forces operation with its origins several days ago, al-Baghdadi was located in northwestern Syria. After consulting with military leaders, plans were devised and Trump okayed the raid, choosing the option that provided the highest probability of success. 

The option chosen called for asking al-Baghdadi to surrender, but if necessary to kill him. He refused to surrender, and Special Forces troops stormed his compound, chasing the terrorist leader from it into a dead-end tunnel last Saturday night, where he killed himself and three of his children by detonating a suicide vest. 

U.S. forces collected valuable intelligence information following the raid on al-Baghdadi, and sustained only minor injuries, and no deaths in the operation.

Calling the terrorist leader’s death a "devastating blow" to a terrorist organization that has launched horrific attacks across the world, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that "we're going to watch carefully [ISIS’] next steps. And as a new leader and leaders pop up we'll go after them as well,” on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. He also commented that al-Baghdadi "is not just their leader, it's their founder. He was an inspirational leader in many ways."

Michael Pregent, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute said that there is likely to be a splintering of ISIS into some smaller groups, as the transition to a new leader, or leaders to replace al-Baghdadi transpires.

While acknowledging the obvious success, Congressional Democrat leaders criticized the president for not notifying them in advance, and for notifying Russia, but not them. But there is no requirement to notify Congressional leaders of coming secret military missions, and Russia assisted in the operation. The fewer people who know about a secret mission, the better. And Democrats’ reputation for keeping quiet is not especially good.

Congratulations to the Special Forces, and all involved. It is comforting to see that Trump is doing his job despite the obvious distractions and interference resulting from the years-long impeachment effort.

Speaking of impeachment: ABC News reported “A group of House Republicans stormed a secure hearing room Wednesday, delaying a witness deposition in the ongoing impeachment inquiry.”

What an interesting choice of a verb: they “stormed” a secure hearing room. In this context, “stormed” means a sudden forceful attack by armed troops, such as the storming of the Bastille.

In World War II, roughly 57,000 American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy. Dressed in military clothing, complete with helmets, ammo belts and weapons, soldiers exited the boats near the shore, fought their way onto the beaches under fire, climbed the cliffs and killed thousands of the enemy. Thousands of American troops also were killed and injured.

That is the picture created by the choice of the verb “stormed,” which the news media used nearly universally. Warrior Republicans in the House of Representatives fought for conquest over the secretive hearing being conducted in the underground SCIF in the Capital building.

Two dozen House Republicans — men dressed in trousers, coats, shirts and ties; women in dresses, or skirts/slacks, blouses and high heels — walked casually down the stairs to the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), a secure room where the impeachment inquiry is taking place three floors below ground level. They wanted to attend the secretive meeting that only members of the Intelligence Committee are allowed to attend.

They were asked by the Committee staff to give up their cell phones, and did so. All this was done before the unclassified hearing started. Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., hustled the witness out of the SCIF while the warriors were present, and would not return until they were gone.

Had American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, dressed and behaving as gently as were the Republican warriors armed with cell phones, we would likely be speaking German today.

We have become familiar with — and numb to — hyperbole, overstatement and embellishment by the mainstream media, as its members commit malpractice in support of Democrat/liberal efforts to unseat a duly elected president. This behavior by the media has reached the point where terming the inarguably mannerly entry by Republicans into the SCIF as “storming” no longer raises eyebrows.

Religious beliefs take a beating in today’s politically correct world

Issues of religious freedom have been in the news a good bit lately. Primarily, these news events occur when someone finds their religious beliefs in conflict with another person’s secular desire. A baker or a florist who regularly sells their wares to gay/lesbian customers declines to bake a cake or make floral arrangements for their wedding because their religious beliefs do not approve homosexual marriage. Despite the fact that there are many, or if not many, at least some alternatives to those bakers or florists, those who refused to provide services were persecuted and some driven out of business by the uproar the offended gay/lesbian couples instigated because these people held to their religious beliefs.

More recently, a county clerk in Kentucky refused to sign marriage licenses of gay/lesbian couples after a court ruled that treating gay/lesbian couples differently than heterosexual couples is discrimination, and therefore illegal. A judge jailed the clerk for refusing to act, despite the commonly observed practice by judges of using the least radical punishment for such problems first, and then proceeding to more stringent punishment and ultimately jail as the last resort.

This last episode is a much different situation than those previously mentioned, as it involves a government employee refusing to do her sworn duty. But the attention it received and the way the judge handled the clerk does illustrate the size of the schism between people following their religious beliefs and social preferences or legal mandates.

If there were options other than punishing these Americans for following their religious beliefs, why were bakers, florists, and others who have had similar misfortunes singled out for what may rightly be termed persecution. This point is particularly relevant in a nation in which the first right among four specifically enumerated rights in the first of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion?

It is also relevant to note the degree to which these events attract media coverage, which highlights how unpopular traditional religious practices have become to the media and many Americans in the 21^st century.

Combine a media mindset apparently hostile to religious practices with a tendency to try to tear down Republican presidential candidates and you find Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson being given rough treatment after saying that a Muslim shouldn’t be President of the United States. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," he said a while back on NBC's "Meet the Press."

A bit later in the interview, he said, when asked about a Muslim running for Congress, that it would depend upon the individual in question. "Congress is a different story, but it depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just like it depends on what anybody else is," Dr. Carson said. "If there's somebody who is of any faith but they say things and their life has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and make it possible for everybody to succeed and bring peace and harmony, then I'm with them."

Host Chuck Todd also asked him whether a president's faith should matter to voters. "I guess it depends on what that faith is," he said. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem." Asked whether he thinks Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: "No, I don't – I do not."

Clearly, Dr. Carson believes that anyone subjugating their religious beliefs, whatever religious beliefs they may hold, to the requirements of our Constitution is the key element.

He appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” last Sunday where reporter Martha Raddatz grilled him on that same statement, either ignorant of his other comments further defining his view on the issue, or unwilling to acknowledge them. Here is part of that interview:

Raddatz: “I want to go back to your controversial comments on the possibility of a Muslim president. The question seemed quite clear. The question was: Should a president’s faith matter? You said, I guess it depends on what that faith is. The question was: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution, and you said no, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that. 

Do you stand by that now?”

Carson: “Well, first of all, you know, what I said is on a transcript and it’s there for anybody.”

Raddatz: “I’m reading the transcript, Dr. Carson, that’s exactly what you said.”

Carson: “No – read the paragraph before that where I said anybody, doesn’t matter what their religious background, if they accept American values and principles and are willing to subjugate their religious beliefs to our Constitution. I have no problem with them.

Why do you guys always leave that part out, I wonder?”

Political correctness – or opposing unpopular things in favor of popular things – is the order of the day, in life and in the media.

Democrats have never done what 47 Republican senators did to Obama

  

Dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran’s continued march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, 47 Republican Senators signed an open letter that was sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arkansas freshman Sen. Tom Cotton authored the letter, which was signed by all but seven Senate Republicans.

This action has been termed “unprecedented,” and has brought forth the wrath of Democrats in Congress and the administration. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, declared that "In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country … that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments: “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” and went a step further by saying that in his 29 years in the Senate he had “never heard of or even heard of being proposed anything comparable to this.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs. We should always have robust debate about foreign policy, but it's unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the president of the United States.”

Other criticisms charged Republicans with trying to undercut the president by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without first consulting the White House, and then by sending this letter to subvert an agreement that would avoid war, as MSNBC’s Mika Brzenzinski charged on the Morning Joe program. And the pièce de résistance: the New York Daily News cover calling the Republican letter signers “traitors.”

Some law professors, pundits and news media charge that the Republican senators have committed treason by violating the Logan Act of 1799, which states: "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

And now for the rest of the story.

Predictably, there is far more heat than warranted here, Treason? No. Traitors? No. Gross amounts of hyperbole? Absolutely! Deliberate deception! Of course.

The Logan Act is not a factor here because, first, many legal authorities believe the Act is constitutional, as it infringes on the free speech guaranteed citizens by the U.S. Constitution, but also because the senators represent one of two houses of a co-equal branch of government, and therefore acted with the authority of their position, which also allows them to take a part in agreements with other nations.

Most important, however, is that despite the breathless overstatements by critics of the letter-writers, this action is not at all unprecedented, and in fact some of the loudest critics have themselves indulged in similar acts.

Take Secretary of State John Kerry, for instance. In 1971 during negotiations by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger trying to reach an end to the Vietnam War, then-Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., as leader of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, travelled to Paris to meet face-to-face with the North Vietnamese delegation, which was at the time an enemy combatant nation.

In 2007 then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., met fact-to-face with Bashar al-Assad while President George W. Bush was in negotiations with the Syrian leader.

Another Speaker, Jim Wright, D-Tex., talked face-to-face with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in 1987.

Senator James Abourezk, D-S.D., secretly met with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat in 1973.

In 2006 Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Arlen Spector R-Pa., (who soon after became a Democrat) traveled to Damascus when the policy of the Bush administration was to isolate the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Left has a problem remembering these inconvenient facts, which are probably contained in emails at the State Department or the IRS.

Furthermore, the letter was an open letter, not a private communication and presented facts about our constitutional system the Iranians likely did not know, not a negotiation.

The letter explained that any agreement between President Obama and the Iranian leaders binds only President Obama; future presidents will not be bound by it. Only treaties ratified by the Senate bind the U.S. That is a significant point.

Further, the negotiations may well involve the president unilaterally undoing sanctions against Iran passed by the Congress. That is a no-no; he does not have authority to do that.

It is certainly fair to criticize the fact that the message was presented in a letter addressed to Iranian leaders, instead of, say, being run as an op-ed in one or more national newspapers. However, that is about the worst aspect of this molehill called Mount Treason.

Paris attacks again call attention to the problem of radical Islam

Because they ridiculed the Islamic prophet, 12 employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in an organized military-style attack on its office in Paris by three terrorists with military weapons. In another event, a gunman entered a kosher grocery in the city and took several people hostage. In all, 17 innocent persons were murdered in the violence.

The AP reported the following item on January 9 that was not widely published: “Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the ‘deadliest massacre’ in the history of Boko Haram.” One official said most of the victims were children, women and the elderly, who were unable to run fast enough to escape the savage attack.

The U.S. is quite familiar with Islamic terrorism, but over the years since September 11, 2001 the level of violence of subsequent episodes of has blessedly not been on the same large scale as the 9-11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 innocents. Which is not to say it has been a level that we can, or will, accept.

Radical Islamic terrorism is a subject many prefer not to address. To some, it is like whistling past the graveyard; if we ignore it, maybe it will go away. Still others refuse to confront it for the reality that it is. But Islamic terrorism is a growing problem in our world, perhaps the most serious thing we have to face. Certainly, it is an urgent problem.

Muslim terrorists finally have done something that produced a substantial response. A huge group gathered in Paris to commemorate the victims of last week’s terrorist activity at the hands of Islamic radicals and to show solidarity against terrorism. Reports put the total number of participants between 1.5 million and 3 million. Among those attending were 40 world leaders, among whom were French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italy's Matteo Renzi, Mariano Rajoy of Spain, Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, and Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania. Notably, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were there.

Conspicuously absent was the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama. Instead of joining the other world leaders who were able to make the trip, Mr. Obama stayed home. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, not for the march, but was meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Minister of the Interior. U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley did participate in the march. Where were senior cabinet members, like Secretary of State John Kerry, the most senior cabinet officer?

Mr. Obama did find the time to visit the French Embassy in Washington, sign a book of condolences, and speak with diplomats last Thursday, and at a Friday appearance in Knoxville, TN he expressed solidarity with the people of France, and offered assistance.

This behavior is in keeping with Mr. Obama’s proclivity for avoiding any connection to the term “Islamic terrorism,” in either word or deed. While nearly everyone else notes that the terrorists are “radical” Muslims, and that the radical element is only a fraction of the more than 1 billion Muslims wordwide, Mr. Obama refuses to connect these terrorist acts to Islam at all, saying that Islam does not allow such brutality.

It cannot be ignored, however, that those who carry out these savage, cowardly attacks believe themselves to be Muslims, and frequently shout “Allahu Akbar” (God [Allah] is the Greatest) when murdering innocent people, and the terrorists attacking Charlie Hebdo added, “We have avenged the prophet.”

Whatever the basis of Mr. Obama’s reluctance to adequately identify these acts as those of radical Muslims – he called the killing of 13 U.S. military personnel at Ft Hood by a Muslim psychiatrist praising Allah “workplace violence” – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, himself a Muslim, has no such reluctance.

As reported by CNN, President el-Sisi has called for a "religious revolution," asking Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism when addressing the group during the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Muḥammad. "I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word ... because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands," he said.

If Islam is a religion of peace, if Islam does not endorse the sort of barbarism demonstrated in these and other terrorist attacks perpetrated by people claiming to be Muslims, then Islam has to take the lead in putting an end to it.

The United States must insure that Muslims are treated like everyone else in the U.S., and not give them special treatment, good or bad. We have to take a much more proactive role in wiping this scourge from the face of the Earth by rooting out the terror cells in America and focusing on the hotbeds of Islamist extremism around the world.

Death to Nidal Hasan and the better food in schools movement?

On November 5, 2009, US Army Major Nidal Hasan, a Muslim and psychiatrist at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, opened fire on his fellow soldiers inside the center, screaming “Allahu Akbar,” and killing 13 soldiers and an unborn child in her mother’s womb, and wounding 30 others.

While the victims were military personnel trained in the use of weapons, they were unarmed, forbidden from carrying on base the weapons many would use when deployed. Fortunately, Sgt. Kimberley Munley, a civilian police officer, arrived and wounded the jihadist doctor, interrupting his murderous rampage, but he shot Sgt. Munley three times, and just as the terrorist was about to finish her off, another civilian officer, Sgt. Mark Todd, shot him, and ended the killing spree.

This murderous attack left 13 dead, eight widows, one widower, 12 minor children without a father, 18 parents who lost children, 30 soldiers and one civilian police officer wounded.

There’s little positive from that event, other than that Nidal Hasan is now paralyzed from the waist down, and will likely never walk again.

Despite concerns about Hasan’s radical Islamist leanings, revealed when he was an intern at Walter Reed Medical Center, later as a physician in a PowerPoint presentation to other Army doctors, and Islamic abbreviations and phrases on his business card, the Army did not see fit to remove him from duty, or give him the punishment he so rightly deserved. In fact, an email from an Army investigator reveals the ugly politically correct nature of military service today: "Had we launched an investigation of Hasan we'd have been crucified."

Inexplicably, the charges the Department of Defense filed against Maj. Hasan ignored his Islam-based terrorist attack, but was instead labeled “workplace violence,” as if he had merely started a fight with a co-worker or thrown a chair at his boss. Such a designation deprives those soldiers killed and injured in this terrorist attack the benefits they are entitled to and would receive had accurate charges been filed.

During his opening statement at trial, in which he was convicted on all charges, Maj. Hasan apologized, not to the victims and their families, the nation or the Army, but to his fellow jihadists for not destroying more innocent life, and admitted shooting the 13 soldiers, and said he wanted the death penalty. Last week the jury sentenced him to death.

As one who believes in the death penalty for certain vicious crimes when guilt is not in question, in this case I hope that the death penalty for Nidal Hasan, a painless lethal injection, is set aside, as it has been for those in the military since 1961.

He deserves to live out his miserable life in abject misery, not in the glory of Islamic jihadist martyrdom for which he so badly hungers. Too bad that murderers, rapists, and others among the worst scum of humanity are treated so well when they are condemned to an American prison for their vicious crimes.

* * * * *

America’s First Ladies have always been advocates for important issues in our country. Rosalyn Carter championed mental health, Nancy Reagan fought against drug abuse, Barbara Bush worked to increase literacy, Hillary Clinton pushed for health reform, Laura Bush advocated for improvements in education, and Michelle Obama has worked to have a positive effect on childhood obesity.

Given the overweight nature of the US population generally, and that of the younger generation specifically, who can logically argue that a better menu in the nation’s public schools is a bad thing?

However, this particular effort has been met with resistance, and even outright rebellion, with school kids refusing to eat the better food being served in cafeterias, and school systems losing money on the deal as a result, and bailing out of the program.

One example of the growing national rebellion against the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which set new nutrition standards for school cafeterias and changed the way children are qualified for school meal programs, occurred recently at a contentious meeting of the Harlan County, Kentucky school board.

Board members were treated to a raft of complaints about school meals, which were called crappy and served in portions that critics say are too small. Someone said the meals tasted like “vomit,” and one parent said, “kids can’t learn when they’re hungry.”

Parents criticized the brown wheat bread, the skim or one-percent-fat milk, and the nonfat chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk.

Where this effort has gone wrong is that it attempts to mandate through law the way kids eat, and even though the standards set by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act are nutritionally superior to previous standards, school kids liked the old food and they don’t like the new food, and therefore don’t eat it.

In it’s own way this is a citizen rebellion against an over-reaching state: the people are against the government trying to tell them how to eat, among other things.

Our government has no business doing this. Perhaps this mild revolution will get the point across. But probably not.

The Boston Marathon bombing shows that terrorism is still a threat

The Boston Marathon bombing shocked us back into the reality that terrorism is a serious threat today in America. Twenty-six year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 19 year-old brother Dzhokhar are suspected of executing the plot that killed three innocent people and injured dozens more near the Marathon’s finish line, and of killing a police officer and injuring another a few days later. Thus far authorities have not been able to present a clear picture of what may have motivated those responsible to commit this savage act.

The Tsarnaev’s, a Chechen family of six, came to the US about ten years ago to escape a bad situation in Russia, but the father and mother returned to Russia a year ago, while the brothers and at least one of their sisters stayed behind. By all accounts, the younger brother had many friends, but the older brother was less friendly and had turned increasingly to Islam, and went to Russia last year for a six month visit, during which time some believe he may have been prepared for jihad. Reports say, in fact, that police believe he was specially trained to carry out the devastating attack while there.

What is particularly troubling is what the UK's Daily Mirror online reported. "The FBI was last night hunting a 12-strong terrorist 'sleeper cell' linked to the Boston marathon bomb brothers. More than 1,000 FBI operatives were last night working to track down the cell and arrested a man and two women 60 miles from Boston in the hours before Dzhokhar’s dramatic capture after a bloody shootout on Friday."

The Daily Mirror quoted a source it said was "close to the investigation" as saying that "We have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing people learn from Google." The account went on to suggest that someone gave the brothers the skills, and investigators must find out just who they were. Agents think the sleeper cell has been waiting several years for the day to come for it to commit jihad, the report continued. Other sources claim that a mosque near where the brothers lived may have helped to radicalize Tamerlan.

The existence of homegrown and/or resident terrorist cells reflects on the US policy toward terrorism, which is a confused mess that has been corrupted by political correctness and weakness at upper levels. When US Army psychiatrist Major Nadal Hassan screamed "Allahu Akbar"  ("Allah is greater") as he went on his shooting spree at a processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 fellow soldiers who were not allowed to carry firearms on the base, and injuring 30 more, it was an act of Islamic jihad.

But the Obama/Holder Justice Department and other federal agencies wimped out and idiotically termed the terrorism "workplace violence." And evidence suggests that the Marathon bombing is most likely another jihadist event. These are two of five incidents involving individuals for whom radical Islamic ties had been suspected, and about whom federal authorities had been forewarned, but did not connect the dots to prevent the terrorist atrocities.

James Jay Carafano, the vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, told NewsmaxMedia that the Obama administration is so eager to declare victory in the war on terror that it is “putting its head in the sand” and ignoring the rapid growth of non-al-Qaida terrorist groups. He said the post 9-11 homeland security effort was “very effective,” and cited some 54 al-Qaida-related instances where attacks and bombings were thwarted. But he criticized the administration's downplaying the war on terror as if it already had been won. He said the administration has “defined their way out of the problem” by focusing only on al-Qaida and ignoring other terrorist threats, like existing cells within the US and the Hassan attack at Fort Hood.

A terrorism-related “weapon of mass destruction” charge, which carries the death penalty, was filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Monday afternoon.

“We’ve adopted a counterterrorism strategy which generally means that the United States is putting its head in the sand" and if you look at what’s going on in North Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the threat is not diminishing. To the contrary, he told Newsmax, the threat of terrorism is definitely growing. And he says the current administration “has adopted a counterterrorism strategy which really relies on ignoring a lot of the people who might potentially want to kill us.”

It is much more critical to focus on issues of national security, like terrorist activities from cells that reside here at home and the threats of nuclear war from the boyish North Korean dictator and Iran, instead of trying to nationalize the healthcare system, throwing billions of our tax dollars at failing green energy companies in a vain attempt to revamp how the nation provides for its energy needs, and imposing gun control measures that would have had no effect on the problems that spawned the efforts to enact them.

Must-See video: a Brit's view of the NYC mosque

Everyone should watch this video, whether you support the Ground Zero mosque, or whether you join with a majority of Americans who oppose it.

Pat Condell's perspective is worth your time. "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?"

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Technorati Tags: Islam, Politics, War on Terror, Political Correctness

A mosque at Ground Zero: A healing idea, or a provocation?

The controversy over the proposed Muslim “Cordoba House” two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City has been heating up over the last few weeks. Cordoba House, described as a community center similar to a YMCA by its chief proponent, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is viewed as an affront by the families of 9-11 victims and others sensitive to the horrors of the September 11, 2001 attacks by radical Muslims who hijacked airliners and flew two of them into the World Trade Center, killing nearly 2,800 people.

In an announcement that caused political observers to scratch their heads, President Barack Obama told the nation last week that the mosque is a matter of religious freedom, which is guaranteed by our Constitution. Once again, Mr. Obama has inexplicably involved himself in an issue that didn’t require him to take a position, unnecessarily creating problems for himself, and further fueling the fire of the opposition.

His comment drew immediate and strong reaction from opponents, forcing a clarification. “My intention was simply to let people know what I thought, which was that in this country, we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” he said later.

Fair enough, Mr. President, but you’ve got it all wrong: the opposition does not contend that the Muslim group is not within its rights to build a mosque – there are at least 100 already in the city’s five boroughs. The building now occupying the proposed site, however, is close enough to have been damaged by debris from the explosion when the planes hit the towers, and a majority of both New Yorkers and Americans say the site – only 600 feet away from Ground Zero – is the wrong place to build Cordoba House.

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows that while 61 percent of Americans polled think the Muslim group has a right to build a mosque, 64 percent think the proposed site is the wrong place, and only 30 percent think this project is appropriate. A CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows 68 percent are opposed to it.

A Rasmussen Reports survey focused on New York state voters and found that only 20 percent favor building in the shadow of the WTC, while 58 percent were opposed. A Marist poll found that Manhattan residents oppose the mosque by a 53 to 31 percent margin.

And if there wasn’t enough controversy already, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said that the effort to stop the project is the work of “Islamophobes,” and the leader of the Hamas terror organization, Mahmoud al-Zahar, told the New York Post, we “have to build the mosque.”

Some opponents who are uneasy about the project have focused on elements such as its name – Cordoba House – and the history of Muslim conquerors to celebrate conquests by building mosques on the ashes of their vanquished enemies.

Abigail R. Esman, writing for Forbes.com, comments that “Cordoba, after all, was conquered in 711 by the Muslim Berber Gen. Tarik ibn Zayad, and by 756 became the capital of the Cordoba Caliphate, which covered most of Spain. Christian and Jewish civilians in that time were regularly murdered and enslaved. Among the first things the conquerors did under the new Caliphate was replace the Christian Church of Saint Vincent with the Great Mosque of Cordoba.”

“What emerges, then,” she continues, “is a potential symbol of victory at the site of one of Islam's most horrific acts in history. ‘We destroyed the World Trade Centers,’ the radical Islam world will say, ‘and replaced it with a mosque – there, in the financial hub of New York City, the capitalist center of the world.’ First Cordoba, then Cordoba.”

There are also questions as to the sources of funding for the $100 million project.

Imam Rauf, however, paints a very different picture. “American Muslims want to be both good Americans and good Muslims,” he wrote in the New York Daily News. “They can be the best assets the United States has in combatting (sic) radicalism,” he stated. “We believe that people of good faith can use the common core of their religions to find solutions to problems that will let them live together.”

But if all that is true, why persist in championing a project to which a majority of Americans are opposed, and which would bring immense pain to those very New Yorkers the imam and his fellow Muslims want to be one with?

If Imam Rauf and his colleagues are as he said, “the anti-terrorists … the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric,” can you not accomplish this noble goal a respectable distance from the scene of the worst radical Muslim murder in our nation’s history?

The best way to foster understanding between the different religions and to show the essential degree of sensitivity is to abandon the Islam-centric demand to build the mosque near Ground Zero, and build it somewhere farther away.

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Technorati Tags: Culture, Politics, War on Terror, Islam