Saturday 14 August 2010

Obama supports supremacist mosque

Hot off the airwaves, report on the BBC World Service that Obama has just made a speech supporting the building of a 15-storey mega mosque right by 9-11's Ground Zero.  He made two key points, according to the Beebs: (i) Freedom of religion is paramount in the US and (ii) we should not confuse al-Qaeda with "ordinary Muslims", for al-Qaeda had "distorted the teachings of Islam".
On this we can make two points too:
(i)  It was never a matter of "freedom of religion", but of sensitivity to the feelings of those families who lost loved ones on 911.  The bus ad above says it: "Why There"?
Many made the point: would the Japanese build a Shino shrine at Pearl Harbor?  Would the KKK be allowed to build a shrine at the site of the 16th St Baptist Church?  It's a matter not of law, but of consideration (especially given that imam Rauf claims that he wants to build something to help heal the wounds of 911 -- rather pouring on the salt, it would seem).
(ii)  "Distorting the teachings of Islam"?? Where does Obama get off deciding what does or does not "distort" the teachings of Islam?  Has he read the "Al-Qaeda reader"?  If not, he has no right to speak. If he has, he would have found that the motivations of al-Qaeda in attacking the WTC on 911 were soundly doctrinally based and that those motivations and justifications have never -- never -- been gainsaid or refuted.**
He also ignores that the imam promoting the mega-mosque, imam Rauf:

What's grotesque about Obama's approach here is that he gives greater weight to those who would build this supremacist mosque  -- led by a highly dubious imam --  than he does to the feelings of those injured by 911.  As Robert Spencer says, Obama speaks about "religious freedom" as if there were no other mosques in the US (there are about 2,400).
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**Krauthammer says it better. (July 2):
... President Obama’s National Security Strategy insists on calling the enemy — how else do you define those seeking your destruction? — “a loose network of violent extremists.” But this is utterly meaningless. This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue. These are people professing a powerful ideology rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam, in whose name they propagandize, proselytize, terrorize, and kill.