The imam threatens us--build it or else

Sharon made me aware of something said last night by the imam who is planning to put a mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. It's a stunning statement that threatens us and hints at a protection racket. See if you agree.

After spending a month overseas supposedly "building bridges" with the Muslim world (using our money to do it), Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf had an interview on CNN last night.

Here's what he had to say. If he could start over, he would propose a different site for his project. "If I knew this would happen, that this would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn't have done it . . . My life has been dedicated to peacemaking."

So far, so good. Seems like he might consider moving the mosque to honor the feelings of so many in the U.S. But Rauf said he intends to go ahead with the "multifaith" center near the site where Islamic terrorists killed nearly 2,800 people because not doing so would unleash fury abroad.
"If we move from that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse," Rauf told CNN. "The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.

"There is a certain anger here [in America], no doubt," he said later in the interview. "But if we don't do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world. If we don't do things correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis [over images depicting the Prophet Mohammed], which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world. And we have a much bigger footprint in the Muslim world."

Think about what he said. We have to build it or else the crazies will go nuts all over the world. Here's my thought--Great nations act in their self-interest from strength rather than worrying about what others might say. It also made me think of some key questions: Do we give veto power to the intolerant Islamists? Are they going to love us if we let them put a mosque at Ground Zero? Did we win World War 2 by appeasing Hitler? Do we have the courage of our convictions any more after years of schooling where students are told how bad we are as a nation? Do we have moral clarity after hearing repeatedly that all cultures are the same and we can't criticize anyone?

Rauf's outrageous comments ought to erase all doubt that the construction of the Ground Zero mosque would be a victory for terrorism.