TruthNews Commentary, August 18, 2010

President Barack Hussein Obama has ignited a political controversy with his comments about the rights of Muslims to build a large mosque near Ground Zero, the site of the 2001 Islamic terrorist attacks on New York City. The administration had claimed the issue was local. Then the president endorsed the mega-mosque at the annual White House Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan.

Republicans and even some Democrats immediately jumped on the president's comments. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who is being urged by some conservatives to run for president in 2012, said, "This hurts. This is a slap to those innocent victims who were murdered that day on 9/11. How else do you describe it? He just doesn't get it that this is an insensitive move."

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said "It's very obvious that the mosque should be built someplace else." Following Reid's statement, four Democrats facing tight congressional contests in New York state expressed their opposition to the $100 million mosque, due to be built two blocks from Ground Zero. Representative Mike McMahon said in a statement: "We have seen very clearly in the past weeks that building a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero will not promote necessary interfaith dialogue, but will continue to fracture the faiths and citizens of our City and this Country."

Obama is now trying to dodge the issue by crisscrossing the nation, speaking about the economy and campaigning for Democrats ahead of November's congressional elections. Political experts say he needs the diversion to steer public attention away from his recent comments endorsing the Ground Zero mosque.

What Obama said

On August 13, the President spoke about the proposal to build a $100-million mosque two blocks from the site of the September 11 Islamic terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000.

"Muslims have the right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," Obama said. "And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan."

His endorsement set off a political firestorm.

A CNN poll finds that nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the mosque, even though the project was approved by New York City authorities. The New York Landmarks Preservation Committee decided that the building presently occupying the site, which was constructed in the 1850s, did not deserve historical status and could be torn down to allow the new mosque to be built.

Criticism

Republicans have criticized President Obama as disconnected from Americans. And Reid, the Senate's top Democrat, spoke out against the Ground Zero mosque.

Mosque proponents have tried to tie the issue to the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion. But Americans have become sensitive when that issue intersects with the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11.

The specific location of the planned mosque, so close to the World Trade Center "where a piece of the wreckage fell," was a primary selling point for the Muslims who bought the building.

Analysis

Islamic proponents of the mosque have dubbed the facility the Cordoba House. Cordoba Initiative, the sponsor of Cordoba House, said that the name is meant to invoke 8th-11th century Córdoba, Spain, a time and a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews co-existed peacefully. The project's name raised issues for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who said that it was a "a deliberately insulting term" on the grounds that Córdoba was the capital of the Caliphate of Córdoba during the period of Muslim rule in Spain, following the Umayyad defeat of the Visigoths in the 8th century.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder and CEO of the Cordoba Initiative, is an author and activist whose stated goal is to improve relations between the Muslim World and the West. However, following the Islamic terrorist attacks on 9/11, Rauf sent mixed messages. Nineteen days after 9/11, he told CBS's 60 Minutes that fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. But when asked if the U.S. deserved the attacks, Rauf answered: "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States' policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."

In 2004, Rauf said the U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end. Speaking at his New York mosque, Abdul Rauf said, "The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets."

Both Dresden and Hiroshima were, in fact military targets. Dresden was a transportation hub, and its railway marshaling yard handled 4,000 cars a day. The Japanese Second Army and Chugoku Regional Army were both headquartered in Hiroshima, and the Army Marine Headquarters was located at the city's Ujina port. Hiroshima was also home to large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping.

The editors of National Review wrote, "While he [Rauf] cannot quite bring himself to blame the terrorists for being terrorists, he finds it easy to blame the United States for being a victim of terrorism."

Rauf has also been subject to criticism from the Muslim community. Suleiman Schwartz has said that a building built by Rauf barely two blocks from ground zero is inconsistent with Sufi philosophy of simplicity of faith and sensitivity towards others.

Questions as to source of funding

Claudia Rosett, a journalist with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a weekly columnist for Forbes, devoted two columns to questioning the source of the funding for the project. Some U.S. politicians such as Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who is an Independent Democrat, and New York Congressmen Peter King and Rick Lazio, both Republicans, asked for an investigation of the group's finances, especially its foreign funding. King said: "The people who are involved in the construction of the mosque are refusing to say where their [$100 million] funding is going to come from." Lazio said: "Let's have transparency. If they're foreign governments, we ought to know about it. If they're radical organizations, we ought to know about it."

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, noted: "There should be transparency about who those investors are, whether that money is coming from domestic interests or not, and if it's coming from foreign interests we need to know, because I think that's a liability, and it shows that there is another agenda rather than domestic security and tranquility."

Rauf said he would raise money solely from the Muslim American community. However, NBC and The New York Post reported that in contrast he also told a London-based Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that he would seek funding from Muslim and Arab nations.

Election Impact

Larry Sabato, who directs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said, "It was both politically foolish and unnecessary for President Obama to take a stand on what the White House had rightly called a local issue. This has added an unnecessary burden to the Democratic candidates who are actually on the ballot in November, which, of course, Obama is not," he said.

Many Democrats would prefer not to be drawn into taking a stand on the mosque controversy. And some disagree with the president on the issue including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid is involved in a tight re-election battle in his home state of Nevada.

Democrats are already on the defensive because of the weak national economy. And Sabato says many Democratic House and Senate candidates wish that the president had not spoken out on the mosque issue.

"He is the leader of the [Democratic] party," he said. "He is supposed to be looking out for the welfare of his troops and I don't think he did so in this case. You know, presidents learn sooner or later that it is okay to duck the occasional issue when you have reason to do so, and he clearly had reason here and the opportunity."

When on the campaign trail in Ohio, Obama was asked about his endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque, he said he had "no regrets."