Replies

Background link with ongoing updates:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408932/posts

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Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408932/posts?page=378#378

To: All
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/09/us-state-dept-sends-mosque-imam-to-mideast/

“US State Dept Sends Mosque Imam to Mideast”
August 9, 2010 - 7:01 PM | by: Jake Gibson

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON– State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab.”

SNIPPET: “Rauf has emerged as a controversial figure because of his refusal to acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization, which is how the U.S. government classifies the group. The imam also has been quoted as saying U.S. foreign policy was in part responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

“He is a distinguished Muslim cleric,” said State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley. “We do have a program whereby, through our Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau here at the State Department, we send people from Muslim communities here in this country around the world to help people overseas understand our society and the role of religion within our society.””

378 posted on August 11, 2010 2:22:53 AM PDT by Cindy

Background link with ongoing updates:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408932/posts

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408932/posts?page=413#413

To: All
http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/08/asra-nomani-on-ground-zero-mosque-opponents-their

“For The Record - The IPT Blog”

“Asra Nomani on Ground Zero Mosque Opponents: “their fears are legitimate””
by IPT News • Aug 13, 2010 at 12:58 pm

SNIPPET: “As the debate rages on over the planned Islamic cultural center near ground zero, most American Muslim groups have come out to vocally support the project. But there are those, even in the Muslim community, who are concerned with having a mosque so close to the site of the worst terrorist attack on American soil. One such woman is Asra Q. Nomani, who took to the pages of The Daily Beast to explain why she was uncomfortable with the planned Cordoba Project.

Writing about a trip she recently took with her son to visit Ground Zero, Nomani recalls how on the way home they passed by two locations—the place where the planned Cordoba House will sit and the Masjid Manhattan, “known in the Muslim community as the ‘Salafi mosque.” And, as Nomani explains, while the leaders of these organizations would say they speak for Islam, “the worlds represented by these two mosques could not be further apart.”

The problem Nomani says, is an unwillingness to recognize and denounce radicalism:

“In the name of political correctness, too many inside our Muslim community have been apologists for Islam, feeling defensive, but not being as brutally honest as the world needs us to be about the problem.”

And that, according to Nomani, makes the concerns of New Yorker’s understandable.”

413 posted on August 14, 2010 3:19:12 PM PDT by Cindy