FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood

WASHINGTON – A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood.

And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked. And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.

Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.

He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the "Dark Ages."

Yet he's also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.

------------------------------------------------------

THE FACTS:

No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal Lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearest of the two destroyed in the attacks.

The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.

Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.

To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism. ___

news.yahoo.com...

It's not really breaking news...but it hit a major corporate news website...so I posted it. They are at least now being forced to recognize some glimpse of truth.

Honestly...this isn't what fascinated me in this article.

These quotes taken from our so called political leaders is what got my attention from Newt Gingrich:

_"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." — Gingrich.

_"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. ... America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." — Gingrich.

_"This religion's plan is to destroy our way of life. ... If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians." — Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle, in an exchange reported by The News Herald in Panama City.

A lot of fact checks here too: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Let me know what you think.

will check it out lucid.

[edit on 18-8-2010 by David9176]

Another reason you could say that islam is already in the WTC area is due to the DNA from the hijackers being spread all over when the planes exploded into the buildings ...

The mosque is not really an issue. It's the Imam proposing it and the various idiosyncrasies surrounding its construction that amount to a raspberry being blown in our face.

Anyone want to take a guess on when the ground-breaking ceremony is supposed to be held?

Then there's the fact that the existing mosque in question was there prior to the 9/11 attacks.

New York can approve whatever construction they want - it's not our place to try and over-step the powers of the State.