This is in response to Stephen Biernesser’s letter “Ground Zero debate not so simple,” (CT, Sept. 2) about the Ground Zero mosque.
I don’t want to fill this newspaper up with back and forth arguments, but this made a response necessary. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is his first and, more or less, only objection, a Sufi Muslim — basically the Islamic version of a Quaker. Were Rauf’s statements objectionable? Certainly not.
For someone claiming to be a fact-checker, this was awfully short on facts. Rauf’s exact words were “I wouldn’t say the United States deserved what happened on Sept. 11, but the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.” Is this controversial? No.
Former chairman and vice chairman of 9/11 Commission, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton wrote back in 2007, “We face a rising tide of radicalization and rage in the Muslim world — a trend to which our own actions have contributed.” Former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council Graham E. Fuller wrote in 1998, “The Middle East — the center of world civilization for several millenia — is now beset with masses of poor citizens (apart from the oil states), bad social services, poor education, absence of democracy, constant abuse of human rights, widespread corruption, police states, often brutal rulers, no voice over their own fates; they are victims of truly bad governance in most states of the region. And what do they perceive? U.S. support for almost any ruler willing to protect U.S. interests — routinely identified in Washington as oil and Israel.”
And none other than far right-wing loud mouth Glenn Beck, whose rally on the anniversary and exact place of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was far more offensive than any NYC mosque, said, “When people said they hate us, well, did we deserve Sept. 11? No. But were we minding our business? No. Were we in bed with dictators and abandoned our values and principles? Yes. That causes problems.”
If what Rauf said was controversial, it is only controversial to the people in this country who refuse to look around the world and see the destruction that we have laid, including our dismantling of an Iraq that President Barack Obama has claimed we’re leaving (we’re not).
Of course, this leaves out a litany of our other meddlesome adventures, but you understand the point. This mosque would be anything but a victory for al Qaeda and other extremists. They want a clash of the cultures; they want a war on Islam; and a war on Islam is the exact message that the Middle East and South Asia will receive if this mosque is moved. A victory would be for freedom of religion, and there’s nothing more American than that.
Justin Seabe, senior biology major
A version of this article appeared in the Sep 8 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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I think calling the US accessory to the murder of 3000 US citizens is pretty radical and controversial. That is like calling a woman an accessory to her rape because she acted provocatively. Nothing justifies the destruction that was perpetrated by al Qaeda murderers and NOTHING the US did can remotely come close to the legal definition of "accessory".
Many US actions in the Middle East can be criticized but they were the actions of a sovereign government that was empowered the consent of the governed under with checks and balances. How can you find any moral equivalence between US foreign policy and bloody MURDER? This is more Liberalism gone wild.
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Blowback, baby. It is naive to think that our actions in the Middle East have had no part in the development of such deep hatred to be willing to give your life to kill a few Americans. And a military action undertaken outside of the Constitutional guidelines for the initiation of war, is not covered under "checks and balances". Yes, we voted these guys in, but then they went against the document they swore to uphold.
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Actually it has far more to do with our support of the state of Israel. The Clerics and Imams twist anti-Israeli racism into anti-American sentiment. On 9/11 the majority of the hijackers and the leader of the attacks came from Saudi Arabia. We've never invaded Saudi Arabia and the origins of radical Islam come from Egypt which is another country we've never invaded. It's not blow back.
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It's mind-boggling to me that anyone would deny the very basic connection between imperialism and pushback, even in raw terroristic forms. After all, a primary motivation for our invasions is often the target nation's aggressive policies that reach over their borders. This is just a circular issue, but to single out fundamentalist Muslims as the only ones who fight encroachment with violence is absurd and, typically, characteristic of a self-indulgent American mindset.
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I don't deny the connection between what you call "imperialism" (I call it fighting against tyranny in favor of self-determination, vis. Japan and Germany)and pushback. I just deny the rhetoric that calls the US an accessory to murder. If you don't see the US as a stalwart leader in the fight against tyranny then I can't advance this argument any further. Iraq is now the only free Muslim democracy-freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of press, freedom of enterprise, self-determination, etc nation in the middle east.
The "anti-imperialism" ideology espoused in these responses is a thinly disguised marxist ideology. My guess is that Howard Zinn's "People's History of the US" is behind this upside down thinking.
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Well, if you look at the aftermath of the Iraq occupation, it's clear that the US was the PERPETRATOR of murder -- not just an accessory. So if you're going to engage in rhetorical parsing, at least be consistent.
Iraq is not "free" until it is self-sustaining. As we've seen, the withdrawal of our combat troops was a farce, and the State cannot cohesively exist. All we did was stir up a hornet's nest, actually recruiting terrorists into the country who were not there before.
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Fact check before posting please. Iraq is NOT the only Muslim democracy. Try Turkey, try Indonesia (although a shaky democracy, but probably not as shaky as Iraq). Although these countries have human rights issues, they are still democracies.
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I wont deny that push back plays a role in the attacks we encounter in Iraq and Afghanistan but the attacks on the World Trade Center were not caused by this. There are two main reasons that we were attacked #1 we're allied with Islam's most despised country Israel and #2 the decline and stagnation in the middle east and the humiliation of the Islamic world. Bin Laden never got over the fact that the Saudis needed the West's help to stop Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. This was a double humiliation because Saddam had Islam's most powerful army and we defeated them badly. It wasn't even close to being a fair fight. This has happened over the past few decades where the government has been unable to protect itself and relies on Western support to deal with problems. The real problem here isn't Western involvement it's ineffective governments that can't take care of their people.
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I stand corrected on Turkey. Tip of hat..
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No, I was right to start with. My original comment was that Iraq was the sole Muslim democracy in the Middle East. Turkey is in the "Near East" and is about to enter the European Union. Indonesia....not in the Middle East. Speaking of fact checking, how 'bout ya read the comment COMPLETELY before you get up on yer high horse.
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You can't forget Afghanistan but you're right about Turkey not really being apart of the Middle East and it's a secular democracy anyway so it wouldn't count regardless.
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You say that Imam Rauf's were not controversial but you're wrong. His remarks caused controversy. By definition, this makes them controversial.
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