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