A Reasoned Perspective on the Mosque

Had the September 11 terrorist attacks on America occurred during a saner time, the receptiveness of this country towards any tenets of Islam would have been seriously undercut both in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, and for at least as long as those who witnessed the event were alive to recall it. Yet, in the face of “political correctness,” rationality has largely been eradicated from the national conversation. In its place, mindless nihilism, masquerading as post-modern virtue, threatens the culture, and ultimately the nation, with an intentional commitment to stupidity that portends an inglorious national suicide.

It increasingly appears that Osama Bin Laden’s contention of the United States as a “paper tiger” was right. Though the nation initially recoiled at the attack, even waging and prevailing in two major wars over it, when considered from the diabolically patient perspective of Islam, which operates not in periods of weeks or months, but in years, decades, and even centuries, the terrorist strike looks ever more to be a resounding success.

Now, in a sequel to that horrific event, which is plainly intended to thoroughly and irreparably disgrace this nation, Islamic activists are preparing to do their equivalent of planting the flag on top of Mount Suribachi. Islamist Feisal Abdul Rauf is currently leading an effort to build a Mosque at Ground Zero, in what can only be honestly construed as a shrine to commemorate a successful military operation against the United States. Far worse is that, for a host of treacherous reasons, key figures throughout the U.S. are actively supporting his sordid effort.

It should be no surprise that Rauf and his kindred desperately want to entrench and advance from that beachhead which their cohorts so violently established nine years ago. In contrast, the fact that inhabitants of this nation, claiming to be good Americans, would want to collaborate with the Islamists might seem a bit confusing, unless considered against the backdrop of the current social and cultural climate.

In many ways, the entire Mosque issue encapsulates the monumental struggle between those whom Barack Obama derided as the “bitter clingers” and the radical leftists who have insinuated themselves throughout the political establishment and in particular, at the reins of power within the modern Democrat Party. That this entire conversation is even taking place and its principals taken seriously instead of being run out of office as traitors, proves how completely the inane precepts of “political correctness” have permeated the inner circles of government.

In a perverted sense, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) is right though, as usual, her castigation of her adversaries once again reveals more about herself than the targets of her criticism. This is indeed a “political issue” as she asserted in her attempt to deride opposition to the Mosque. Both the American left and the Islamists seek the same end game, the reinvention of the United States of America. Is it therefore any wonder then that the divide between supporters and opponents of a monument to America’s enemies, strategically erected at the very place of the worst attack on American soil in history, would congeal conspicuously along partisan lines?

Nevertheless, the liberal intelligentsia babble on, spewing their platitudes of selectively invoked “tolerance,” believing themselves to be in concert with, and cordially allied with the Islamists. Though their guiding philosophies would eventually pit them against each other, the moral relativists and multiculturalists who comprise America’s liberal “elite” ultimately envision the same eradication of traditional America as the Islamists. What they are incapable of understanding is that, in such a world, their own futures would be likewise abolished.

The cold reality is that militant Muslims possess a dubious heritage of fourteen centuries as history’s most effective “community organizers,” resorting in recent years to the standard Alinsky tactics of labeling all opposition as “bigotry,” “hate,” or “Islamophobia.” But they can also be counted upon to employ far more coercive means whenever mere protest and intimidation fail to persuade.

Rauf can cleverly claim that the “real” purpose of his establishment is to advance “interfaith tolerance and respect.” Yet in light of the fundamental tenets of Islam, which strictly prohibit collusion among differing religions, such a statement makes him either a Muslim heretic, or a liar (which, according to the Koran, is permissible behavior if the goal is the advancement of Islam). Under these premises, he can paint himself and his cause as conciliatory and reasonable, counting on the assistance of those gullible members of the American left who are either too pathologically naive to comprehend the impending threat, or to blinded by their own perverse ideology to recognize their role as mere pawns in this game.

The builders of the mosque are motivated by an anti-Christian, anti-American sentiment. Liberals support the same, remaining deliberately ignorant that liberalism can only afford to bask in the blessings of liberty because of American establishments and American institutions that it is likewise seeking to destroy. This again is why the Mosque controversy is, at its core, a “right versus left” issue.

They can accept the profuse drivel from Rauf that his intentions are honorable and benign. They can insist that the jihadists are only a tiny “fringe,” while most Muslims are peaceable, which is as relevant as the fact that on September 11, 2001 the vast majority of airlines landed safely throughout America and the world.

In past centuries, Muslim invasions of the European continent were stalled and eventually rebuffed because the nations of Europe knew the consequences of acquiescence and were resolved not to allow that to be their fate. Similar ideologies shored up America’s defenses in more recent history, since it was founded upon a set of guiding principles known as the “Judeo-Christian” ethic. Under these principles it has prospered, flourished, and prevailed, even against the ferocious power of the Reich and the evils of Soviet Communism.

But a country built on such ideals cannot indefinitely survive the current pandemic stupidity. And that stupidity cannot be overcome if those who know and espouse the truth allow themselves to be shackled within the boundaries of liberal philosophies that doggedly refuse, on the basis of their delusional arrogance, to acknowledge the true nature of the peril facing the nation.