Imam: Handling of Islamic center plan a matter of national security

[Turborama]

Source: CNN

The religious leader behind plans to erect an Islamic center and mosque a few blocks from New York's ground zero said Wednesday night that America's national security depends on how it handles the controversy. "If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told CNN's Soledad O'Brien on "Larry King Live."

"The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack."

The imam, who repeatedly said his mission was to promote peace and build a bridge among faiths, said he was also speaking about "radicals" on both sides of the debate on the Islamic center. "Our national security now hinges on how we negotiate this, how we speak about it."

"The battlefront is between moderates of all sides... and the radicals on all sides," he said.
Moving the project to another location would strengthen Islamist radicals' ability to recruit followers and will likely increase violence against Americans, the imam said.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/09/08/imam.lkl/#fbid=5tFS21of5oJ&wom=false

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[Arrowhead2k1]

1. I was actually really impressed with this guy tonight.

Where has he been hiding? He's got the most sensible voice on this issue. A true progressive in his own way that wants to move the country forward.

[Loudmxr]

2. The right wing in this country has always been the top recruiting tool of Al Queda.

There was no Al Queda in Iraq till we invaded. We had very few home grown islamic terrorists till the Reagan/Bush years. I could go on and on and on. These people have radicalized a generation of people against us.

They are proud of it. They will not apologize. They must be called out in the strongest terms as a threat to our country. :patriot:

[4saken]

3. Well..

The fundamentalist interpretations existed long before the Iraq war, this just activates the response that was put forth by scripture. How does the location of one building actually justify violence? The whole controversy is stupid, but the driving forces leading individuals to become convinced of these fundamentalist interpretations initially are to blame, not the people who drive them to appeal to them afterward. A similar scenario happened with the Draw Mohammad Day, where dogma invokes its ability to be interpreted to justify violence, in that case, to censor. The one who draws Mohammad, or is stupid enough to be against the building of this Community Center isn't really to blame, no matter how stupid or insensitive their nonviolent actions are. I'm not saying they aren't a variable in the equation, I'm just saying they aren't a very relevant one here. If my belief system included the acceptance of the claim that drawing a depiction of Thor justified violence against the artist, how would the artist drawing it bare the blame for the reaction implied by the claim I accepted?