http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/09/us-state-dept-sends-mosque-imam-to-mideast/
“US State Dept Sends Mosque Imam to Mideast”
August 9, 2010 - 7:01 PM | by: Jake Gibson
SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON– State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab.”
SNIPPET: “Rauf has emerged as a controversial figure because of his refusal to acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization, which is how the U.S. government classifies the group. The imam also has been quoted as saying U.S. foreign policy was in part responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
“He is a distinguished Muslim cleric,” said State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley. “We do have a program whereby, through our Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau here at the State Department, we send people from Muslim communities here in this country around the world to help people overseas understand our society and the role of religion within our society.””
Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2568280/posts
Behind The Ground Zero Mosque
IBD Editorials ^ | August 10, 2010 | Investors Business Daily staff
Posted on August 10, 2010 4:40:08 PM PDT by Kaslin
Sacred Sites: While a Greek Orthodox church is held up near ground zero, the Cordoba Mosque is fast-tracked on property the developers don’t own. Moderate Muslims and Muslim victims of 9/11 say it’s a provocation.
Like the fabled Trojan Horse, the Cordoba Mosque is touted as an offering of friendship and a chance for us to show our tolerance. But its march toward construction has been marked with deceit, fraud and double standards.
Before Islamofascists turned passenger jets into cruise missiles and toppled the World Trade Center, mosques and Islamic cultural centers dotted America. Not a single Christian church exists in Saudi Arabia. We’ve shown our tolerance. We do not need to show our naivete.
As the New York Post has discovered, one of the parcels the mosque is to be built on is owned by Con Edison, even though Soho Properties told officials and the public it owned all the land. Soho only leases the property. Con Edison mysteriously kept quiet all this time, perhaps at the urging of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for whom the mosque is a high priority.
It’s certainly a higher priority than St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which used to be right across the street from the WTC until it was crushed when Tower 2 and its incinerated inhabitants came crashing down on it.
Plans to rebuild St. Nicholas two blocks from its original location fell apart when Port Authority officials objected to its 24,000-square-foot footprint with a traditional grand dome that they said could not rise higher than the planned WTC memorial. Yet no objection was raised to a 13-story mosque on which no height restrictions were placed.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...