Our extremists – Gingrich, et al. – boost Islamic extremists
Experts worry the controversy surrounding an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing right into the hands of radical extremists.
The supercharged debate over the proposed center has attracted the attention of a quiet, underground audience — young Muslims who drift in and out of jihadi chat rooms and frequent radical Islamic sites on the Web. It has become the No. 1 topic of discussion in recent days and proof positive, according to some of the posted messages, that America is indeed at war with Islam.
“This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands,” said Evan F. Kohlmann, who tracks these kinds of websites and chat rooms for Flashpoint Global partners, a New York-based security firm. “Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.
“It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn’t be happier.”
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614 comments Add your comment
MAC
August 25th, 2010
10:13 am
Word! From James Taranto in the WSJ:
“For a project that is supposed to encourage reconciliation, though, the Ground Zero mosque is certainly stirring up a lot of hatred–among its supporters. Here’s Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post:
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” Daisy Khan, a founder of the mosque (and the wife of the imam), rejected any compromise. She was right to do so because to compromise is to accede, even a bit, to the arguments of bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed. This is no longer her fight. The fight is now all of ours.
And here’s a passage from an NPR “Morning Edition” report today, titled “Rancor Over Mosque Could Fuel Islamic Extremists”:
“This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands,” said Evan F. Kohlmann, who tracks these kinds of websites and chat rooms for Flashpoint Global partners, a New York-based security firm. “Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.
“It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn’t be happier.”
To Cohen, two-thirds of Americans are “bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed.” To Kohlmann, even moderate Muslims are inclined toward mass murder if they don’t get their way. Both these statements are not merely bigoted but downright unhinged.
Something about this mosque project is causing–or bringing to the surface–the utter derangement of its supporters. It is ugly and disturbing to watch, and all the more reason to think the idea is a bad one.”
chuck
August 25th, 2010
10:16 am
I am and always have been a STAUNCH SUPPORTER of Freedom of Religion. I have never come across a case bad enough that it would cause me to change the level of my support until now, though those nuts from Kansas came close.
The plain truth of the matter is that we ARE AT WAR WITH RADICAL ISLAM AND WE SHOULD BE. It is one thing to be in disagreement with our government…who isn’t right now? It is another thing entirely for churches to ACTIVELY ADVOCATE FOR THE KILLING OF AMERICANS. This has been the case in many Mosques right here in the USA and we should put a stop to it until they clean up their act.
There are several steps we can take.
First, we should shut down our borders to “Imams”, PERIOD. We should not allow them to enter our country at all. In fact, we should halt all travel visas to the US from any predominantly Muslim country that is not on board and HELPING us put a stop to terrorism. Especially, Indonesia, Yemen, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. We should also stop all trade with these countries. Recent reports indicate that YEMEN is the new Afghanistan in terms of training Al Queda operatives. We may even need to infiltrate some of these Mosques with a history of fomenting death and destruction of America and look into shutting them down. It is not something that I say lightly and it is unpleasant, but it may be necessary.
We need to identify threats in those countries and Blow ‘em to heck. Ask Khadafi…a few well placed cruise missles will do a lot to shut some of these training camps down. We should have already hit Iran’s nuclear plants and the factories where they are building their drones.
We need to drill on our own land for oil AND put our best minds to work on alternatives to fossil fuel. We’ve got to do better than this idiotic concept from GM. A 40 mile range is worse than useless. We have to have REAL alternatives that EVERYBODY can afford. Hydrogen seems to be the best option because it is so easily obtained and abundant. Biodiesels won’t work because if too many people adopt that fuel, supplies will never keep up with demand.
thomas
August 25th, 2010
10:33 am
Normal
August 25th, 2010
9:59 am
Do you often make many assumptions about a person based on maybe a few snippetts from them?
You claim I am affraid of the mosque….. which if you knew me you would understand there are few if anythings i am affraid of.
You claim i bring up Nazi’s when left with nothing to say…. i bel;ieve the same thing could be said for the liberal bloggers here….You all accuse those who have different opinions than yours to be fearful…. what am i affraid of?
i only brought up the Nazi’s in this case b/c in 1977 a very similar situation happened and liberals and democrats fell on a waaaaaay different side on that issue. The Nazi’s had all of teh proper paper work and had paid all of the proper fees… yet they werer not allowed to march because of outside and inside influences……. The Nazi’s moved their parade to a neighboring town.
Are you saying teh Jews were scared of the nazi’s was their reason for not wanting them? what about all the other people who also felt the parade was in bad taste? Were they denying the Nazi’s constitutional rights?
Its apples to apples and you just don’t like the cider sorry!
What part of America do I need to re-connect with……. the one where i make judgements about a person i have never met, and claim to know their fears?
Normal
August 25th, 2010
10:47 am
thomas
August 25th, 2010
10:33 am
Nice side step Thomas…you should be a politician.
Or you see I have a valid argument, and refuse to debate it.
Either way, I don’t care.
Normal
August 25th, 2010
10:51 am
Thomas,
And this is the dumbest of them all..
Are you saying teh Jews were scared of the nazi’s was their reason for not wanting them? what about all the other people who also felt the parade was in bad taste? Were they denying the Nazi’s constitutional rights?
You just don’t get it. As I tried to explain, like it or not, the Nazi’s had the right to march. Freedom of assembly, plain and simple.
That is our way. We have those freedoms.
Saul Good
August 25th, 2010
10:58 am
Chuck,
There are nearly 1.5 BILLION Muslims around the world..if ALL of them were involved in Jihad…we’d ALL be dead. Period. Get over it…
chuck
August 25th, 2010
11:21 am
Saul Good, I said we are at war with RADICAL ISLAM…NOT Islam as a whole. However, IF ALL of them were Radical Islamists, we would not all be dead but a whole lot of them would be. That’s what nukes are for baby!
Saul Good
August 25th, 2010
11:27 am
Chuck…so how do we NUKE those over here? Those born here? Raised here?
Perhaps you believe we should “deport” American Muslims… those here for generations…those who are new but have become US Citizens as well…
IF so…what should we do with RADICAL Christians and RADICAL Jews? They live here too….
chuck
August 25th, 2010
12:08 pm
I don’t know of any RADICAL Christians or Jews who are advocating killing Americans. If there are any, and I doubt it, then they are no different from Radical Islamists. As for those RADICAL Islamists that are already hers, I answered that in my original post.
Paulo977
August 25th, 2010
12:30 pm
“From discord,find harmony”
Albert Einstein
May not be all that apparent ,but we are all still here on this planet with the forces of goodwill working to preserve productive thought!!
Saul Good
August 25th, 2010
1:07 pm
“I don’t know of any RADICAL Christians”
Scott Roeder… was HE radical enough to enter a church and kill Dr. Tiller? How about Timothy McVeigh? he “radical” enough for ya?
Mr Right
August 25th, 2010
1:39 pm
Saul Good
August 25th, 2010
1:07 pm
“I don’t know of any RADICAL Christians”
Scott Roeder… was HE radical enough to enter a church and kill Dr. Tiller? How about Timothy McVeigh? he “radical” enough for ya?
How about radical atheists?
Terrible Swift Sword
August 25th, 2010
2:36 pm
Not being a part of the “I hope we don’t make them mad” crowd, I don’t understand this kind of thinking.
As far as Muslim extremists are concerned, kill them all and let God sort ‘em out.
I’m still looking for the moderate Muslims….. [crickets chirping]
Granny Godzilla
August 27th, 2010
4:07 pm
What are the odd against going to heaven