Imam Rauf Is Confused, Scared And Generally A Goof, At Best

By way of introduction I offer Michele Malkin's response to the news from the Ground Zero Mosque's Imam that Americans will pay in blood if the Mosque is moved.

Shhhhhhh, we're told. Don't protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don't burn a Koran. It'll imperil the troops. It'll inflame tensions. The "Muslim world" will "explode" if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the "Muslim world" not ready to "explode"?

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah's avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London's St. Paul's Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were "premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere."

Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world's atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company's "Air" logo looked like the Arabic script for "Allah." In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever's ice cream logo -- which Muslims claimed looked like "Allah" if read upside-down and backward (can't recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy's Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, "May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down."

Cont.

Imam Rauf, the man who couldn't foresee that the plans to build an Islamic Mosque at Ground Zero, (within a building struck by parts of a plane on 9/11/2001), would be a provocative move, now thinks it is his place to tell us what we already know; radical Islam is out to get us! Where does this guy get the idea that we need his leadership ominous instruction. We don't need his instruction, he needs ours.

The short-sighted Imam does not acknowledge the most glaring problem we face today. Radical Islam is a homicide sect which will make excuses to kill regardless of how behave. Instead he accuses those who oppose the location of his shrine as the being the intolerant ones. He seems to think we have forgotten that the terrorists have been killing us at every opportunity for decades. He seems to think that if he says we are wrong that we will accept his spiel. He seems ignorant, at best, that his pronouncement may be seen by the radical Muslims as a call to action. He appears to be a fifth columnist. He seems every bit the tool we suspect him of being. And, these impressions of him are his burden to carry, not ours.

I note that he made his most recent statements after his US Government paid trip to the Middle East. Or, should I call it his in-person consultations with his Islamic handlers? He certainly returned none the wiser to American sensibilities. His actions since his return have only increased tensions. We never heard of this man before this Mosque plan, and we won't miss him if he goes way.

This man should leave the public arena. He does not know how to further peaceful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. He is doing nothing to quell the insanity abroad. He is doing nothing to insure domestic tranquility.

But, of course he won't just go away. So, it is left to us to tell him what he should do next.

• First, humble yourself before the American public and acknowledge that you are an embarrassment as a domestic diplomat, and frightened beyond reason of the radical element in your religion thus making yourself useless in the war against terror.
  

• Secondly, do whatever you must to move the Mosque beyond the territory damaged by the Islam-inspired murders of 9/11.

• Thirdly, buck up and put your own safety on the line in the advancement humankind. Use your position as an Islamic holy man to instruct Muslims, both foreign and domestic, to stand down from anger and violence in reaction to the move. Be the symbol of Muslim reform toward a faith absent from insecurity and retribution. Cull from the Koran all sections which inspire or prescribe hatred, domination, and intolerance; and burn them yourself as a symbolic act.

• Fourth, further bolster the education of Muslims to the beneficence of the the USA, and to the erroneous myth that America is anti-Muslim.

• Fifth, Denounce those who choose to not accept the the USA is a source of good in the world.

• Sixth, repeat steps three through six ad infinite until Islam gets it and truly becomes a religion of peace.

In other words; Imam Rauf, put up, or shut up! In this entire matter you have done nothing to make us respect you, it is time for YOU to grow! It is time for your religion to reform!