André van Heerden conducting one of the interviews for Cloud Ten Pictures' upcoming documentary THE 12 BIGGEST LIES

When I first heard about a mosque being built at ground zero in Manhattan I thought it was a joke. I literally jumped on the urban legend sites to see if it was some sort of viral email joke. It wasn’t.

I then thought: well, no way this goes through. It’s ridiculous. It’s inappropriate. It’s just wrong. But somehow it kept going.
It now looks like it’s going to happen.

Crazy. Wrong. Insulting.

If any of those words above “offend” you – then you need to think about how offended the thousands of friends and families who lost someone on 9/11 feel about a shrine going up to the religion that killed their loves ones.

If I wrote this scenario in a screenplay I’m sure no one would believe it.

I wish there was more that I could do besides shake my head in disbelief and pray for wisdom and fairness and truth to prevail.

I applaud Bill Keller of Liveprayer for trying to build a 9/11 Christian center at Ground Zero.

I applaud Jack Kinsella (The Omega Letter, SHADOW GOVERNMENT, 12 BIGGEST LIES) for trying spread the truth about what is really happening.

- Blog intro by André van Heerden, Executive Producer/Director of Christian movie company Cloud Ten Pictures

Why Not A Monument To Hirohito at Arlington?

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee voted unanimously yesterday to allow the demolition of a 152 year-old building, denying a request that the former Burlington Coat Factory be declared an historic landmark.

The request for landmark status for the building was to prevent the construction of a thirteen-story Islamic worship center 100 yards away from Ground Zero where the World Trade Center Twin Towers once stood.

Proponents of the effort to have the building declared a landmark based their request, not on the building’s age, but on the fact that it was part of the 9/11 story. A piece of the landing gear from one of the planes landed on the roof of the building.

The building was covered with the ashes of the towers, its contents and the ashes of the dead. As such, the building, it was argued, was hallowed ground.

The committee disagreed, saying the building, constructed in 1858, was not ‘exceptional enough’ to warrant city protection, clearing the way for its demolition and replacement with the Cordoba Islamic Center.

The project is called “The Cordoba Initiative” in memory of the grand Cordoba Mosque in Andalusia. The project’s name reveals much about its real agenda.

In the 6th century, Spain was invaded and conquered by Islamic forces and divided into five administrative caliphates: Andalusia, Galacia and Portugal, Castile and Leon, Aragon and Catalonia, and Septimania.

Cordoba was the seat of al Andalus and allegedly a leading cultural center of advanced learning.The region was eventually reconquered by the Spanish, beginning with Leon and Castile in 1085 and ending with the surrender of al Andalus to King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492.

Osama bin-Laden claimed the Madrid Train Bombing on March 3, 2003 was in retaliation for al Andalus.

The surrender of al Andalus was made that much more humiliating by the fact that Ferdinand and Isabella were known as Los Reyes Catolicos or “The Catholic Monarchs” – hence the ‘Crusader’ connection.

Cordoba and al Andalus are therefore powerful symbols within Islam of lost territory and dreams of reconquest and revenge against the Western ‘Crusaders’.

The name “Cordoba Initiative” as viewed in its historical context can only reference an ‘initiative’ aimed at avenging Cordoba. Separate from the historical context, it doesn’t mean much.

The construction of the Cordoba Islamic Center was aggressively supported by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who argued for it based on a myriad of ‘reasons.’

First, said the mayor of America’s largest scofflaw sanctuary city, constructing the monument to Islam at Ground Zero demonstrates that New York City “respects the law”.

Then Bloomberg argued that allowing the construction of the mosque to go forward was a demonstration of democracy. “Democracy is stronger than this,” said Mayor Bloomberg, (despite polls that show a majority of Americans oppose the mosque’s construction.)

The chief promoter of the “Cordoba Initiative” is Imam Faisel Abdul Rauf. Rauf’s father was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, co-founded by Ayman al Zawahiri in Egypt. Rauf advocates a Western style of Islam he says “promotes democracy and tolerance”.

That’s what he says in English to the West. Walid Shoebat says Rauf says something entirely different in Arabic to the Muslim world.

“. . . we searched Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf’s own words – in the Arabic and not what he says in English to the western media. It should shock every American to find out that Faisal Abdul Rauf stated to the popular Islamic media Hadiyul-Islam (www.hadielislam.com) on May 26th, 2010 in an article by Sa’da Abdul Maksoud. In it he states that an Islamic state can be established regardless of the government being a kingdom or democracy. In another article titled “I do not believe in religious dialogue” should alarm the ardent skeptic on the mindset of the Islamic visionary who advocates establishing Islamic lobbies throughout the West.

He also admitted that “[In the West] they have separation of church and state, this of course does not exist in any Muslim country. About 99% refuse to separate religion from state and many call for establishing an Islamic Caliphate.”

And regarding religious dialogue Abdul-Rauf stated “this phrase is inaccurate. Religious dialogue as customary understood is a set of events with discussions in large hotels that result in nothing. Religions do not dialogue and dialogue is not present in the attitudes of the followers regardless of being Muslim or Christian. . . The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern.”

In English, Rauf says the purpose of the Cordoba Initiative is to “build bridges between faiths” by building a monument to Islam over the graves of its victims. According to what Rauf says in Arabic, the agenda of the Cordoba Initiative is the establishment of Sharia Law.

If you think that the ‘bridge-building’ explanation is a transparent lie and that the Cordoba Initiative is more insidious than that, guess what?

You’re either a racist or a bigot. Or both.

Assessment:

One of the dirtier words in the English language, now used as a euphemism for almost anything unpleasant, was once a useful shipping acronym.

Manure tends to build up explosive gases when it is compressed. So in the 17th century, manure shipments were labeled “Ship High In Transit.”

The words ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ used to mean something specific – now they are just a couple more dirty words used to insult and demean views that they find so intolerant that they just can’t tolerate hearing them.

The moment someone responds with an accusation of either racism or bigotry, it means he’s lost the argument on its merits and the only thing remaining is to attack the messenger instead of the message.

There is no bigotry involved in opposing the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero, or within its immediate environs. That is just the only argument remaining.

The nuns who wanted to build a convent near Auschwitz weren’t bigots. Neither were the Jews who opposed its construction on what amounted to a Jewish graveyard for the victims of anti-Semitism. The convent was not built.

Objecting to the construction of a thirteen-story monument to Islam at the site of Ground Zero is no more bigoted than objecting to the construction of a monument to Japanese Emperor Hirohito at the entrance to Arlington Memorial War Cemetery.

Japan is one of our closest allies. There are no Imperial Japanese left and if there are, they are in their eighties, not in power. Japan is no longer populated by fanatical Shinto warriors dedicated to the Bushido Code to die killing one’s enemies.

Emperor Hirohito escaped retribution for war crimes as a political necessity, but any effort to honor Hirohito by building a monument to him near a WWII war cemetery would be a deliberate provocation.

Opposing it would not be anti-Japanese or anti-Shinto ‘bigotry’ – it is an expression of respect for the victims of its aggression.

Calling the plan to construct a thirteen-story monument to Islam over the ashes of the victims of Islamic jihadists an ‘effort to build interfaith bridges’ is as specious as Bloomberg’s declaration that its construction is an expression of ‘democracy’s strength’.

It is worth remembering that in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, the practice of any religion except Islam is banned and punishable by death. So much for ‘interfaith bridge-building’.

As New Gingrich pointed out, we never rebuilt the World Trade Center. And now we’re unable to stop the building of a monument to Islam instead. It is a provocation, pure and simple.

More than that, it is a symbol of conquest. If not to the politically correct Useful Idiots that support it, then certainly to the racist bigots that want to build it — and their co-jihadists worldwide.

Oh, darn. I called them racist bigots — just because they want to kill us for not being them. I think I just lost my argument.

Along with my breakfast.

- Blog by Jack Kinsella of The Omega Letter