Fact-Checking the AP ‘Fact Check’ On the Ground Zero Mosque

Stop the presses! This just in: The Associated Press “standards center” has issued a “staff advisory” on covering what is to be known from here on out as “the New York City mosque.” From now on, the AP “staff” – and, therefore, everybody who still actually reads newspapers that still actually use the wire service’s copy – is supposed to conform to what amounts to the Muslim Brotherhood narrative about the Islamic cultural center formerly known as the “Ground Zero mosque.”

AP’s Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production, Tom Kent, sent this “guidance” out to his colleagues, with inputs from Chad Roedemeier in the New York bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington: “We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘Ground Zero mosque’ or ‘mosque at Ground Zero’ on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at Ground Zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” Ground Zero, or two blocks away.”

Interestingly, among those who formerly used the now-proscribed descriptor “Ground Zero mosque” is none other than Feisal Abdul Rauf, its imam and chief promoter. He called it that even though the proposed venue has always been two blocks away from the World Trade Center site.

Perhaps Rauf used this moniker because his planned location for the mosque was part of the real estate attacked and damaged on 9/11 – the home of the Burlington Coat Factory until it was struck by a landing gear from a plane that struck one of the Twin Towers. Perhaps he used that term to brand his “Cordoba House” because body parts from the victims of those attacks have been found all over Lower Manhattan, including the old Burlington factory area, making it part of the hallowed ground.

Or perhaps, Imam Rauf called his project the Ground Zero mosque because he wanted to associate his 15-story, $100 million complex as closely as possible to the location where nearly 3,000 Americans and other innocent people – precisely because they were murdered there by people who wanted, as he does, to “bring shariah to America.”

The last explanation would certainly conform to the triumphalist past practice of adherents to shariah, the barbaric, totalitarian political program that masquerades as a religion. Indeed, there is a tradition of constructing mosques at the site of previous Islamic conquests for example in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Cordoba, Spain. Yes, it was for Cordoba – where a Catholic church was converted into the world’s third largest mosque by the Moorish conquerors of Spain – that Rauf wanted initially to name his Ground Zero mosque.

We can’t get a clarification from Imam Rauf about precisely why he wanted to call his complex the Ground Zero mosque. He seems to be incommunicado as he is, just now, on an extended overseas stay, including stops in Malaysia and a U.S. taxpayer-underwritten trip to Middle East capitals. This foray could not be more convenient as the imam seeks to raise the nine-figure sum required to build his facility now being repackaged as simply an address: “Park 51.”

In his absence, it has mostly fallen to Muslim Brotherhood operatives associated with fronts like the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society to tout the mosque. And all they want to do is get others – especially in the media and government – to drive home themes like those presented as “facts” by the Associated Press.

The Brotherhood has already succeeded brilliantly at this in the past. For example, the “guidelines” adopted in October 2001 by the Society of Professional Journalists explicitly call for its members to use spellings “preferred by the American Muslim Council, including ‘Muhammad,’ ‘Quran,’ and ‘Makkah,’ not ‘Mecca’ – at a time when the AMC was one of the most prominent Brotherhood fronts in the United States.

The guidelines also endorsed a quintessential bit of Brotherhood taqqiya for the consumption of non-Muslims:  “The basic meaning of ‘jihad’ is to exert oneself for the good of Islam and to better oneself.”  In fact, there is no basis in doctrinal Islam for concluding that jihad means anything other than waging holy war for the triumph of shariah. These and similar guidelines have contributed to grievously deficient reporting on the true nature of shariah and its insinuation into the United States.

It behooves us, therefore, to do a fact check on AP’s “fact check”:

AP: “A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.”

THE FACTS: “Demonized” is a loaded term that denigrates the criticism Republicans and a growing number of Democrats – including Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader – have properly made of the site of the Ground Zero Mosque and, in some cases, of its Imam. The issue is not whether Muslims pray in proximity to Ground Zero – or the Pentagon’s equally hallowed ground. Rather, it is whether they and the facility in which they pray are dedicated to the promotion of the seditious, anti-constitutional program of Shariah. If so, it is a problem. If not, not.

AP: “…The imam [Rauf] who’s being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.”

THE FACTS: The salient point is not that Rauf is being “branded an extremist.” It is that he is an avid promoter of shariah in the United States. That means, by definition, that he wishes to impose an intolerant, misogynistic and supremacist political program and system of law inside our country – with the ultimate purpose of replacing our Constitution, system of government and way of life with something akin to those of Saudi Arabia.

For most Americans that would be correctly seen as an “extremist” agenda. Suffice it to say it is an unacceptableone – even though U.S. administrations of both parties failed to recognize or treat it as such, provided that agenda is advanced “non-violently.”

It is as much an indictment of our government as of the stealth jihadists like Rauf that it has allowed them, and in some cases funded them, to pursue the same objectives as al Qaeda – namely, establishment of a global Caliphate applying shariah worldwide, albeit through means the Muslim Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad,” rather than terror.

AP: “…Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.”

THE FACTS: Rauf is only “complex” to the extent that journalists or government officials fail to do due diligence on him. To be sure, he engages in the shariah-authorized practice of taqqiya – dissembling for the faith – when speaking to non-Muslims about “bridge-building” and tolerance.

His real purpose, however, is made clear in his books, notably Islam: A Sacred Law – What Every Muslim Should Know About Shariah, in which Rauf enthuses about the Wahhabi and Salafi doctrines. Then, there are his associations with Muslim Brotherhood fronts like the Islamic Society of North America and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, that published a special edition of his book What’s Right About Islam is What’s Right about America. (Interestingly, it appeared in Malaysia under the very different title: A Call to Prayer from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Dawah in the Heart of America Post 9/11). But most instructive of all is Rauf’s commitment to shariah, which clearly defines him as one of the problems in the so-called “American Muslim world.”

AP: “[Rauf’s] devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He’s scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the “Dark Ages.”

THE FACTS: Like many in the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Rauf has used “interfaith dialogue” as a useful cover for obscuring his true purposes – realizing “a perfect shariah nation” here. This is generally most successful among religious leaders of other faiths who have no notion of what shariah is, let alone that they are being exploited to help insinuate it into the United States.

As to “scolding his own religion,” shariah is a product of the “Dark Ages” and it condemns all those who are subjected to its dictates to living largely in such primitive and brutal times. Look at Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and the Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

AP: “[Rauf has] also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaeda, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.” “In a July 2005 speech at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center in Adelaide, Australia, while calling terrorism unjustified, he said the U.S. has supported authoritarian regimes with heinous human rights records and, faced with that, ‘How else do people get attention?’”

THE FACTS: Rauf has, indeed, given such evidence of his true colors – in the process of doing so, overlooking the inconvenient fact that his shariah-adherent friends in al Qaeda and myriad similar Islamist organizations and various Muslim nations have killed vastly more of his co-religionists than has the United States or anybody else. Other clues? He has also refused to condemn the terrorist group, Hamas. And he has helped fund the flotilla that violently tried to run Israel’s defensive blockade of Gaza.

AP: “Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter [of the Ground Zero mosque] has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the September 11, 2001 victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.”

THE FACTS: Shariah is mainstream Islam. The parts of the world where Islam is not practiced in accordance with its dictates have simply not been subjected fully to them as yet. Shariah’s practices and requirements are objectively “radical.” But they are also derived from the sacred texts, traditions, interpretations and scholarly consensus of the faith, making them mainstream.

AP: “No one has established a link between the cleric and radicals. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said, “We’ve identified no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque.”

THE FACTS: Because the term “radicals” with respect to Islam has come to be reserved for those who pursue the jihad (holy war) commanded by shariah only through violent means, the myriad, obvious and longstanding ties Rauf has to those pursuing jihad through non-violent means, by definition, do not count. It is particularly troubling that the NYPD sees “no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque.” After all, the Department itself issued a report in August 2008 warning that Wahhabi mosques like the one Rauf wishes to build within “spitting distance” of Ground Zero are incubators for terrorism. The spokesman’s statement suggests the NYPD is no longer alive to this danger, perhaps in deference to political direction from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a vociferous champion of the Ground Zero mosque.

AP: “Rauf counts former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from the Clinton administration as a friend and appeared at events overseas or meetings in Washington with former President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush adviser Karen Hughes.”

THE FACTS: All three of the character witnesses AP cites on Rauf’s behalf displayed abysmal judgment about Muslim Brotherhood operatives and agendas while in office. Rauf is hardly the only one to benefit from government-enabled travel, access to senior officials, legitimization and the opportunity to influence American foreign and domestic policy. Madeleine Albright has continued to demonstrate such bad judgment after leaving office by co-chairing the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative, a highly successful Brotherhood-tied influence operation geared toward bipartisan and interfaith elites.

AP: “No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearer of the two destroyed in the attacks.

The center’s location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam’s former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds. Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.”

THE FACTS: As noted above, it is not unreasonable to characterize the site as being “at” Ground Zero, given that it was one of the buildings damaged in the 9/11 attack, is within the zone over which the remains of the murdered were scattered and has been called by the promoter of the initiative himself “the Ground Zero mosque.”

The fact that other mosques are found in Manhattan simply makes the point that the issue is with Feisal Abdul Rauf, his agenda and his mosque, not with freedom of worship.

AP: “To be sure, the center’s association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center’s planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.”

THE FACTS: The promoters of this mosque are indeed intentionally situating it at Ground Zero, but as shariah does not consider the murder of infidels to be “terrorism,” its adherents can condemn “terrorism” – defined as the unlawful killing of innocents who are, by definition only believers in Islam – without even having to resort to taqqiya (intentional lying).

AP: After quoting Newt Gingrich and a Florida congressional candidate to the effect that our “civilization” and “way of life” are on the line, AP referred approvingly (and surprisingly) to George W. Bush who “while criticized at the time for stirring suspicions about American Muslims, traveled to a Washington mosque less than a week after the attacks to declare that terrorism is ‘not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.’”

THE FACTS: In the days and years after 9/11, President Bush rightly sought to make clear that the United States was not at war with all of Islam. In the process of doing so, however, he was subjected to the same sort of Muslim Brotherhood influence operations and disinformation that is much in evidence in this AP report. Islam’s shariah is not “peace.” Its adherents are committed to wage war against us, through violent means or stealthy ones. We confuse them with followers of a peaceful religion, entitled to the full protection of religious freedom guaranteed under our Constitution, at our extreme peril.

AP: “The U.S. armed forces field Muslim troops and make accommodations for them. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel in November 2002 close to the area where hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 184 people. Muslims gather there for a daily prayer service Monday through Thursday and hold a weekly worship service on Fridays, drawing no complaints. Similar but separate services are provided for other faiths.”

THE FACTS: To the extent Muslim soldiers follow the dictates of shariah, as did Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the perpetrator of the Ft. Hood massacre last November, they are a danger to their comrades, and potentially to the rest of us. Accommodations like those that kept him in the service despite evidence of his devotion to shariah are an invitation to jihadism in the ranks.

As noted above, there is no objection to having interfaith chapels in proximity to hallowed ground, so long as what is practiced in them is not promoting a totalitarian program that is about power, not faith – specifically the replacement of the U.S. Constitution to which every serviceman and woman has sworn an oath. And that is precisely what Feisal Abdul Rauf intends to do should he be allowed to open a megamosque at Ground Zero, or any place else in America.