New York City mosque

[zoogs]

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

 

Did Hezbollah orchestrate the 9/11 attacks?

 

I think the situation is more nuanced than 'having trouble denouncing = supporting.'

[huzkerbob]

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

 

Did Hezbollah orchestrate the 9/11 attacks?

 

I think the situation is more nuanced than 'having trouble denouncing = supporting.'

 

True, but your average American often has problems seeing the "nuances" associated with issues like this.

[carlfense]

"If you're not with us, you're against us."

 

Did Hezbollah orchestrate the 9/11 attacks?

 

I think the situation is more nuanced than 'having trouble denouncing = supporting.'

 

Oh, I definitely agree. I was trying to keep it as simple as possible.

[sarge87]

David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh considered themselves Christians - maybe not the definition of Christian most Christians believe, but that was their belief.

Where is your basis for that statement?

 

McVeigh was a vile human being and had a falling out with Catholicism long before the bombing.

In his letter, McVeigh said he was an agnostic but that he would "improvise, adapt and overcome", if it turned out there was an afterlife. "If I'm going to hell," he wrote, "I'm gonna have a lot of company." The Guardian June 2001

 

McVeigh once said that he believed the universe was guided by natural law, energized by some universal higher power that showed each person right from wrong if they paid attention to what was going on inside them. He had also said, "Science is my religion."

Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing, 1st ed. (New York, NY: Regan Books, 2001), 142-143.

 

The only thing Koresh and McVeigh had in common was their belief in Anarchism.

 

Koresh fancied himself a modern day Leo Tolstoy, the Russian Christian Anarchist, and used the Anarchist Cookbook as a guide to making incendiaries.

 

While McVeigh openly rejected the book's racism, McVeigh's bible was The Turner Diaries which depicts violent revolution in the United States and leads to the overthrow of the U.S. Government. Photocopies of pages sixty-one and sixty-two of The Turner Diaries were found in an envelope inside McVeigh's car. These pages depicted a fictitious mortar attack upon the U.S. Capitol in Washington. McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff, where he spoke to a news reporter about his anger over what was happening there, which had everything to do with his personal war with the federal government and nothing to do with religious conviction.

 

McVeigh composed two letters to the BATF, the first titled "Constitutional Defenders" and the second "ATF Read." He denounced government agents as "fascist tyrants" and "storm troopers" and warned:

ATF, all you tyrannical mother f***ers will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials.

 

McVeigh said he began harboring anti-government feelings during the first Gulf War. In 1998, while in prison, McVeigh wrote an essay that criticized US foreign policy towards Iraq as being hypocritical:

* The administration has said that Iraq has no right to stockpile chemical or biological weapons ("weapons of mass destruction") – mainly because they have used them in the past. Well, if that's the standard by which these matters are decided, then the U.S. is the nation that set the precedent. The U.S. has stockpiled these same weapons (and more) for over 40 years. The U.S. claims that this was done for deterrent purposes during the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union. Why, then is it invalid for Iraq to claim the same reason (deterrence) — with respect to Iraq's (real) war with and the continued threat of, its neighbor Iran?

 

* If Saddam is such a demon and people are calling for war crimes charges and trials against him and his nation, why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of "mass destruction" — like those responsible and involved in dropping bombs on the cities mentioned above.

 

* The truth is, the U.S. has set the standard when it comes to the stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction.

McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for "what the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge."

 

Ruby Ridge was the site of a violent confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992. It involved Randy Weaver his family, Weaver's friend Kevin Harris, and agents of the U.S. Marshall's Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation. After an investigation of the siege, which led to a FBI sniper brought up on charges of manslaughter and later dismissed under sovereign immunity, numerous wrongful death lawsuits settled out of court for millions against the federal government which subsequently led to the Rules of Engagement of federal agencies to be changed.

 

However, the ROE would be disregarded again, leading to the Janet Reno cluster**** known as the Siege at Waco. Notwithstanding the government's wrongdoing in the incident, Koresh's culpability should not be disregarded either. Had he not set events in motion by simply just giving up to authorities and defend himself in a court of law, the useless slaughter of 80 people wouldn't have happened either.

[knapplc]

David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh considered themselves Christians - maybe not the definition of Christian most Christians believe, but that was their belief.

Where is your basis for that statement?

 

If McVeigh believed in Hell, he necessarily believed in God. One does not exist without the other.

 

McVeigh was a subscriber to The Patriot Report, a Christian Identity newsletter. McVeigh was also a huge fan of The Turner Diaries, written by Christian Identity proponent William Pierce, a man with whom McVeigh talked just before the bombing.

 

Source

 

 

As for David Koresh, you can find the answer to that question with a simple google. "The Branch Davidians refer to the Bible as their main standard of authority."

 

 

 

 

Neither McVeigh nor Koresh believed in the same kind of "Christianity" I believe in, but then again, the Muslims building the mosque we're talking about don't believe in the same form of Islam that bin Laden believes in.

 

 

 

I'll say this 'til I'm blue in the face - if we're going to hold these Muslims accountable for bin Laden, every Christian is going to have to answer for McVeigh and Koresh.

[zoogs]

I'd add to that by saying it doesn't especially matter what the religions of those two guys were, since there are other people who call themselves 'Christian' who commit heinous crimes.

[huskertim]

***snip*** The working title to the project was the Cordoba House, really, no history majors here I guess. If Rauf was as interested in reconciliation between the muslim and western worlds you think he could have shown a liitte of the "cultural sensativity" that he calls for from the rest of us. ***snip***

You might want to rethink this. Apparently you weren't a history major either. link

Interesting read, but I am in fact familiar with the history. In the early centeries of Islam it was common for muslim rulers to allow the citizens of a newly conquered territory to continue in their faith. This was a great advantage to being conquered by the muslims instead of the Byzintines and went along way toward quelling revolts. However, Cordoba did symbolize power in a former Roman stronghold (even though when it fell it had been under the control of the visigoth christians for some time). Also, conversion to Islam "after a generation" was not optional unlike in northern Africa were christianity (et al) was an accepted part of daily life. <BR><BR>Essentially, they took over a city that had been important to the super power of the day but had fallen away as the empire weakened under it's own corruption and moral ambiguity, refitted it to their porposes and made it the capital of Islam's western frontier. Yeah, your right, no parallels here. <BR><BR>Sorry I didn't anotetate or link, I'm just speaking from memory so I couldn't site dates but, then again wasn't Newt a Phd in history, somehow, that didn't seem to impress as much as the opion of a grad student who includes his astrological sign in his profile.

[knapplc]

that didn't seem to impress as much as the opion of a grad student who includes his astrological sign in his profile.

 

 

If you're talking about this: that's not carlfense's astrological symbol, that's a board icon because he indicated he's male in his profile. I'm pretty sure I've got one in my profile, too. Somewhere.

[huskertim]

I feel like this is really pretty simple. They knew this was going to upset people, and they did it anyway. Either this is callous or it is calculated.

As to how close is too close, well if you think two blocks is a great distance I'd have to ask what close is, obviously it wasn't too far for landing gear to travel.

 

Still, it's their land.

 

 

[huskertim]

that didn't seem to impress as much as the opion of a grad student who includes his astrological sign in his profile.

 

 

If you're talking about this: that's not carlfense's astrological symbol, that's a board icon because he indicated he's male in his profile. I'm pretty sure I've got one in my profile, too. Somewhere.

 

 

No, I'm refering to the article that was linked.

[knapplc]

I feel like this is really pretty simple. They knew this was going to upset people, and they did it anyway. Either this is callous or it is calculated.

As to how close is too close, well if you think two blocks is a great distance I'd have to ask what close is, obviously it wasn't too far for landing gear to travel.

 

Still, it's their land.

 

What does landing gear have to do with this mosque?

[huskertim]

Part of one of the planes landing gear crashed through the building. That was actually one of the reasons for the landmark designation arguement.

[knapplc]

Part of one of the planes landing gear crashed through the building.

 

And this is relevant to this mosque... how?

[huskertim]

Part of one of the planes landing gear crashed through the building.

 

And this is relevant to this mosque... how?

 

 

Not the mosque, the building see edited above.

[knapplc]

I feel like this is really pretty simple. They knew this was going to upset people, and they did it anyway. Either this is callous or it is calculated.

As to how close is too close, well if you think two blocks is a great distance I'd have to ask what close is, obviously it wasn't too far for landing gear to travel.

 

Still, it's their land.

 

 

Let's be real. You're not talking about defending the historic status of this building, you're talking about the proximity of the building to the WTC site. Your quote is pretty obvious here.