Tag: Ground Zero

The Real ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Was on the 17th Floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower

Jon Ponder

photo-wtc-real-mosqueThe New York Times has a story up about what it calls a Muslim “prayer center” in the World Trade Center. Muslims who worked in the Twin Towers met there for their daily prayers — there was even a wash room nearby set up for the pre-prayer ritual cleansing.

By any measure, the “prayer center” in the trade center is much closer to the definition of a mosque than Park 51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” — a 12-story non-sectarian community center with a culinary school and sports facilities.

The fact that there was a mosque in the south tower — compounded by the fact that it is as likely as not there were Muslims praying in the mosque on the 17th floor when terrorists jet-bombed the building — should make it harder for Republicans to argue that construction of Park 51 somehow defiles the memory of those who died in the 9/11 attacks.

It should, but it won’t. This controversy is not about Park 51 or even about Ground Zero. It’s about Republican leaders fanning the flames of fear and hatred among their tea bagger base.

[…]

Gingrich Proposes Govt Seize Ground Zero to Stop ‘Mosque’ – But Govt Already Owns Site, Which Does Not Include Park 51

Jon Ponder

Ground Zero after towers are built - Gingrich wants to seize land and make it a battlefield memorial
Ground Zero after towers are built - Gingrich wants to seize land and make it a battlefield memorial
The attention span of American voters is famously short, and today it appears that a majority of independent voters are ready to vote Republicans back into control in Washington, apparently having already forgotten how Republicans’ vaunted conservative principles evaporate the minute they gain power.

Meanwhile, buoyed by Democrats’ bad polling, Republicans are not only measuring the drapes at the Capitol, they’re already returning to their old ways — tossing aside their purported principles in favor of political expediency.

Case in point is a proposal last week from former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich — the smartest conservative in America, per the movie “Idiocracy” — that, in order to satisfy his political goal of degrading Islam, the government should seize the site of World Trade Center as a tactic for stopping construction of the Park 51 Islamic center near New York City Hall:

[…]