GROUND ZERO IMAM'S SUMMER SAUDI TRIP SPONSORED BY STATE DEPT?

According to the Rosett Report at Pajamas Media, Ground Zero Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not only headed overseas for the next month but his stops allegedly include Saudi Arabia, a place where there are countless possible sources of fundraising. Thanks to Claudia Rosett for doggedly pursuing answers from Rauf, who has more than one office for his 'Cordoba Initiative' - that is, the mosque project. Revealed to Rosett, likely accidentally, was the fact that Rauf is headed to Saudi Arabia on the American taxpayers' dime. She found this out when Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan offered it up, only after persistent questioning from Rossett.

Via Pajamas Media:

Rauf has been “unavailable” at his Cordoba Initiative office in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. When I phoned there and asked for him earlier this week, one of his assistants told me: “All media requests have to go through his office in New York.” At the New York office, I was told they were giving no more interviews, and for questions about the Malaysian office, I was referred back in a circle to the Cordoba Initiative in Malaysia. Finally, uninvited and with no appointment, I called the mobile phone of his wife and work partner, Daisy Khan. In answer to my specific questions, she said that Rauf was about to visit Saudi Arabia, etc., on a trip hosted by the State Department. In response to further questions, she allowed as how the State Department was sending her, as well, on a trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi later this month. She said there would be no fund-raising on these trips. But no one at the Cordoba Initiative seems ready to rule out the possibility of taking large sums of money from these places, should it at some point happen to be offered.

The only entity seemingly more tight-lipped about Rauf's whereabouts is the U.S. State Department itself, which doesn't seem all that interested in verifying or debunking Khan's claim that State is funding the trip.

As for the State Department: After three days of my repeated questions and phone calls, State by Friday’s close of business had yet to provide any response to my request for confirmation of Rauf’s trip, Khan’s trip, or details about their State-sponsored summer outreach excursions to the Middle East. Apparently, it takes quite a while at State to get “clearance” for disclosure to the American public of such basic details as who, exactly, is engaging in public outreach at our expense and on our behalf.

Quite the interesting dynamic at work here.

Suggested exercise: Since you likely know where you were and what you were doing when the World Trade Center was attacked, place yourself back there again. Now imagine someone telling you at the time that in less than nine years, the United States would have a president with a Muslim background, the towers would still not be re-built, an Imam leading an initiative to build a mosque within two blocks of ground zero has suspicious ties, and the State Department would be funding his trip to the country where 17 of the 19 hijackers originated from.

You'd have likely said that would be nightmare scenario. Well, wake up.

h/t to Weasel Zippers