This is a bit of a continuation from a previous post about the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. that included then Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicating the mosque on June 28, 1957. A re-dedication ceremony in 2007 included a speech by Republican President George W. Bush.
Remarks at Ceremonies Opening the Islamic Center June 28, 1957
Mr. Ambassador, Dr. Bisar, Governors of the Islamic Center, and distinguished guests:
It is a privilege to take part in this ceremony of dedication.
Meeting with you now, in front of one of the newest and most beautiful buildings in Washington, it is fitting that we re-dedicate ourselves to the peaceful progress of all men under one God.
And I should like to assure you, my Islamic friends, that under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have here your own church and worship according to your own conscience.
This concept is indeed a part of America, and without that concept we would be something else than what we are.
The countries which have sponsored and built this Islamic Center have for centuries contributed to the building of civilization. With their traditions of learning and rich culture, the countries of Islam have added much to the advancement of mankind. Inspired by a sense of brotherhood, common to our inner most beliefs, we can here together reaffirm our determination to secure the foundation of a just and lasting peace.
Our country has long enjoyed a strong bond of friendship with the Islamic nations and, like all healthy relationships, this relationship must be mutually beneficial.
Civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important tools and achievements. From fundamental discoveries in medicine to the highest planes of astronomy, the Muslim genius has added much to the culture of all peoples. That genius has been a wellspring of science, commerce and the arts, and has provided for all of us many lessons in courage and in hospitality.
This fruitful relationship between peoples, going far back into history, becomes more important each year. Today, thousands of Americans, both private individuals and governmental officials, live and work-and grow in understanding-among the peoples of Islam.
At the same time, in our country, many from the Muslim lands-students, businessmen and representatives of states-are enjoying the benefits of experience among the people of this country. From these many personal contacts, here and abroad, I firmly believe that there will be a broader understanding and a deeper respect for the worth of all men; and a stronger resolution to work together for the good of mankind.
As I stand beneath these graceful arches, surrounded on every side by friends from far and near, I am convinced that our common goals are both right and promising. Faithful to the demands of justice and of brotherhood, each working according to the lights of his own conscience, our world must advance along the paths of peace.
Guided by this hope, I consider it a great personal and official honor to open the Islamic Center, and I offer my congratulations to its sponsors and my best wishes to all who enter into its use.
Thank you very much.
When it comes to where we are as a nation today, Democrats are bad but Republicans are not blameless... by any means.
In 2007, President George W. Bush spoke at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. and was introduced by the mosque's director; the latter had a history that included time spent as a representative of an organization that has enabled Al-Qaeda. This was also the same mosque at which Bush spoke six days after 9/11/01 with Nihad Awad - Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - at his side.
Before delving into the history of the Islamic Center of Washington of Washington, DC, consider the Ground Zero mosque for a moment. It was named 'Cordoba House' and the name was changed as opposition to the mosque grew and people began to learn more about the symbolic significance of the initial word choice, which was a city in Spain.
...the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba—the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque—was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true—and ominous—legacy of Cordoba.
More pointedly, throughout Islam's history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka'ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam's holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, was built atop Solomon's temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople.
With that as a premise, shouldn't Americans take a second look at the motivation behind the Islamic Center of Washington, DC? If Islamic fundamentalists were to follow the formula of their forefathers and wanted to construct a symbol of future conquest, wouldn't they seek to do so at the heart of the Capital of the country that won the war?
Check out this excerpt from the history page of the mosque's website:
The Foundation’s membership quickly grew to include representatives from every Islamic nation in the world and American citizens. They all supported the Foundation’s appeal for funds. They managed to raise enough money that enabled them to purchase the land that the Center sits on now on Washington’s “Embassy Row”. They purchased the land on April 30, 1946, and laid the cornerstone on January 11, 1949.
Take note of those two dates in bold.
Generally, when people think of the defeated axis of enemies in World War II, Japan, Italy, and Nazi Germany come to mind but the Nazis had an ally that was never defeated. In fact, that ally never stopped fighting; that ally was the Muslim Brotherhood.
Again, if one accepts the notion that symbolism in Islam is very important, consider the date the land was purchased. Adolf Hitler's death occurred one year earlier, on April 30, 1945.
Via History Learning Site:
None of the bunker’s survivors heard the shot that killed Hitler. At 15.15 on April 30th, Bormann, Goebbels, Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, Otto Gunshce and Artur Axmann, Head of the Hitler Youth, entered Hitler’s sitting room. Gunsche and Linge wrapped the body of Hitler in a blanket and carried it to the Reich Chancellery garden.
Coincidence? Possibly.
How about January 11, 1949 - the date the cornerstone was laid. That date could be significant.
Tuesday 11 Raby` al-awal 1368 A.H. Laying the cornerstone on Jan 11, 1949 in the Islamic calendar is a day prior to the 12th day of Rabi-al-Awwal, which marks the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, but keep in mind that Saudi Arabia is 10 hours ahead of the United States. While it was the 11th in the United States, it was very possibly the 12th in Saudi Arabia.
On June 28, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower was on-hand to dedicate the mosque. Click here or on the image below for the video of a news report of the event at the time.
The countries which have sponsored and built this Islamic Center have for centuries contributed to the building of civilization. With their traditions of learning and rich culture, the countries of Islam have added much to the advancement of mankind. Inspired by a sense of brotherhood, common to our innermost beliefs, we can here together reaffirm our determination to secure the foundations of a just and lasting peace.
"Brotherhood" is indeed an interesting word choice. Eisenhower ended his speech thusly:
Our country has long enjoyed a strong bond of friendship with the Islamic nations. . . . Under the American Constitution, . . . this Center, this place of worship, is as welcome as could be any similar edifice of any religion. Indeed, America would fight with her whole strength for your right to have your own church and worship according to your own conscience. Without this, we would be something else than what we are.
Doesn't the "conscience" of the Muslim "Brotherhood" involve destroying America from within?
Yes, it does.
President George W. Bush returned to the Washington, DC mosque for the RE-dedication ceremony in 2007, fifty years after Eisenhower did it originally. The man who introduced Bush in the clip below is the mosque's director, Abdullah M. Khouj, who began his tenure there in 1984. According to the Weekly Standard's Stephen Schwartz, Saudi officials took over the mosque in 1983 and Khouj was subsequently appointed. Khouj has been a representative for the Muslim World League (MWL):
Khouj represented the Muslim World League (MWL), founded in Saudi Arabia in 1962 as an international agency for the propagation of Wahhabism. In 2006, relief branches of the MWL in Southeast Asia would be designated by the U.S. Treasury as financing fronts for al Qaeda. In addition, Khouj was admitted to the United States as a diplomat, allegedly serving as an attaché at the Saudi Embassy, but actually dedicated to advancing the most radical interpretation of Islam in history.
The MWL is significant for many reasons but one such reason is its involvement as the umbrella organization for the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). This is the same IMMA where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, worked as an assistant editor for at least twelve years until leaving in 2009, to work for Clinton at the State Department. The man responsible for launching the IMMA was none other than Abdullah Omar Naseef, who was the Secretary General of the MWL when Khouj became the Director of the Washington mosque.
The Saudi Manifesto, reveals the MWL / IMMA connection:
"It [Muslim Minority Affairs] will work under the umbrella of the Muslim World League (MWL) and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and others."
Remember, Naseef also founded the Rabita Trust, an entity that was headed by Al-Qaeda founder Wael Hamza Julaidan and identified by the U.S. Treasury Department in October of 2001 as a terrorist organization. If Naseef was commissioned by the Saudi Royal family to found the IMMA, it would seem to indicate a willingness on the part of the Brotherhood and the Saudis to work together in some respects, the furthering of Islam in foreign lands, for example.
That's what the IMMA is all about.
It's important to remember that Khouj - the man who introduced Bush at the Washington, D.C. mosque re-dedication ceremony - was a representative of the MWL at the time of his being named director, according to Schwartz. The Rabita Trust was founded in 1988 by Naseef, four years after Khouj became the Director of the mosque.
Before watching the video of Bush's 2007 speech inside the mosque, consider that less than six years earlier, the Rabita Trust had been shut down by the Bush administration as a "Global Terrorist Entity". As a representative of the MWL, Khouj ultimately worked for an organization whose Secretary General from 1983-1993 was none other than Al-Qaeda financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef.
Note at the 1:15 mark in the video below that Bush references Eisenhower's speech from 1957 and quotes the former president. Said Bush:
"He (Eisenhower) asked that together we commit ourselves 'to peaceful progress of all men under one God.'"
This had not been the first time that Bush had conflated Islam and Christianity. William Murray, of the Religious Freedom Coalition chronicled his experiences in the days after 9/11 and wrote the following about what he witnessed on 9/14/01 at the National Cathedral, where then head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) - Muzammil Siddiqi - was in attendance:
Our Christian President had bowed his head to prayers offered to other gods, prayers that may have been for those who would destroy our nation and enslave our children to an alien religion. At that moment the hand of protection of the true God was removed from our nation.
Here is Bush at the 2007 re-dedication ceremony inside the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C.
According to Schwartz, the mosque was built at the urging of various Muslim groups, to include the Turks. In 1998, before becoming Prime Minister of Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - quoted from the following poem during a speech:
"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."
Go figure. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist government of Turkey seem to be working together.
Upon release of the Accountability Review Board's (ARB) report on what happened in Benghazi, it was learned that the group singled out no individuals for discipline - the bureaucracy itself was identified as the party most responsible. There were, however, four State Department employees who reportedly resigned in the wake of the report.
Aside from the fact that none of the four individuals who allegedly 'resigned' were individuals who claimed to accept responsibility (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), it appears they haven't really resigned at all.
The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned.
The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.
The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of “grossly inadequate” security.
State Department leaders “didn’t come clean about Benghazi and now they’re not coming clean about these staff changes,” a source close to the situation told The Post., adding, the “public would be outraged over this.”
Some might remember an exchange between Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) and Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb at a House Oversight Committee in October. At the time, Adams pressed Lamb for the names of those who had the authority to deny requests for security in Benghazi. Lamb named both Eric Boswell and a man named Scott Bultrowicz. For some reason, all of the video excerpts from that hearing - once posted to the Oversight committee's YouTube channel, now get re-directed to an unrelated Darrell Issa speech but here is the exchange from another source (the relevant portion occurs within the first minute):
Ok, so Lamb admitted to Adams that the former didn't have sole authority to deny security. She pointed up the ladder to Boswell and Bultrowicz. The next logical question is: Did they have sole authority? If yes, then the ARB report would have erred by not naming either man as being responsible for security being withheld. If no, then someone above them had that sole authority.
The Post article only names three of the four individuals that were singled out for non-disciplinary discipline / resignation / re-assignments. They are:
Eric Boswell
Charlene Lamb
Raymond Maxwell
Via the Post:
The other officials — Deputy Assistant Secretaries Charlene Lamb and Raymond Maxwell, and a third who has not been identified — were found to have shown “performance inadequacies” but not “willful misconduct,” Pickering said, so they would not face discipline.
So who is the fourth individual? Could it be Scott Bultrowicz? The State Department website currently lists the two positions, held by Boswell and Bultrowicz respectively, as vacant:
Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security -- VACANT
The Assistant Secretary oversees Department of State security programs to protect U.S. Government employees and facilities under chief of mission authority overseas from terrorist, criminal, or technical attack, and ensures the integrity of classified national security information produced and stored in these facilities.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director of the Diplomatic Security Service -- VACANT
The Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security/Director of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) is the most senior Diplomatic Security Service special agent and is responsible for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's international and domestic operations and training programs.
If Bultrowicz's job at the time of the Benghazi attack is now listed as vacant, it prompts at least two questions:
Why does he no longer hold that position?
If he is one of the four who resigned is getting re-assigned, why is he the only one of the four who hasn't been identified yet?
Earlier this month, Jay Carney took a question from Ed Henry - shortly after the release of the ARB report - about the four individuals "taking the fall". Four Americans dead as a direct result of decisions made by some of these individuals and the only discipline is reassignment?!
Perhaps a better case of 'thou doth protest too much' one would be hard-pressed to find. In reality, it doesn't appear that anyone has either taken the fall or been held accountable, at least not in any way proportional to the consequences of their actions / inaction.
