The Shameless Cynicism of Zeroing in on the Ground Zero Islamic Center

By Russ Wellen

At AlterNet, Joshua Holland deftly turns the expression "Ground Zero" on its head.

When the horror of nuclear warfare was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the term "Ground Zero" entered our lexicon. The expression has come to mean the epicenter of a catastrophic event. . . . the point from which damage spreads. [While] it's not an apt analog for the physical destruction that resulted from the attacks on the World Trade Center. . . . it is an appropriate metaphor for the . . . bigotry against Muslim Americans that has radiated out from Ground Zero and spread across the United States.

Ironically, not long after 9/11, you could walk the streets of Manhattan and still see Islams praying in a storefront mosque with a vendor outside selling Islamic ware, as well as Middle-Eastern food vendors playing tapes or CDs of muezzins. No inhibitions; no harassment.

It's true that recently, though, things have begun to turn ugly, as Holland reports: "In May, an Arab man was brutally beaten in broad daylight in New York by four young men." But it's in the heartland where violence against Muslims has been spreading in the last couple of years. He writes:

A mosque in Miami, Florida, was sprayed with gunfire last year. Mosques have been vandalized or set aflame in Brownstown, Michigan; Nashville, Tennessee; Arlington, Texas . . . Taylor, South Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Eugene, Oregon; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Tempe, Arizona; and in both Northern and Southern California. A mosque in a suburb of Chicago has been vandalized four times in recent years.

The perpetrators of these hate crimes are. . . . being whipped into a frenzy by cynical fearmongers on the Right [who] have started referring to the Park 51 project as "the Obamosque." [These fearmongers] see fear and loathing of Islam as a potent social issue.

But, continues Holland . . .

It's an extraordinarily dangerous game, not only for the American Muslim community but for U.S. national security as well. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who has interrogated several dangerous terrorists [said] 'from a national security perspective, our leaders need to understand that no one is likely to be happier with the opposition to building a mosque than Osama Bin Laden. His next video script has just written itself.'

Frank Rich of the New York Times echoed this in his most recent column.

Here's what's been lost in all the screaming. The prime movers in the campaign against the "ground zero mosque" just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America�s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they're wielding is not merely pounding Park51 [but] has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus's last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?

Compromising America's interests (ostensibly anyway when it comes to Afghanistan) in this manner might be too subtle for most of the public to notice. But, when it comes to a recent move by Republican Congresspersons, it seems, at first glance, as if their constituents might find it downright un-American. On July 29 Raymond Hernandez reported for the New York Times:

House Republicans . . . blocked a Democratic plan to provide billions of dollars for medical treatment to rescue workers and residents of New York City who suffered illnesses from the toxic dust and debris at ground zero. . . . Republican opponents of the legislation expressed concern over the $7.4 billion cost of the program. . . . Democrats accused Republicans of being callous and vowed to bring the bill back for another vote in the fall.

Huh? Do Republicans actually think they've managed to incite concern over the deficit to the point that it would trump coming to the relief of American heroes? In fact, there may be something else going on here.

Try hatred for the 9/11 widows. Not only are some of them loudmouths who questioned the 9/11 Commission, according to this line of thinking, but others were driving around Staten Island in SUVs like welfare queens in Cadillacs with money they received from the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund. Sorry, rescuers. Your well-being takes a backseat to the more pressing business of preventing people from getting something for nothing. (Okay, for a dead family member. Details, details.)

Besides that, Republican politicians who count on their constituents to voice no objections to blocking the plan are a symptom of the heartland's underlying resentment of New York City. To what other phenomenon can one attribute the curious lack of ongoing cries from Americans to bring us the head of bin Laden?

Imagine if a small town in the Midwest had been struck? Republican politicians would have made locating bin Laden a priority come hell or high water. They find 9/11 useful when they seek to stir up hatred for -- never mind Islamists -- garden-variety Muslims. In fact, they may well be aware that some Americans are secretly glad that those urban elites in New York City got theirs that sunny day in New York.

First posted at Focal Points.