David Knowles
AOL News
8/23/2010
Hasan Jamali, AFP / Getty Images/ Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a leading figure for the plans to build a mosque near ground zero, addresses guests at a Ramadan meal in Bahrain on Sunday.
(Aug. 23) — In a development sure to further inflame the controversy surrounding the construction of an Islamic center just blocks from the site of ground zero, a website has uncovered remarks by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the spiritual leader spearheading the project, in which he levels sharp criticism against the U.S. government.
The tape was discovered and circulated today by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which describes itself as a nonprofit that tracks “radical Islamic terrorist groups.”
In the question-and-answer session of Rauf’s 2005 appearance at Australia’s Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, the imam took the U.S. to task for the killing of innocent civilians, and compared its record against that of the world’s leading terrorist organization.
“We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims,” Rauf told the audience. “You may remember that the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was secretary of state and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.”
Rauf, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, continued his remarks (listen to the entire speech here) by addressing the deaths that resulted in the U.S. bombing campaign of Iraq, and seemed to absolve the terrorist sympathies of those who have been caught in the crosshairs of war.
The article continues at AOL News.
CAJ note: Your tax dollars are paying this man’s expenses, courtesy of Hillary Clinton’s State Department, while he travels the Middle East. And that UN report? Does their “Oil for Food” program ring any bells? Maybe Saddam Hussein had something to do with the deaths of those Iraqi children?
