3. U.S. Funding Mosques Abroad

[JerryNumbers]

3. U.S. Funding Mosques Abroad

Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the planned mosque near New York’s ground zero comes the disclosure that American taxpayers are funding the construction and renovation of mosques around the world.

The State Department’s U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) is spending millions of dollars on at least 29 mosque-related projects in 18 countries, including Pakistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, and Albania.

State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson told The Daily Caller website that the AFCP is a type of “diplomatic effort and outreach.”

She said: “It is helping to preserve our cultural heritage. It is not just to preserve religious structures. It is not to preserve a religion. It is to help us as glOBal inhabitants preserve cultures.”

The State Department recently provided Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, Ranking Republican on the Committee on Foreign Relations, with a document explaining that the funding of mosques was given a green light in 2003. At that time the Justice Department said the Constitution did not bar using federal funds to preserve religious structures if they had cultural significance.

But ROBert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, told The Daily Caller that funding mosque renovation and rehabilitation is “disastrously wrongheaded and unconstitutional. They are not going to win hearts and minds. It is not as if they are going to say, ‘the Americans built this mosque for us so we shouldn’t wage jihad on them.’”

He added: “A mosque is a mosque is a mosque. It is where prayers happen. That is a religious installation.”

And Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said: “We have always felt this type of outreach is completely ineffective and that ultimately we have to approach it like the Cold War where we are fighting an ideology.

“If we are going to have this long war of ideas we cannot fund these religious institutions. We can fund anti-Islamist institutions based in liberty.”




For some reason I am not surprised that our government would fund the Islam enemy who brought 9-11 to our shores. Our government thinks you can buy friends with money, maybe that is the reason we are on the brink of being bankrupt.

[John81]

Yes, American leaders for a very long time have seen money as their god, believing it would make them friends, keep enemies quiet and ensure peace and prosperity.

Nothing like funding your enemies so they can concentrate more resources towards your own destruction!

[Kubel]

Funding should be cut immediately. Not just because it's a foreign waste of taxpayers money, but also because it's government sponsored religion.

[JerryNumbers]

Yes, American leaders for a very long time have seen money as their god, believing it would make them friends, keep enemies quiet and ensure peace and prosperity.

Nothing like funding your enemies so they can concentrate more resources towards your own destruction!

Only America would give money to and support those who brought destruction and death to her shores.

Honestly, I'm not surprised.

[John81]

OBama has basically stated that if we are nice to Muslims they will be nice to us. This was part of the point of his trip to several Muslim countries early in his presidency. During those trips he gave speeches blaming America for all sorts of things and praising Islam, even for things that were not true.

Friends can't be bought and you can't make friends with those who demand you join them or they will kill you.