By Thomas Joscelyn

When Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban, he probably never imagined that he would be captured and his detention would be turned into a legal fight over what role, if any, international law plays in restricting the president of the United States’s wartime powers.

Amazingly, that is precisely what happened.

A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday denied a request from al Bihani’s attorneys to rehear the Gitmo detainee’s case. In January 2009, a D.C. district judge denied al Bihani’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed, but a D.C. Circuit Court panel of three judges upheld the district judge’s ruling.

Al Bihani’s attorneys appealed again, requesting that the full court hear the case. But in Tuesday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined “to en banc this case to determine the role of international law-of-war principles in interpreting the AUMF [the 2001 Authorization for use of Military Force] because, as the various opinions issued in the case indicate, the panel’s discussion of that question is not necessary to the disposition of the merits.”

That is, the judges believe it has nothing to do with whether or not Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani is properly detained at Gitmo.

What really happened here is that al Bihani’s lawyers tried to use his detention as a means to litigate their pet legal theories. This has nothing to do with determining whether detainees are properly held, let alone fighting al Qaeda or winning a war. Instead, it was part of a push to obtain more power for the courts to interfere in the other branches of government’s conduct of the war.

The transnational legal community wants the courts to have the power to reject acts of Congress and military decisions made by the executive branch based on international law, which may or may not have anything to do with the will of the American people as expressed at the ballot box.

As Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote on Tuesday, this isn’t a good idea. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president “retains the leeway to implement his authority as broadly or narrowly as he believes appropriate—consistent with international law or not—and the legislature, in turn, may add whatever limits or constraints it deems wise as the war progresses,” Judge Brown wrote. “This ensures that wartime decisions will be informed by the expertise of the political branches, stated in a clear fashion, and that the decision makers will be accountable to the electorate.”

If al Bihani’s lawyers’ vision is enacted, however, a Pandora’s box of problems would be opened. Judge Brown writes:

Such an approach would place ultimate control of the war in the one branch insulated from both the battlefield and the ballot box. That would add further illegitimacy to the unpredictable and ad hoc rules judges would draw from the primordial stew of treaties, state practice, tribunal decisions, scholarly opinion, and foreign law that swirls beyond our borders.

Other judges denied al Bihani’s request because it had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but they seemed to leave the door open for the possibility that international law will one day trump America’s national security agenda as set forth by the president and Congress. Thus, Judge Brown contributed a scathing critique of her fellow judges’ opinions, using words such as “grotesque” to describe their opinions. And one judge, Judge Brown writes, “contributes a separate opinion that conceives of a brave new role for judges in wartime: that of supervisors of the battlefield.”

The Obama administration did not fight the transnational argument. Instead, the administration embraced it, arguing only that it was owed “substantial deference” in this instance.

“The government responds ambivalently, adopting the questionable strategy of conceding Al-Bihani’s point, but nonetheless urging denial of rehearing,” Judge Brown writes. Elsewhere, Brown says the Obama administration’s lawyers made an “eager concession that international law does in fact limit the AUMF.”

This demonstrates the degree to which the Obama administration is committed to some very radical notions of the law. The AUMF was Congress’s response to the most devastating terrorist attack in history, and rightly gave the presidency substantial power to hunt down the al Qaeda terror network. But the administration believes that even the AUMF is subject to an amorphous body of international law and standards and should be interpreted through that transnational prism.

All of this goes to a more central point. Legal gamesmanship long ago trumped national security concerns when it comes to litigating the cases of Guantanamo detainees. This entire argument is taking place in the context of the U.S. government’s proper detention of a known al Qaeda operative.

Some press accounts have called Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani a mere cook for al Qaeda. That is his lawyers’ spin. Al Bihani was much more than that. He comes from a family of al Qaeda terrorists. Several of his brothers served Osama bin Laden in various capacities. Al Bihani received extensive terrorist training in Afghanistan, and became a member of al Qaeda’s elite Arab 055 brigade, which fought alongside the Taliban. He served al Qaeda right up until the time of his capture.

Despite this and more, al Bihani’s lawyers thought that international law should free al Bihani from Gitmo. Their arguments are a good illustration of why the transnational legal framework is fraught with danger.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh and another Muslim inmate have asked a judge to order a federal prison to allow them and other Muslims in their highly restricted cell block to pray as a group, in accordance with their beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union last Thursday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for summary judgment on behalf of Lindh, 29, and Enaam Arnaout, 47, who claim that the prison’s policy restricting group prayer in the Communications Management Unit violates their religious rights. The ACLU contends there are no disputes over the facts of the case and that the law is on the inmates’ side, and asks the judge to rule in their favor.

Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence at the Terre Haute prison for aiding Afghanistan’s now-defunct Taliban government, wrote in a legal declaration that his religion requires him to pray five times a day, preferably in a group. “This is one of the primary obligations of Islam,” he wrote.

Praying in his cell is not appropriate, he said, because the Quran requires a ritually clean place for prayer and he is forced to kneel “in close proximity to my toilet.”

Lindh wrote that Muslims in the unit are currently being allowed to pray together once a day during Ramadan. At other times, the group prayers had been limited to once a week, court documents said.

The suit seeks class action status. Terre Haute associate warden Harvey Church testified in a deposition given in January that 24 of the 41 CMU inmates were Muslim.

The government says in court documents that there is no evidence that Muslims were confined to the CMU because of their religion and that most Muslims don’t adhere to the requirement of five daily prayers.

“Plaintiffs have shown … only six other Muslim inmates in the CMU who identify themselves as sharing the same views on daily congregate prayer as Plaintiffs,” government attorneys wrote.

Meanwhile, the government asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that alleges conditions at the CMU at Terre Haute and another one in Marion, Ill., violate inmates’ religious and civil rights.

In that lawsuit, five CMU prisoners and two of their wives complain that the units place draconian restrictions on inmates’ contact with the outside world and even their own families without offering any reason. They also say inmates can be placed in the CMU without being told why, and have no way to earn their way out.

The government contends that conditions at the CMU- where inmates are free to leave their cells to watch television or play basketball, but not to hug their loved ones when they come to visit – don’t violate prisoners’ civil rights.

It argues in court documents filed last month that inmates don’t have a constitutional right to contact visits or a certain number of phone calls.

In April, another Terre Haute inmate, Sabri Benkhala, dropped his lawsuit claiming that the Bureau of Prisons had created the CMU in secrecy without following federal rule-making procedures. The bureau published rules governing the unit earlier this year, but they have not yet been finalized, said agency spokesman Edmond Ross.

U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison said Benkahla dropped his suit after he was moved out of the CMU.

Benkahla, 34, of Virginia is serving a 10-year sentence for his 2007 convictions for obstruction of justice and lying about training with militants in Pakistan. He is expected to be released in May 2016.

Arnaout, 47, is serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering after admitting in 2003 that he defrauded donors to his Benevolence International Foundation by diverting some of the money to Islamic military groups in Bosnia and Chechnya. The Syrian-born U.S. citizen is scheduled to be released in 2011.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian gunmen opened fire Tuesday on an Israeli car in the West Bank and killed four passengers on the eve of a new round of Mideast peace talks in Washington. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

Assailants firing from a passing car riddled the vehicle with bullets as it traveled near Hebron – a volatile city that has been a flash point of violence in the past. Some 500 ultranationalist Jewish settlers live in heavily fortified enclaves in the city amid more than 100,000 Palestinians.

One of the victims was pregnant, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Israel’s national rescue service said the victims were two men and two women, and Israeli media said everyone in the car was killed.

Video broadcast live on Israel TV late Tuesday showed a white Subaru station wagon standing at an angle at the side of a road, its windows shot out and its doors dotted with bullet holes. The car was flanked by army and police vehicles and dozens of soldiers.

The attackers fled and Israeli forces set up roadblocks and carried out searches to try to catch them.

About 3,000 people joined a rally in Gaza to celebrate the attack. Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida was among them and told The Associated Press: “The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron.”

Upon arriving in Washington for this week’s talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and said “terror will not determine Israel’s borders or the future of the settlements.” Borders and the fate of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future state are key issues in the negotiations.

President Barack Obama hopes to forge a peace agreement within one year.

The White House on Tuesday condemned the attack and press secretary Robert Gibbs called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. He said the attack, coming on the eve of a new round of talks, shows how far the enemies of peace will go to try to block progress.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was already in Washington meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when the attack took place.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office issued a statement charging the attack was aimed at undermining his government’s effort to build international support for “the Palestinian position and ending the (Israeli) occupation.”

Hamas, a fierce rival of the Western-backed Palestinian president, expelled Abbas’ forces from Gaza in 2007 and took over the territory. Abbas has been trying to limit the Islamic militants’ reach in the West Bank, jailing activists and even cracking down on mosque preachers.

Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and European Union.

Asked about the shooting, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. is aware “there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt or derail the process.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised a tough response to an attack he said was aimed at sabotaging the talks.

“Israel will not allow terrorists to raise their heads and will exact a price from the murderers and those who send them,” he said in a statement.

U.N. envoy Robert Serry issued a statement condemning the attack and urging all parties “not to allow the enemies of peace to affect the negotiations about to be launched.”

There is widespread opposition to the resumption of the peace talks among Palestinians. Hamas opposes any contact with Israel and has harshly criticized Abbas for agreeing to resume the negotiations.

Opposition to resuming talks is also coming from within the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group headed by Abbas. Some Fatah activists threaten to try to depose him if he makes concessions, and several hard-line PLO groups plan a demonstration in the West Bank administrative capital of Ramallah on Wednesday to protest resumption of negotiations.

Netanyahu also faces some domestic opposition from elements of his hard-line coalition of religious and nationalist parties. He has said that protecting Israel’s security interests will be his top priority in the talks.

Heading into a meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu said in the statement he would tell her, “This criminal murder proves again the need to stand firmly on Israel’s stringent security demands, and there will be no compromise on them.”

The attack disrupted a relative lull in the West Bank. The last fatal attack occurred in June, when Palestinians opened fire on a police vehicle near Hebron and killed one officer.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack against Israelis since March 2008, when a lone assailant gunned down eight students in a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary.

A previous U.S. launching of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was also accompanied by deadly violence. Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli in the West Bank before then-President George W. Bush convened Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a summit in Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007. The gunmen said the attack was “an act of protest against the Annapolis conference.”

Talking to reporters on his plane heading for Washington, Abbas called for decisive American involvement in the talks.

He said that if the two sides reach a deadlock, the Obama administration should “present bridging proposals to bridge the gap between the two positions.”

In one major challenge to the first direct talks between the sides in two years, Abbas warned it would be difficult to continue negotiating if Israel fails to extend a 10-month curb on West Bank settlement construction that ends in late September. Netanyahu has not made a final decision.

Judicial Watch

In its fervent crusade to befriend Muslims, the White House will host special workshops this week to provide members of radical Islamic groups with direct access to U.S. government funding, assistance and resources.

While this may sound surreal, it’s reality in the Obama Administration, which has embarked on a never-ending mission to befriend the enemy. Previous efforts include secret meetings between Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and extremist Arab and Muslim groups to discuss national security matters and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s special order allowing the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties have for years banned them from the U.S.

As contemptible as those moves may seem, the latest effort is even more outrageous. Various government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Education and Health will participate in the White House seminars which were exposed by an independent nonprofit dedicated to monitoring the nation’s security.

The goal is to provide the leaders of groups associated with the parent organization of Hamas and Al Qaeda (Muslim Brotherhood) with tips on cutting through “red tape” when seeking U.S. government access or money. In all 20 national Muslim groups with ties to the global Islamist organization that preaches Jihad are scheduled to participate. Their mission is to obtain cash and other resources from Uncle Sam.

While the U.S. government has kept the event quiet, it was announced in a newsletter by a Saudi-funded group (Islamic Society of North America or ISNA) that was a co-conspirator in a federal terrorist funding case a few years ago. Featured in a Judicial Watch special report on Muslim charities that finance terrorism, ISNA is firmly committed to spreading the radical form of Islam, which is the driving force behind Jihad.

Now the Obama Administration is helping ISNA and its radical Islamic counterparts access American taxpayer resources as well as top government officials.

By Aaron Klein

While the nation has been focused on a proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, a mosque has been functioning just four blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks with rumored plans to build even closer to the spot that once housed the World Trade Center.

The mosque, the Masjid Manhattan, recently boasted of plans to construct a “House of Allah” next to the World Trade Center, exclaiming on its website, “Help us raise the flag of ‘LA ILLAHA ILLA ALLAH’ in downtown Manhattan!”

The Masjid Manhattan has been holding classes at 20 Warren Street, four blocks from Ground Zero. The mosque also holds prayer services several times a day at a cramped location at 384 Broadway, eleven blocks from the former World Trade Center site.

The mosque reportedly has raised about $8.5 million to begin construction of a permanent site after it lost its lease in 2008 at a different building on Warren Street, also about four blocks from Ground Zero.

In May, Fox News.com quoted a source close stating he believed the Masjid Manhattan is considering a five-story building on 23 Park Place, closer to Ground Zero than the 13-story Islamic center the controversial Cordoba Initiative is considering.

WND phone calls to the mosque seeking comment were not returned.

The Cordoba Initiative, led by Feisal Abdul Rauf, claims it is seeking to build an open cultural center with a prayer room, while Masjid Manhattan, already functioning near Ground Zero, is a conservative mosque that preaches strict Islamic law.

Prior to the FoxNews.com article, Masjid Manhattan’s website touted plans to construct near Ground Zero.

The website boasted, “Build the ‘House of Allah’ next to the World Trade Center! Help us raise the flag of ‘LA ILLAHA ILLA ALLAH’ in downtown Manhattan!”

That section of the website has since been scrubbed. Now the site reads, “Help us build the House of Allah and He will build one for you in Jannah.”

Jannah is Islamic paradise.

Masjid Manhattan preaches strict Islamic law, or Shariah. Its website hosts a Shariah question-and-answer session about such issues as whether Muslims are permitted to touch dogs, purchase life insurance or work with foreign currency. Another section explains why women must cover their heads according to the Quran.

Until it lost its lease, the mosque had quietly operated from Warren Street since 1970. Now, Masjid Manhattan utilizes a temporary location on Warren Street for Islamic classes, while prayer services are held several blocks north in a small basement location.

The temporary Masjid Manhattan prayer site it so tiny, the mosque website asks worshipers to use the bathroom before arriving.

“Bathroom access is limited. Please make wudu before coming to the Masjid.”

Wudu is the Islamic act of washing parts of the body in preparation for prayer.

There’s nothing in this video that we haven’t seen before. Paul Refsdal, the Norwegian journalist who embedded with the Taliban is hyping this video to make some money and a name for him self. Good luck with that.

As far as U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) killing two of Dawran’s children, bullshit!

By Don Irvine  

While the Ground Zero mosque controversy continues to swirl it turns out that the State Department has been using federal funds for years to renovate and rehabilitate mosques around the world.

From the Daily Caller

While much attention has been focused on questions surrounding the Ground Zero mosque and the appropriateness of the State Department funding Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s trip to the Middle East, little attention has been given to the fact that U.S. taxpayer money is funding mosque development around the world.

Just a cursory search of the term “mosque” on the State Department’s list of “projects” reveals 26 examples of federal funds going to fund construction, renovation, and rehabilitation of various mosques abroad. The benefiting countries include Bulgaria, Pakistan, Mali, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Egypt, Tunisia, the Maldives, Yemen, Turkmenistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Serbia and Montenegro.

The U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) — which is putting millions toward “heritage preservation” projects in the developing world — financed mosque-related projects in all the aforementioned countries.

In Montenegro, for example, the State Department has funded an effort to restore and conserve the Shadrvan (Fountain) of the Old Mosque in Pljevlja. According to the State Department’s website, without needed repairs there would not be a sufficient place for ritual washing before prayer.

“To support the restoration of a fountain at a 16th-century mosque concurrent with the restoration of the mosque itself. Used for ritual ablutions before prayer, the fountain has deteriorated over time and needs a new wooden octagonal roof, pipes, water-taps, and pavement,” the description of the project reads.

Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, told The Daily Caller that the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation is a type of diplomatic effort and outreach, what she says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls “soft power.”

“It is helping to preserve our cultural heritage. It is not just to preserve religious structures,” Thompson said. “It is not to preserve a religion. It is to help us as global inhabitants preserve cultures.”

In a document provided on Monday to Indiana Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the State Department explained that the practice of funding such projects became acceptable in 2003 when the Justice Department declared that the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause did not preclude federal funds from going to preserve religious structures if they had cultural importance.

The DOJ wrote: “That advice is provided in the following paragraph that appears in every AFCP request for grant proposals… ‘The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution permits the government to include religious objects and sites within an aid program under certain conditions. For example, an item with a religious connection (including a place of worship) may be the subject of a cultural preservation grant if the item derives its primary significance and is nominated solely on the basis of architectural, artistic, historical or other cultural (not religious) criteria.’”

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has also spent millions reconstructing and financing multiple mosques in Cairo and Cyprus, as well as providing computers for imams in Tajikistan and Mali.

Interestingly, however, according to the Code of Federal Regulations, “USAID funds may not be used for the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of structures to the extent that those structures are used for inherently religious activities.”

What bothers me more than the State Department using the guise of cultural heritage as an excuse to fund these projects are some of the countries on the list.

For example we are spending taxpayer money to help renovate or rehabilitate mosques in Yemen.  This is the very same country that the State Department has issued a travel advisory on due to terrorist activities in Yemen by Al-Qaeda against American interests.

At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised to see Iran or any other country that is anti-American, a state sponsor of terrorism or a perennial violator of human rights receive assistance in the future to help them preserve their “cultural heritage”.

And as much as I would like to pin the blame for this solely on the Obama administration the fact of the matter is that this became acceptable under President Bush post 9/11 is even more bothersome than the some of the questionable countries currently receiving assistance.

By Connie Hair

A former PLO terrorist living in the U.S. says the Ground Zero mosque imam in February claimed parts of Obama’s speech delivered in Cairo last year came directly from the Arabic version of the imam’s book.  And he offers backup of these claims in two separate interviews of the imam.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Walid Shoebat is an admitted former Islamic terrorist once imprisoned by Israel in Jerusalem.  Shoebat later came to the United States and was converted to Christianity.  More information available in his bio here.

Shoebat told HUMAN EVENTS that in February, Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf appeared on Egyptian radio and Shoebat provided an English translation.  Parts of the actual interview were conducted in English (and back up the story), and were translated into Arabic on-air.  Audio here.

Imam Rauf made claims in this Egyptian interview that chapter six of the Arabic version of his book was used as the basis for President Obama’s Cairo speech. The Arabic version of Rauf’s book was published in Malaysia and entitled, “A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Da’wah from the Heart of America Post-9/11”

The English version of the book sports a different title: “A New Vision for Muslims and the West.”

From the interview transcript provided by Shoebat:

Abdul Rauf: In the book chapter six, I wrote about this blueprint as to what has to be done by the U.S. government, what has to be done by the Jewish community, what has to be done by the Christian community, what has to be done by the Muslim community, what has to be done by educators, what has to be done by the media.

For example, in my book in the Arabic version, page 293, what did I write?  What are the things that the United States needs to do.  If you examine this chapter you will find that Bush [Obama] speech in Cairo was all taken from this section [section six].

Interviewer: [correcting the Bush slip] Obama.

Rauf: This is an example of our work in a positive way.

Shoebat offered more evidence of Rauf’s claims about the Cairo speech, this time from an interview done by Hani Al-Waziri of Egypt on Febuary 7.  Arabic-language version is available here. 

In this print interview, Shoebat’s English translation says Rauf expanded on the story of his involvement with Obama’s Cairo speech, saying the Obama speechwriter “transferred entire parts” of his book into the speech.

From Shoebat’s translation:

Abdul Rauf:  “The speech was wonderful and wise in his choice of words, the Prime Minister of Malaysia after the speech disclosed to me that it is now easy for any president of a Muslim country to establish good relations with America, and I am not going to hide from you that one of those who participated in writing the speech transferred entire parts of my book ‘A New Vision for Muslims and the West’ which he referred to U.S. interests being compatible with top interests of the Muslim world.”

Shoebat says Rauf never revealed the name of the collaborative speechwriter in the interview.

On his website, Shoebat offers additional translations of Rauf interviews from Arabic-language media, including this from Hadielislam.com.

Rauf responds to the question:  What does it mean to separate religion from state in Islam?

Abdul Rauf:  What is happening in the Muslim world after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the secular state, that the traditional relationship between state and religious institutions were subject to a separation, which resulted in a reaction that generated Islamic movements wanting to erect an Islamic state in the Islamic world.

For that, we collectively believe that the state that was erected by the prophet in Medina was the ideal model for an Islamic state. The challenge today in the Islamic world is how do we accomplish this in our current era.

The challenge I was referring to is this; how do we call for the principles and standards that the prophet (peace be upon him) used to build the Islamic state in Medina [Arabia]?

An Islamic state can be established in more than just in a single form or mold; it can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of [Islamic] Shariah that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed.

Sharia law is the backwards, draconian system of radical Islamist law that denies fundamental human rights to women and all non-Muslims.

More translations of Arabic-language Rauf interviews at the link.

By Clifford D. May

Wow! The Washington Post has identified “rabble-rousing outsiders!” I don’t think I’ve heard language like that since Southern segregationists complained about young civil-rights activists descending on Mississippi. So who are these interlopers stirring up the unwashed masses? No need to guess: It’s anyone who dares criticize plans for an Islamic center near Ground Zero in Manhattan. According to Jason Horowitz, the author of a story on the front page of the Post’s Style section, New Yorkers take a “dim view” of them.

Mr. Horowitz informs us that the planned Islamic center has become “the prime target of national conservatives who, after years of disparaging New York as a hotbed of liberal activity, are defending New York against a mosque that will rise two city blocks from Ground Zero.”

The hypocrisy! Have they no shame?

Mr. Horowitz was no doubt so busy reporting this big story that he missed the bulletins about Senate majority leader Harry Reid and former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean — no nasty national conservatives, they — also opposing the Ground Zero Islamic project.

However, Mr. Horowitz did score an interview with Ali Mohammed, who sells “falafel over rice” in the besieged neighborhood and who has “reached his saturation point.” Opponents of the project, he says, “got nothing to do with New York and they don’t care about New York. They are trying to create propaganda.”

Yes, of course, this is a New York thing. Foreigners wouldn’t understand. The terrorists who brought down the Twin Towers had a bone to pick with the Big Apple. That explains why Mr. Horowitz doesn’t ask Mr. Mohammed who he thinks attacked us on 9/11, or what their ideology and goals were. Indeed, there is not a single sentence in his article relating to such matters.

Besides, New York City’s “entire political establishment” thinks the Islamic center is a dandy idea. And when a political establishment speaks, who has the right to question them? Certainly not politicians and reporters and bloggers from outside the five boroughs! The nerve of some people!

Mr. Horowitz also interviews Oz Sultan, a spokesman for the project, who sings from the same hymnal: “The people behind this [Islamic center] are New Yorkers. These are local yokels.”

How does that square with Mr. Sultan’s refusal to rule out the possibility that funds for this $100 million project may be raised in Saudi Arabia and Iran? Inquiring minds may want to know; Mr. Horowitz does not even ask.

Instead, he makes clear whom he does not view as local yokels or even real New Yorkers: “the city’s tabloids,” whose reporters and editors “know they have a good thing going” — in stark contrast to Mr. Horowitz and the prestige media, which cover stories like this strictly from a sense of civic obligation.

If this piece were exceptional, it would be unfair of me to give it such a tongue-lashing. But, as I’ve argued before, it’s part of a pattern, a trend — one that, despite criticism, continues to strengthen. A companion piece in the Post exclaims that the Islamic center will contain “a Sept. 11 memorial [!],” but never bothers to question what that memorial might say about the 9/11 attacks. Will they be described as an atrocity or merely a tragedy? Who will the memorial say was responsible, and on behalf of what belief system were they acting?

Similarly, a Washington Post interview with Daisy Khan, the wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the key organizer of the project, is headlined: “When Will Muslims Be Accepted?” Ms. Khan tells the veteran journalist Sally Quinn: “The Republicans are really going after us.”

Quinn responds by asking Daisy Khan . . . nothing. Nothing about the project’s funding; nothing about the imam’s past statements regarding 9/11 (American policies were an “accessory”), Osama bin Laden (“made in America”), Hamas (the imam would prefer not to characterize the group), or terrorism (“complex”) — nothing. It’s as though Daisy Khan has purchased an advertisement.

Another interview with Ms. Khan, this one by Tamer El-Ghobashy in the Wall Street Journal, also consisted of one softball question after another. For example:

How did you react to the Anti-Defamation League registering their opposition to the location of the center?

What are the features of the planned center that people may not have heard about?

What element of the fallout from this proposed center concerns you most?

A New York Times piece on the controversy similarly avoids any uncomfortable questions. Its reading of recent history: “On top of the fear and confusion in New York about Islam after 9/11, a movement had begun to spring up against Muslims seeking a larger role in American public life.” What movement would that be? Who leads it? Where do they meet? Shouldn’t the Times — the Times! — include some attempt to substantiate the announcement of the birth of such a terrible “movement”?

Last week, I was a guest on To the Point, a radio show broadcast on public stations around the country and moderated by Warren Olney, whom I consider both professional and fair. But, to my chagrin, he asked not a single question about Imam Rauf’s beliefs, and when I tried to quote the cleric he cut me off, saying that was a distraction from the real issue. Which is what? Warren later told me he thinks it’s “America’s tradition of religious freedom.” But I — and most critics of this project — have never argued that Imam Rauf doesn’t have a First Amendment right to build a mosque anywhere he owns property. I’ve argued that he should not be above scrutiny.

To some, that makes me an Islamophobe; and according to Time magazine, I have plenty of company. A cover story titled “Is America Islamophobic?” asserts that “many opponents” of the Islamic center “are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.” Not a shred of evidence is offered, though Time does cite a poll that finds 46 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers.

Goodness, why would anyone think that? Could it have something to do with the fact that there have been close to 16,000 terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam since 9/11? Just last month, Time had on its cover the photograph of an 18-year-old Afghan girl whose nose and ears were sliced off by members of the Taliban because she had violated Islamic religious law as they interpret it by “running away from her husband’s house.” The word “Taliban” means “the students.” Students of what? Engineering? Dentistry? No. Of Islam.

Let’s say it one more time loudly for the media moguls in the cheap seats: Most Muslims are not terrorists. But in the 21st century, most of those slaughtering women and children in the name of religion are Muslims. This is a movement. This is a reality. And it is a problem. It ought to be seen by Muslims as very much their problem — a pathology within their community, within the “Muslim world,” within the ummah.

Instead, the richest and most powerful Islamic organizations — often financed by oil money from the Middle East — incessantly play the victim card. Daisy Khan tells ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that in America, it’s “beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.”

Time encourages this grievance mentality (or tactic) by asserting that “to be a Muslim in America now is to endure slings and arrows against your faith — not just in the schoolyard and the office but also outside your place of worship and in the public square, where some of the country’s most powerful mainstream religious and political leaders unthinkingly (or worse, deliberately) conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery.”

No, they don’t. What they conflate with terrorism and savagery are al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Shabaab, Abu Sayyef, Fatah Al-Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and dozens of other groups that justify their terrorism and savagery based on their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

Many of the country’s religious and political leaders would like to hear more of their Muslim neighbors say plainly: “Not in my name! Not in the name of my religion!” They are distressed when they learn — not through the mainstream media — that Imam Rauf has said instead: “The United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda.”

He said that some time ago, when he was still answering questions from the media. In recent weeks, as a national controversy has swirled around the biggest project in which he has ever been involved, he has been ”unavailable.” Time does not criticize him for stonewalling as they would criticize any non-Muslim who declined comment for a cover story. Instead, Time excuses him, saying he seems to have been “stunned into paralysis” by the unfairness of it all.

Is this moral posturing or cowardice or self-delusion or the byproduct of the multicultural ideological mush that so much of the media has been both eating and dishing out? Whatever the cause, they really have gone mad. Small wonder that the rabble is becoming roused — with or without the help of those pesky outsiders.