Defenders of controversial imam Feisal Abdul Rauf have been touting his past efforts in offering counterterrorism advice to the FBI as a way to illustrate his bridge-building intentions.  Much like other reports, they tend to gloss over the more controversial aspects of Rauf’s statements.  But, as is typical with the Ground Zero mosque imam, it can be demonstrated that he is frequently speaking with a forked tongue.

There is no doubt that Rauf has made some questionable and incendiary comments regarding America and her role in the Muslim world.  Perhaps these statements fit the imam’s overall rhetoric involving U.S. complicity in the attacks of 9/11.  As does the following statement to the FBI, which is conveniently omitted from media reports defending Rauf.

Bridge-building imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was giving a crash course in Islam for FBI agents in March of 2003.  When asked to clarify such terminology as ‘jihad’ and ‘fatwa’, Rauf stated (emphasis mine throughout):

"Jihad can mean holy war to extremists, but it means struggle to the average Muslim. Fatwah has been interpreted to mean a religious mandate approving violence, but is merely a recommendation by a religious leader.  Rauf noted that the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks could be considered a jihad, and pointed out that a renowned Islamic scholar had issued a fatwah advising Muslims in the U.S. military it was okay to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Well, wait a minute. 

Which version of the word jihad is he referring to when he speaks of the U.S. response itself?  Is it the struggle he speaks of for the average Muslim, or is it the holy war? 

Getting very little run in the media is an analysis of Rauf’s FBI days in the New York Post.  Contained within Paul Sperry’s column is a question of whether Rauf actually knows the definition of jihad, or if he simply presents things ambiguously to make things more difficult on the agents he is trying to teach.  While Rauf passes jihad off as nothing more than a struggle, Koranic scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali disagrees, insisting that jihad ‘means advancing Islam, including by physically fighting Islam’s enemies.’

Sperry then questions, ‘If he (Rauf) believes jihad is really just an internal struggle, then why does he refuse to condemn Hamas? (Why, for that matter, did he in late 2001 suggest that "US policies were an accessory to the crime" of 9/11?).’

And speaking of the fatwa advising Muslims in the U.S. military that it was okay to fight the Taliban …

The renowned Islamic scholar that Rauf is referring to is Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi.  In a New York Times article one month after 9/11, Rauf was quoted as saying:

"This fatwa is very significant. Yusuf Qaradawi is probably the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today."

"A Muslim is forbidden from entering into an alliance with a non-Muslim against another Muslim."  He called on Muslims to "fight the American military if we can, and if we cannot, we should fight the U.S. economically and politically."

Qaradawi elaborated on that non-fatwa fatwa in 2004 when he said of American troops:

"…all of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately. The mutilation of corpses [however] is forbidden in Islam."

Abduction and killing is an obligation, but he draws the line at corpse mutilation.  Very classy.

Perhaps the media should not be relying so heavily on the imam’s efforts within the FBI anyway.  Lest we forget, the FBI doesn’t exactly have a great track record in spotting red flags being raised by a radical imam.  Families of the victims at Fort Hood can attest to that.  In their defense, the FBI was constantly compromised by over-sensitivity training when it came to Muslims.  But when Nidal Hasan was chatting it up with Anwar al-Awlaki, they suspected it was nothing more than a simple case of psychiatric research.

Is all this nothing more than parsing the double talk of a ‘moderate’ imam, or is it something more alarming?

Rusty can be contacted through his website:  The Mental Recession.

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CBS and the rest of the MSM have decided the Tea Party movement is racist and hostile to non-whites, and it’s a mantra they’re going to illustrate whenever they see an opportunity. Reporter Nancy Cordes saw a “nearly all-white crowd” at Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC, as she (at least an off-camera female voice) demanded of two black women who weren’t afraid to attend: “I’m noticing that there aren’t a lot of minorities here today. Why do you think that is?” One of the women shot back: “They’re probably over there with Al Sharpton.” (MP3 audio)

In her story for Saturday’s CBS Evening News, Cordes had a very specific attendee number: “According to a tally commissioned by CBS News, roughly 87,000 people gathered here at this event today, thronging both sides of the reflecting pool, stretching all the way to the World War II memorial. That’s the largest gathering here on the mall since President Obama was inaugurated.”

NBC anchor Lester Holt was more generous with his crowd guesstimate (“tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands”) before he described the Beck rally as “steeped in patriotism, rooted in the nation’s cultural divide and greeted by suspicion.”

Holt opened the August 28 NBC Nightly News:

Good evening. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people from all over the country gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington today for a rally steeped in patriotism, rooted in the nation’s cultural divide and greeted by suspicion. It was organized by provocative conservative talk show host Glenn Beck who was joined on stage by Sarah Palin. And if that wasn’t enough to trigger reaction from activists on the left, the timing and place of the rally certainly was – the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered from those same steps 47 years ago today.

Flashback to April: “White NBC Reporter Confronts Black Man at Tea Party Rally: ‘Have You Ever Felt Uncomfortable?‘”

Back to the CBS Evening News and Cordes, a little of what led into the exchange quoted above:

NANCY CORDES: Beck, who is a converted Mormon, likes to call himself a clown, but today he played the role of ring-master, preaching racial tolerance to the nearly all-white crowd. A change in tone from the Fox News host who notoriously called President Obama [Beck: “a racist.”]

CORDES (or at least a female voice) TO TWO BLACK WOMEN: I’m noticing that there aren’t a lot of minorities here today. Why do you think that is?

WOMAN: They’re probably over there with Al Sharpton.

(There was no World News on ABC on Saturday night, at least in the EDT and CDT zones, because of the Little League World Series Texas v Hawaii playoff game. Hawaii won.)