Posted by John Christian Plummer
Or a shop that sell cigarettes? Because I can read, and thus I know that more Americans die of arterial damage and lung disease every year than are killed by Muslims praying to Allah.
The amount of time, ink and digital storage space being spent discussing the mosque at Ground Zero is absurd beyond all ken. One could make a compelling argument that at least half the reason America exists is to be able to express religious freedom. Should we also tear down every church below Houston Street because the KKK bases it's ideology on something it likens to Christianity?
Allow me to be blunt: if you care about the mosque at Ground Zero, you are wasting your time. Here's what you can talk about instead:
There are over 20 million people (that's 6,666.66 (yeah, those are Omen numbers) times the number of people murdered on 9/11) currently displaced, starving and on the road to greater devastation and death in Pakistan. And here's the thing:
this is just the beginning. UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon:
"For two years we've got to give them crops, fertilisers; we've got to give them seed; we've got to look after them, feed them, for two years, to bring them back to where they were. And they will still not be where they were."
The UN is asking world governments for an initial $460 million to provide relief, but only 20 percent has been given. The Chayesfkian irony is miles deep. We've happily flooded Pakistan and Afghanistan with millions upon millions of Benjamins -- but only to kill people (sorry, I meant make the world safe for arms merchants to sell guns that kill people).I have a great idea: Pakistan should leak information that the Taliban has built a big undersea headquarters (kind of like a James Bond villain) and is using the flood to cover it up. Hell, we'd pour billions into diverting flood waters and relocating displaced starving people as long as it would get us closer to someone we need at the end of our gun barrels. To really seal the deal, though, Pakistan needs to say that the Taliban has built a tiny replica of Ground Zero in their underwater lair, and has constructed a mosque right beside it. Kaboom!