IS SHARIA LAW A THREAT TO AMERICA? FORMER REPUBLICAN DEFENSE DEPT OFFICIAL DEBATES ISLAMIC SCHOLAR
CNN. Sept. 29, 2010—After testifying at a hearing about a proposed mosque in Tennessee, Sharia law self-styled "expert" Frank Gaffney went on Anderson Cooper last night to explain why, exactly, the mosque could be another victory for radical American Muslims who want to destroy the United States from within.
Gaffney claimed that the Imams' agenda to impose Sharia law "ultimately winds up becoming a cancer inside a society. No-go zones are typically associated with it where the authorities dare not go. Sharia law is practiced in those no-go zones. They are expanded in due course. And ultimately, you have the groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom many of these mosques and for that matter, Muslim-American organizations of any note, are associated, pursuing a mission that we know, from evidence introduced into another federal trial, is to destroy western civilization from within. That's really worrying."
Gaffney is one of several neocons who allege that 80 percent of mosques in America are led by radical imams who want to overthrow the Constitution and impose Sharia, or Islamic, law. He testified Monday at a hearing in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where an Islamic center and mosque that has been operating for decades is planning an expansion into a bigger facility. Opponents of the mosque are suing, saying county officials broke open meeting law when they approved the plan.
He admitted at the hearing Monday that he's no expert on Sharia.
"I don't hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law," he said. "But I have talked a lot about that as a threat."
On Anderson Cooper last night, he argued with Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University and a former Pakistani ambassador for the United Kingdom. Ahmed pointed out that only two percent of Americans are Muslim, and even if all of them wanted to impose Sharia law, they couldn't.
ANDERSON COOPER: Do you believe this mosque wants to institute Sharia law?
PROFESSOR AHMED: Anderson, your math is probably better than mine. If every Muslim in the US, which is about 2% of the population, wanted Sharia—which is not the case at all—could they impose it on 98% of the country who are not Muslim? That is absurd.
In my country, where I came from (Pakistan), 98% of the population is Muslim and there is no Sharia law.
Gaffney claimed that the Imams' agenda to impose Sharia law "ultimately winds up becoming a cancer inside a society. No-go zones are typically associated with it where the authorities dare not go. Sharia law is practiced in those no-go zones. They are expanded in due course. And ultimately, you have the groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom many of these mosques and for that matter, Muslim-American organizations of any note, are associated, pursuing a mission that we know, from evidence introduced into another federal trial, is to destroy western civilization from within. That's really worrying."
Gaffney is one of several neocons who allege that 80 percent of mosques in America are led by radical imams who want to overthrow the Constitution and impose Sharia, or Islamic, law. He testified Monday at a hearing in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where an Islamic center and mosque that has been operating for decades is planning an expansion into a bigger facility. Opponents of the mosque are suing, saying county officials broke open meeting law when they approved the plan.
He admitted at the hearing Monday that he's no expert on Sharia.
"I don't hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law," he said. "But I have talked a lot about that as a threat."
On Anderson Cooper last night, he argued with Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University and a former Pakistani ambassador for the United Kingdom. Ahmed pointed out that only two percent of Americans are Muslim, and even if all of them wanted to impose Sharia law, they couldn't.
ANDERSON COOPER: Do you believe this mosque wants to institute Sharia law?
PROFESSOR AHMED: Anderson, your math is probably better than mine. If every Muslim in the US, which is about 2% of the population, wanted Sharia—which is not the case at all—could they impose it on 98% of the country who are not Muslim? That is absurd.
In my country, where I came from (Pakistan), 98% of the population is Muslim and there is no Sharia law.
It's good to air out two sides of any issue.
On one side we have a former Bush era Defense Department official and certified NEOCON who has gone on record as insisting that Saddam Hussein was behind the 1993 bombing of the WTC AND the Oklahoma City bombing and continually maintained that we would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even after we went in and didn't find them.
On the other side we have a noted Islamic scholar, born in Pakistan, educated at a Catholic School ("Does this make me loyal to the Pope?" he asked when Gaffney tried to insist that anyone who went to an Islamic University supports Sharia law.) and a former ambassador to the UK.
Guess who actually knows more about the subject?
And guess who doesn't know what he is talking about and totally makes a fool of himself--and doesn't even know it?