American taxpayer money being used to build mosques in Iraq

[Zorobabel]

AMBASSADOR BREMER SIGNS NEW MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR IRAQI HOUSING CONTRACTS, KICKS OFF
PROJECT “IRAQI RENEWAL”

Baghdad, Iraq. Today, Ambassador Paul L. Bremer participated in a signing ceremony hosted by Iraqi Housing Minister Baqir Jabor Al-Zubaidi, at the Ministry for Housing and Construction, for seven new housing contracts worth in excess of $100 million. In doing so, Ambassador Bremer initiated the first phase of Project “Iraqi Renewal,” designed to provide thousand of Iraqis nationwide with housing, community infrastructure and both skilled and unskilled jobs.

This housing construction effort will, upon completion, provide living units for 3,528 families. This project will house in excess of 18,000 Iraqis, and employ over 14,000 Iraqis. While homes rank first among the products of these various community developments, each “neighborhood” will include a mosque, recreational ground, medical clinic, shopping mall, and schools. The communities will serve as a foundation for the construction of a bright and exciting future for the Iraqi people.

The Governorates which will benefit from these projects include Basrah, Muthanna, Najaf, Diyala, Karbala, Maysan, and Ninawa. Construction will begin immediately on the first project in Basrah.

During the signing ceremony, Ambassador Bremer remarked: “The future of Iraq is a future of hope. And for many families decent housing, housing with running water, sewage connections, electrical systems and telephone connections, is a central part of their hope. That is why signing these contracts represents a great deal more than ink on paper. These contracts mean that a future of hope is becoming a future of reality.”

 

[tulc]

...and your thoughts on this are?
tulc

 

[Zorobabel]

As a Christian I believe that we are spending money to promote sending people to hell. If I was not a student and paying taxes I would be quite appalled. However, I know this is not necessarily a unique case and this is an open forum. I just thought I'd post the story and see if anyone cared.

 

[UberLutheran]

...and we DID blow up their buildings (including their places of worship, which if you are a Muslim are correctly called "mosques"), and we DID kill several tens of thousands of their people, and we DID ruin their economy -- don't you think rebuilding their mosques is the very LEAST we could do?

 

[burrow_owl]

wow. invade a muslim country for no reason, and rebuild their infrastructure. Shocking!

 

[feral]

I also hate to see tax money used in this fashion. I which Georgie boy and his administration had spent a little more time thinking about the war instead of barging in for absolutely no reason. Now that it's done, however, it is obligation to repair what we destroyed and that includes mosques. Regardless of your personal feelings about Islam and the truth of that religion, we are not the ones who should make the religious choices for the Iraqi people. Knowing Franklin Graham the country will be crawling with evangelists and missionaries for the Christian faith, so it's hardly as if Iraq will be forbidding Christianity. I would hope for the same help in rebuilding churches if it had been Iraq that invaded us.

 

[USincognito]

As a Christian I believe that we are spending money to promote sending people to hell. If I was not a student and paying taxes I would be quite appalled. However, I know this is not necessarily a unique case and this is an open forum. I just thought I'd post the story and see if anyone cared.

You better get used to the thought of your tax money going for things you don't like. Pacifists don't like their money going for bombs and fundamentalists don't like their money going to the NEA. It's part of living in a pluralistic society.

I see you've learned the "reactionary code" for discussion of topics. Instead of saying that U.S. tax money will fund a public works project to give Iraqis jobs after we invaded and ravaged their infrastructure includes the building of mosques, you chose to make it look like we're just over there building mosques. Nicely done. Intellectually bankrupt... but nicely done.

 

[stray bullet]

It is unconstitutional for the government to promote a particular religion, which is what this is doing.

I don't mind them rebuilding, we had to do that in WWII. However, they should not be building any mosques, churches, temples, whatever. I certainly wouldn't want to go pray in a building made by the state either.

 

[stray bullet]

wow. invade a muslim country for no reason, and rebuild their infrastructure. Shocking!

Saddam is still in power?

 

[stray bullet]

As a Christian I believe that we are spending money to promote sending people to hell.

Wow, that was needlessly insulting.

 

[USincognito]

It is unconstitutional for the government to promote a particular religion, which is what this is doing.

I don't mind them rebuilding, we had to do that in WWII. However, they should not be building any mosques, churches, temples, whatever. I certainly wouldn't want to go pray in a building made by the state either.

If that's the case then the military shouldn't be building chapels on bases and posts. Federal projects including the rebuilding of infrastructure of nations we've gone to war with can and should include houses of worship.

That's quite a bit different from the Federal government paying for the contruction of Coitwood Regional Mega-Church in Plano Texas.

 

[datan]

Saddam is still in power?

you mean only dict^Z^Z^Z^Z governments that the US government likes are allowed to mean in power?

 

[Blessed-one]

too bad.. it can't be helped. You bomb up their buildings, you gotta rebuild them as Uber said. And how could you say no to rebuilding mosques? otherwise you're going to give the Iraq rebellion one more reason to support their ongoing destructive activites And to help persuade others to join them.

 

[stray bullet]

If that's the case then the military shouldn't be building chapels on bases and posts.

That's a bit different. If they didn't provide a religious outlet, then they would be inhibiting religion for soldiers, which the Supreme Court has also ruled unconsitutional.

 

[stray bullet]

you mean only dict^Z^Z^Z^Z governments that the US government likes are allowed to mean in power?

Can I have that in English please?

 

[stray bullet]

too bad.. it can't be helped. You bomb up their buildings, you gotta rebuild them as Uber said. And how could you say no to rebuilding mosques? otherwise you're going to give the Iraq rebellion one more reason to support their ongoing destructive activites And to help persuade others to join them.

The US targeted Mosques huh?

I really don't think anyone is going to join the terrorists there because the US didn't build them a Mosque.

 

[Arturis]

The US probably wants to build the mosque so they can plant equipment to eavesdrop on the goings on inside. They did the same thing in Afghanistan, however, that mosque has been pretty much abandoned since it was built. It’s just a hunch anyway. I could be mistaken but from reading history, the US and Soviets routinely bugged each other’s embassies. Not that a mosque is an embassy but they are very secretive. A good place to spout anti-American jargon, relay messages and recruit fanatics & funding without worrying about reprisals.

 

[Polycarp1]

It is unconstitutional for the government to promote a particular religion, which is what this is doing.

I don't mind them rebuilding, we had to do that in WWII. However, they should not be building any mosques, churches, temples, whatever. I certainly wouldn't want to go pray in a building made by the state either.

I see the point you're making, and it's a valid one.

However, here's how I see it: If Word of God Community Church decides it needs a new building, it's completely contrary to the Constitution for the town to decide to put taxpayers' money into it.

But if an Army truck or a Post Office tractor-trailer skids off the road in an ice storm and crashes through the church building, the government is honorbound as the "tortfeasor" to pay for rebuilding the structure that they are responsible for the damage to.

We invaded Iraq -- never mind the morality of what we did or why. Extensive destruction resulted from our overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. Because we're the sort of people we are, we're helping out in the rebuilding effort to recover from that destruction. That includes homes, businesses, schools, and even mosques (and churches -- Iraq has a sizeable Christian minority, which I gather suffered greatly in the war).

It's not building them a new mosque; it's replacing the one we destroyed.

 

[stray bullet]

It's not building them a new mosque; it's replacing the one we destroyed.

How many Mosques did we destroy?

 

[tulc]

How many Mosques did we destroy?

uhmm...many?
tulc(do I win something?)