What better way to show that we have sustained our values and won the war against terror than building an American Mosque, right next to the site where the attacks took place. I am shocked at the reaction of some people against building it. I would think that the government or the most patriotic amongst us should propose that!
The whole point of the attacks by the terrorists was to polarize the relationship between Islam and America and to show that the American way of life or values are deeply conflicting to Islam and Muslims. This delusional picture they tried to draw with all their media capabilities, rhetoric, and the blood of innocent people.
What they tried to convey is the farthest from the truth as the reality is. America is a secular country and adapts the freedom of religion of its citizens. America then is a safe niche for Islam to grow and for Muslims to flourish. There are more Muslims in America than there are in many of the Islamic and Arabic countries, and Muslims in America practice freedom of speech and preach their religion way more freely than most of the Islamic and Arabic countries.
Hence, it is a delusion that America is against Islam. Nevertheless, the foreign policy has not been very helpful in conveying the truth about America. Actually, if anything, it re-enforced through its public relations mistakes in many instances the terrorist propaganda. But that, hopefully, through a more open minded administration, is changing.
And what better way to declare the failure of the terrorists in alienating the U.S. from the Islamic World and polarizing the relationship between Islam and the West, than building a mosque in Manhattan, where Islam is practiced, preached, in the middle of America, in cohesion with the American values, in alliance with the American way of life, and with the American flag flying above it!
Wissam Charafeddine
NYTimes: With Remarks on Mosque, Obama Enters Risky Debate http://nyti.ms/d0xRMU
IRSHAD 
August 17, 2010 at 6:43 pm