Here is a good Question....

If China wanted to build schools in the US that promoted there form of government, with the desire to somehow in the future convince enough Americans to agree with China's flavor of Communism, would our Constitution give them the right to do so?

No. 

If Iran wanted to do the same thing, what do you think that would look like? The "schools" Iran would build, would be Masque's. Not because they would try and hide what they are doing, but because that's what they build in there own country to teach there from of government.

Do you think because they are masked in religion, they have more rights then the Chinese?

No.

So, should this center be build? It all depends on what the center really is.

wow this thread is full of stupid posts... i'll add one:

_ Anyone thinking there is a conspiracy theory in 9/11 is wrong/gullible/ret***** .... the way the buildings fell is totally normal, why would you expect any other direction? the building actually broke evenly because the few enflamed floors broke at the same time.... making a nice 20 story block fall 30 meters onto the remainter of the structure, crumbling all the pillars and fondations. Have you even seen a building being taken down? do you think it tips over? no they blow up the foundations and it cumbles, here the 20 top stories acting as a hammer served as the "dynamite" on the foundations and the inside structure.

_ anyone saying america "deserved it" or are "responsable for it" are the product of modern media overflow that creates heaps of sheeps to folow their will... product of propaganda. The mob is dumb and they are proof of it.

_ What exactly has america done before 9/11.... umh...yeah but besides that.... ah ok... yeah so you hate the us for either a)saving europe from nazism b) preventing asia to be under full faschist Japan's control d) cause stalin didn't like them. No? oh for the iraq war... yeah so you hate them and say 9/11 is justified because after 9/11 they invaded iraq.... right cause in school you get a 0 before you even take the test is that it? yeah ok very rational, love your way of (not) thinking guys...

(on the mosque.... I believe it is used as provocation by some muslims, and as such has no place to be there. Unfortunately for the moderate muslims, the visible part of the population is the one that wants to be seen... the fanatically absurd one.)

and on suicide bombers being educated.... are you gyus refering to the doctor that tried to blow up an airport? putting fire to his car with a bomb, only to have the bomb not explode and him being badly burnt? Funny how the smart people mess up so bad isn't it? It's not because you're educated that you're smart, it helps, but not that much.

It isn't relevant that they're smart or not. The lecture I linked to asserted simply that most of the male suicide hijackers/bombers were educated and had no major psychological issues, infact they were training one guy who they didn't end up using because he was unstable.

It was making the point that many suicide bombers end up like that because of the cognative dissonance, a mutation of retaliation bargaining by religion, the pull of paradise etc.

It was simply going against the conventional wisdom that they're all uneducated and ignorant etc. I believe the lecture was mainly talking about the 911 terrorists. I'd have to watch it again. I'm unclear of the details at this moment.

EDIT, yes it does talk about the 911 terrorists aswell, who were also mainly educated according to the lecture.

Anyway it was a side point and an interesting lecture. Doesn't really matter in the context of the thread.

I hope that no one thinks that America "deserves" what happened to them on 9/11, although that's probably not true.  You have your history a bit wrong.  WWII was always going to be won by the side with Russia on it.  What America did was prevent the rest of Europe from falling to Communism by building the atomic bomb.  I fail to see where anyone said that Iraq was the justification for 9/11.   I know that I said that Rauf's comments were based on Operation Iraqi Freedom, which killed over 70,000 Iraqi citizens in 2005.  Rauf wasn't using that as a justification for 9/11 though, he was pointing out that the U.S had killed more innocent Muslims than Al-Qaeda had killed Americans.  By U.S.D.O.D. stats, he's absolutely correct.

That being said,the motivation for the US to go into Iraq was certainly much purer than Al-Qaeda's for destroying the WTC.  Does it justify all the civilian deaths?  I don't know.  Bin Laden had no ties to Iraq.

As to what America did before 9/11.  They armed Al-Qaeda in the 80's when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  At the time Bin Laden was a mujahideen, and great ally of the US. Then the US invaded Kuwait.  Bin Laden believed that the Iraq-Kuwait situation should have been dealt with by Muslims, and that western forces had no business being in the gulf.  This is the event that caused Bin Laden to drop his ties with the US and become a terrorist.  

When people say that American foreign policy was responsible for 9/11, that is what they are talking about.  Every time the US goes into a foreign country, some people will be harmed, and they will inevitably blame the US.  No matter how righteous the action, America must be prepared to pay the cost for interfering.  This is a paradox; while Americans are good people, and want to help those in distress (Kuwait), there will be a group of people who are hurt by American intervention and will take up arms against the US. 

The center is an islamic YMCA.  The prayer space is to accommodate overflow from Rauf's existing mosque.  I promise that we'd never have heard about it in the news, except that this is an election year.  For example, last year Laura Ingraham was in favor of the center being built.  Now that it's a political issue, she's against it.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/26/laura-ingraham-move-this-_n_695262.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Fox News is also calling out the head of the Kingdom Project as being the possible source of funds for the center.  They say that he is behind extremist mosques in the middle east.  They fail to mention that he is the second largest shareholder of Fox News' parent company, News Corp.  Which makes a lot of sense if you think about it: Fox News puts money into the center, then ratchets up fear of 'radicals who are behind the mosque', then increases ratings, which increases profits.  Incidentally, this means more money for the Kingdom project.

http://salem-news.com/articles/august262010/fox-mosque-funding-gd.php

As to China building schools in the US, you'll be happy to note that capitalism is so awesome the Chinese are moving towards it, slowly but surely.  And as for Iran building schools in the US, there are a few problems with this.  One, Iran doesn't have a ton of money to be throwing at foreign schools.  Two, despite what we hear from Ahmedinajad, America is generally well liked in Iran.  Saudi Arabia, not so much.  In Iran, more than 25% of the population is under age 29. This segment of the population is staunchly pro-west (I reckon its the blue jeans and MTV).  I definitely think that we have far more serious enemies than Iran.  Iran is more like Venezuela; they have a leader who is all sound and no fury.  

While I agree that the sudden installation of a Chinese or Iranian style government would be horrible, there's a point that needs to be considered.  How is the (vast) minority of the population going to oppress the majority?  America has some of the greatest individual freedoms in the world.  This has lead to the growth of a vibrant, prosperous nation that 3/4 of the rest of the world would do anything to be a part of.  I just don't understand why we worry about these non-issues when there are real and significant threats that we could be worrying about.  (I'm looking at you, North Korea)

errrr lol... yeah germany was losing to russia... cause they had the western front. Without US support, the UK would have dropped and germany could have reallocated resources to fight russia... moreover, without the US, Russia would have had to deal with Japan. And what are you talking about with the atomic bomb... that came after the end of the war in europe, it has nothing to do with anything....

OMG the US invaded Kuwait..... you mean Iraq I hope no? the US never invaded Kuwait... they liberated it from the invasion Sadam had just lead a few weeks before.... and that was with support of the saudis and all the others (muslim countries were favorable to the western forces liberating Kuwait, as getting Kuwait would have given too much weight to Iraq with the oil).

eh...this thread is getting a tad bit nasty and out of hand.....

Not only that, but they secured the autonomy of the Kurdish (the kurds, who were being massacred by the regime) region of Iraq correct?

Furthermore didn't congress vote in the late 90's to make removing Saddam official US foreign policy?

Well, on the A-bomb issue, I think he may mean that us having it indimidated the USSR sufficiently that they did not try to invade more of Europe than they did, and by the time they had a remotely comparable nuclear arsenal NATO was strong enough to keep keeping them at bay.  But I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this analysis. 

But as for "WWII was always going to be won by the side with Russia on it":  ridiculous.  The USSR was a powerful force to be sure, but don't let the sheer numbers fool you.  We (the Allies but especially the USA) were totally propping them up.  There were more American trucks in Russia than Russian ones, and that is only an example of the ridiculous amount of material we were providing them with.  And the Allied invasions in the west were the only thing that let the USSR turn the tide on their front. 

"WWII was always going to be won by the side with the USA on it" would be a more accurate statement. 

Wow who are you and where have you been.  This is a very insightful and fair post into the subject you were discussing while also being respectful and thoughtful of potential other sides... along with adhering to the rules of logic.  Would like to personally thank you for providing intellectual conversation into off-topic political discussions on this forum because really they are far and in between.  

I would love to discuss politics with you sometimes.  Quite a fascinating subject if you have someone that is willing to do it seriously.