The Boston-Britain Terror Connection

Prepping for the show on the latest foiled terror attack today, I ran across this item on National Review:

Of course, it doesn’t help that the British government’s idea of outreach is to engage radical clerics like Yusuf Qaradawi. Islamism chic isn’t just about Ken Livingstone, anymore. The British Foreign Office just last month flew Qaradawi to Istanbul at British tax payer expense to address a conference.

Hmmmm...."Radical cleric Yusuf Qaradawi?" How do I know that name? Then it came to me. The Islamic Society of Boston, of course!

The city of Boston has "sold" a $2 million of land to the ISB for $175,000. The result is a $1.8 million taxpayer donation for the construction of a mosque. Setting aside the First Amendment issues raised by a tax-funded mosque, why the heck would Boston Mayor Tom Menino insist on supporting THIS mosque?

As has been widely reported, the ISB has numerous connections to terror supporters, including Al-Qaradawi. As the Weekly Standard reports:

In 1995, al-Qaradawi gave an address at the Muslim Arab Youth Association's convention in Toledo, Ohio where he vowed that Islam would "conquer Europe" and "conquer America." Earlier this past year, Al-Qaradawi declared that women should never lead men in prayers, calling the idea "heresy."

This was a step backward from al-Qaradawi's previously progressive attitude towards women: In 2003, he became the first prominent cleric to unequivocally support the concept of female suicide bombers. Al-Qaradawi declared that "women's participation in the martyrdom operations . . . is one of the most praised acts of worship." He went so far as to say a woman could participate in such an operation without her husband's consent and even, if necessary, travel without male chaperones and without wearing a veil. At the time, a spasm of female suicide bombers emerged.

The ISB acknowledges that they've used al-Qaradawi to raise money for the mosque. They admit that his name has appeared on federal tax documents as a trustee, but insist is was a typo.

Regardless, does Mayor Menino really want to take the chance that one day, radicalized Muslims from Boston's city-funded mosque will be arrested at Logan Airport for plotting terror? Forget the obvious legal and moral issues--how is a taxpayer-funded mosque a winning POLITICAL issue for the Boston City Council?

And yet the plan moves forward. Citizens are suing to stop this idiotic, unconstitutional action, but city officials like Mayor Menino continue to support it.

Why? I suspect that it's because Boston liberals simply cannot bear to be called bigots. They would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees (it's not their money, anyway) and abandon the First Amendment, rather than be accused of anti-Muslim bias.

Meanwhile, Islamist terrorism supported by people like al-Qaradawi puts all of our lives at risk...and all on the taxpayer's tab.

UPDATE! The story of Menino's Mosque is laid out in meticulous detail here.