Six Flags Over Baghdad

September 15, 2004

 

TGIF. Thank God It's Friday, right? How about TAIF? Thank Allah It's Friday. Yes, indeedy, this Friday is “Great Muslim Adventure Day” at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. Bring your burqa and join the fun! Muslims from all over America will pour into this tiny borough for one action-packed day of fun. On Friday, Jackson will become the Muslim merriment Mecca, if you'll pardon the expression.

 

The Muslim Youth Division of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) proclaims on its website, “First Time Ever – All Day – Entire Park Exclusively for Muslims!” They promise “entertainment for the entire family.” Highlights include afternoon prayers at 2PM led by Imam Zaid Shakir along with the comedy routine “Allah Made Me Funny.” (I'm not making that up.)

 

Sounds innocuous enough. But hold the phone.

 

What exactly is the ICNA? WorldNetDaily.com reports that it's not just some benevolent, fun-loving Muslim group. A reporter from that Internet news site recently attended a conference in Orlando, Fla., sponsored in part by the ICNA. What they heard from the stage was nothing less than chilling. A featured speaker voiced empathy and support for suicide bombers. He vehemently denied Muslims were involved in 9-11. He also characterized the war on terror as a “conspiratorial Zionist plot designed to destroy Islam and Muslims” and blamed attacks on affirmative action on “the rise of the Jewish cracker.”

 

And that ain't all.

 

Terrorism expert Steve Emerson says: “The ICNA's hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them.” Judicial Watch says the ICNA has ties to the terrorist organization Hamas. Emerson writes, “The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on Western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia [Islamic code of law].” The website JihadWatch.org reports that the ICNA is under investigation by FBI counter-terrorism agents.

 

To add insult to injury, Six Flags Great Adventure originally claimed the event was open only to “Muslims and their friends.” In the wake of public outrage after the story broke, Six Flags changed their stand and will now allow the public to attend.

 

See, here's the problem. In this day and age of political correctness, people all across this wonderful country of ours are bending over backwards to appear tolerant. Tolerance is good, don't get me wrong. However, tolerance of the intolerable is not. In their effort to ingratiate themselves with the “Muslim community,” Six Flags has opened their roller coasters, bumper cars and cotton candy stands to a group that supports the very destruction of everything they – and we – hold sacred.

 

Conspicuously absent is the public condemnation of the ICNA by those Muslims who continuously insist that Islam is a peaceful religion. Instead, when groups like this are outed for their insidious ties to organized terrorism, the outcry is most often against the messenger. I'm still waiting for the wholesale denunciation of those who support terrorism from the “Muslim community.” That's not to say there's no such thing as “good Muslims.” I'm just not hearing from many of them.

 

We're at war, folks. It's not your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety war. It's America's new war. It's a war against an enemy hell-bent on our destruction just because we live and breathe. Whether the ICNA has ever flown an airplane into a building or not is inconsequential. They are on record as being sympathetic to that cause. Those who sympathize with our enemies are also our enemies. What does that say for an American institution that harbors those sympathizers?

 

Six Flags should be ashamed.