The above article contains major errors. There is no empirical base for the claim that the Hamburg mosque that was closed yesterday was where "several of the 9/11 terrorists were radicalized." Nor is there any empirical base for the claim that Mohamed Atta was a pilot on 9/11. In fact, the very attempt to connect Muslims to the mass murder of 9/11 is a major scandal, for the simple reason that the US authorities have never produced any tangible proof that Muslims (fanatic or else) boarded any of the aircraft allegedly hijacked on 9/11.

The absence of evidence to prove the 9/11 blood-libel against Muslims can be ascertained by anyone who has studied publicly available evidence produced by the US authorities regarding 9/11. The only question now is: Why on Earth did Foreign Policy fail to realize this fact for almost 10 years? Does US foreign policy relies on fraud?

What's the difference between a "radical mosque" and a non-radical mosque? All mosques teach the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad, so they are all "radical" in the sense of propagating sharia law and the doctrine of offensive jihad. However, some imams are more firebrands than others; and Moslem radicals tend to gather more in some mosques than in other mosques. So, they closed the "radical" mosque in Hamburg. So what? The "radicals" who attended that mosque will find another mosque to meet in.

Islam is NOT a religion like other religions; and Islamic scholars are the first ones to say so. For example, Yusuf Qaradawi (the most influential Muslim cleric in the world today, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood) said: "Islam is not a religion in the common, distorted meaning of the word, confining its scope only to the private life of man. By saying that it is a complete way of life, we mean that it caters for all the fields of human existence. In fact, Islam provides guidance for all walks of life — individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international." This "complete way of life" is the Sharia sacred Islamic law which calls for the legal subordination of non-Moslems to Moslems and of women to men; it requires death for homosexuals, apostates and blasphemers. And, it calls for eternal war (jihad) against non-Moslems until Islamic law dominates throughout the world. These doctrines all come from the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad which are preached and taught in every mosque in the world, and will be taught in the proposed mosques. People questioning the new mosques need to understand why Islam is unique and not like other religions. Then they would know that mosques are not like churches because mosques are centers for the propagation of sharia law. If Islam is not like other religions, it should not be treated like other religions. If mosques are not like churches and other houses of prayer, then mosques should not be treated like other houses of prayer. Mosques are centers for the propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology, and they should be treated like other centers for the propagation of supremacist, violent and imperialist ideology, such as the Communist Party or the Nazi Party.

Disregarding the unfriendly comments above, I submit it is a reasonable for citizens in democratic countries to expect their government to provide hard evidence when it accuses individuals of mass murder.

The U.S. government indeed accused 19 Muslims (the alleged hijackers) of mass murder. This is an undisputed fact.

However, that government never produced any hard evidence that these 19 individuals boarded the aircraft that they allegedly hijacked, neither certified passenger lists, nor boarding cards, nor positive identification of their bodily remains. In addition, no person has actually seen these individuals board any of the flights (AA11, AA77, UA175, UA93). Finally, there exists no authentic CCTV proving that these individuals boarded these flights. There exists no CCTV at all from Boston and Newark airports (flights AA11, UA175 and UA93) and only a dubious CCTV from Dulles airport purporting to show some of the hijackers (the CCTV was released privately in 2004 and does not show the date and time of the recording).

The absence of evidence does not permit anyone to accuse these 19 individuals of mass murder. And it is certainly improper to designate someone as a nut who demands hard evidence in a criminal case.,

How about closing down churches where Christian fundamentalists do their prayers? They are quite radical, they commit crimes too. But here's a better idea: close down everything hat might radicalize people! Close down the shops where the prices are going nowhere but up. Close down the cinemas where they only give violent movies. Close down the parks where those "radicals" meet. Close down the pet shops where they sell unhealthy animals. Shall we all just curl up and die because you Americans are paranoids? Germany has the authority to decide on its own devices.

It is a symptom of a deep social pathology when no one of the above commentators could provide the evidence to back-up the official tale on 9/11, or merely a link to a single document that proves this absurd tale. Everett, BT2160, Dr. Kuchbhi, Elkyyy and AJAX2715 found no better arguments than displaying their arrogance. I challenge you to address the factual allegations I have made, if you really believe that Muslims committed the mass murder of 9/11, and if you really believe that the perpetrators should be brought to justice. You may rely on any government document you want, but don't quote Osama bin Laden: I don't think he's a credible source.

Ian Johnson is either clueless and ignorant or deceptive and bigoted.

First off, he would have his gullible readers believe that a person needs to be "radicalized" in order to carry out an attack on innocent civilians.

Ian Johnson would have his gullible readers believe that decades of western European colonialism, meddling, wars, destruction and dispossession are supposed to make Muslims AND Arabs happy. Yes. That's how idiotic the premise of his argument is.

Ian Johnson would have his gullible readers believe that if someone punched him in the face and broke his teeth, he would have to spend a few months at a mosque to get radicalized and only then will he go back to punch that aggressor.

He goes on to state that: "a necessary step in the process to radicalization occurs in a place of worship."

This utter nonsense. Time and again, those who carried out the attacks, those who planned them, those who were subsequently arrested for having had ties with the so-called hijackers, have clearly said that they committed these acts because of US intervention in their own countries, as well as, due to the United States' unrelenting support for Israel as it continues to brutally occupy the Palestinians, demolishing their homes and stealing their land.

In fact, the Jordanian doctor who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, the same doctor who carried out the suicide attack in Afghanistan killing 9 CIA officers, made it quite clear earlier that he was disillusioned and distressed after the slaughter and the killing he saw Israel commit in Gaza in 2009. An attack on innocent civilians. 1300 were killed, at least 350 of them were children. See the Goldstone Report.

Wikileaks documents on Afghanistan and the US occupation of that country, show that several hundred innocent Afghan civilians have been killed by US aerial bombings. Women and children were slaughtered in their sleep.

How about the Special Forces unit known as 373 that has been butchering Afghan civilians and non-civilians since 2001?

So, here comes Ian Johnson, attempting to convince us that with all this death and destruction, what the average Muslim or Arab really needs, is a mosque to "radicalize".

It's nonsense.

He then goes on to peddle common bigoted stereotypes: Muslims by nature believe conspiracy theories, Muslims see themselves as victims (Even though they really are victims).

He goes on to write that: "One brochure talked about the "genocide" going on in Palestine, while another bemoaned the role of Jews in the world. Almost all the worshipers were immigrants from Arab countries, and they clearly hadn't left their conspiracy-theory-ridden politics back at home."

Hasn't there been an ethnic cleansing going on in Palestine for the last 60 years? What else does Ian Johnson call the forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians in 1948? What else does Ian Johnson call the close to 25,000 Palestinians homes demolished by Israel between 1967 and the present? Read what Israeli historians are saying about it all. Try Tom Segev's The Seventh Million, for example. Or, read Illan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

What else would Johnson call the razing of entire villages, more than 580 villages, in 1948?

What does he call the slaughter of more than 6,500 Palestinians in the last decade (that's 10 years for the edumecated out there) alone?

And the 4 million refugees as a result of US and NATO invasion of Iraq in 2003 doesn't even factor into that. But, how about the sanctions that resulted in more than 1,000,000 Iraqi infants dying over the course of 8 years, between 1992 and 2000?

When asked if the sanctions were worth it, Madeleine Albright at the time said it was worth it.

So what is Ian Johnson blathering about with his nonsense, masquerading as truth?

But, he doesn't stop there. No. Johnson goes on to allege that there is some kind of decades-long conflict between the "West" and Islam".

Surely, Johnson must think that overthrowing a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 was a way of saying to the Muslim world, and more specifically, Iran, that the "West" likes democracy, will promote democracy, so long as it doesn't interfere with the "West's" strategic interests. Just ask the Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh whom the US overthrew and installed a dictator, a friend of the "West".

Is Johnson aware that the "West", including his own government in Germany has been supporting and propping dictators throughout the Middle East for at least 40 years now? Does Ian Johnson know that Egypt's president, Mubarak, has been in power for more than 25 years now and continues to rule over Egyptians with an iron fist, torturing to death those who disagree with his policies? Does Ian Johnson know that Afghanistan was a secular, liberal and modern society in the 1960s, before "the West" invaded their country and turned it into rubble?

How about all those Mujaheddin that the US and YOUR country too, Western Germany at the time, supported? Does Ian Johnson know that the Mujaheddin were the bread and butter of the "West's" war against the Soviets? Heck the US was paying the Mujaheddin and supplying them with weapons. And these Mujaheddin were no moderates. But, Ronald Reagan called them Freedom Fighters, and the vast majority of them came from OUTSIDE Afghanistan.

So, the next time, Ian Johnson, has the urge to write nonsense, he's better off sending it to one of his friends, Geert Wilder, or Abe Foxman. I'm sure they'll both find his article to be "interesting and enlightening".

And I have one last suggestion for Ian Johnson; mind your own business and keep your nose in Germany. We sure don't need a bigot and a liar lecturing us Americans how to conduct our business, whether it's related to a Muslim cultural center or anything else -- It's not a mosque, but you didn't know that either, did you?

This is a pet peeve of mine. From the article's sub-headline:

"The only question now is: Why on Earth did it take 10 years?"

Ten years from when? The 9/11 attacks happened less than 9 years ago.

I've seen a lot of this lately (often related to the length of the Afghan War). It's as if people think we're coming up on the 10th anniversary. We've still got over a year to go!

I believe that the mosque controversy both here and abroad conflate the rantings of a few extreme fundamentalist to be those of a whole congregation. Worst, the animus is extrapolated to include 1 billion innocent and faithful adherents of Islam. Any cleric can proselytize heresy or, in this case, terrorism-cum-jihad but not succeed in turning all into an advocate/follower. It's dangerous to assume that some bad apples are reason enough to shut down this mosque. It will very well play into the hands of those who want to prove the world is anti-Islam.

The author, Ian Johnson, makes a major logical error in this article. In the article he describes how the "9/11" Hamburg mosque is "a linchpin in the Muslim Brotherhood's worldwide network of mosques". Does the author not know that AlQaeda is totally against the ideology of the Brotherhood? The terror group AlQaeda has on numerous occasions declared the Brotherhood to not only being too soft, but also 'munafiq' (hypocrites) + traitors. Clearly, either author did not get his sources straightened out, or he intentionally made an biased observation.

Lastly, it seems to me that the author is implying that the imam of the proposed Cordoba House center in NYC is also radical. The author's language seems to imply such, and that too is disingenuous and outright lying. Just look @ the recent announcement of the State Dept. sending imam Rauf to the Middle East to showcase what American Muslims are about & their experiences.

As commented above "When experts are pressed on why young Muslims turn to terrorism, they usually give one of two answers. The first is the socioeconomic argument -- that poverty or discrimination caused the turn to violence. We heard this most recently in the aftermath of the failed bombing in New York's Times Square: The perpetrator was said to have been a victim of the economic crash, which caused him to lose his home and, supposedly, turn to violence." Search for current sports news.

As commented above "When experts are pressed on why young Muslims turn to terrorism, they usually give one of two answers. The first is the socioeconomic argument -- that poverty or discrimination caused the turn to violence. We heard this most recently in the aftermath of the failed bombing in New York's Times Square: The perpetrator was said to have been a victim of the economic crash, which caused him to lose his home and, supposedly, turn to violence."