“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3.

When the United States faces a purported religious war, it is only natural that religious guidance should be sought.

If the religious nature of this statement perturbs you, we could say this situation is a serious case of “the pot calling the kettle black.”

The situation I refer to is the development of the mosque and community center to be built near the former site of the World Trade Center.

Much has been said of the constitutionality of the plan. A great deal of time has also been given to the so-called anti-American message the facility would send. However, inadequate time has been given to the fundamental idea of reciprocity.

The United States currently maintains 761 Department of Defense facilities in 39 foreign countries. Most of these facilities are Army or Air Force bases, with a large majority of them being located in Germany, 268 sites; Japan, 124 sites; and South Korea, 87 sites. All this information comes from the DOD’s own Base Structure Report Fiscal Year 2008.

You may ask, “How does this pertain to a New York City mosque?” It solidifies the U.S. role of “pot” to the Muslim establishment’s “kettle.”

The two primary arguments proposed by the hard line opponents of the facility are:

1. The facility is insensitive to the cultural context in which it is proposed

2. The facility will extend a global militaristic agenda bent on imperialism

First, it is said that the Muslim community center expresses insensitivity toward the events of 9/11. In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, that is quite true.

I believe former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said it best when he opined, “If you are a healer, you do not go forward with this project,” on NBC’s “Today” show, referring to the center’s leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. “If you are a warrior, you do.”

However, the very people waving signs with such slogans in the streets of New York generally support the idea of a strong U.S. presence abroad. The same people who say a Muslim church should not be erected in our country generally favor shoe-horning seven and a half million Jews on property roughly the size of a postage stamp surrounded by millions of their sworn religious enemies.

Is the militaristically protected presence of Israel in the Middle East culturally insensitive? Maybe.

Additionally, the global militarism feared by Islam is something of a joke compared to the current militarism of the United States.

Again, blind toward the actions of their own country, many Americans see no ethical quandary in protesting the presence of a Muslim house of worship, while simultaneously voting in support of Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo Bay, the very location from which the Bay of Pigs’ mission to overthrow the widely-popular Cuban government was coordinated, is still populated by the U.S. military.

Why? The Bay of Pigs, along with the other 760 foreign DOD facilities, is maintained in order to preserve U.S. financial and political interests around the world. So then, is Islam or the American military-industrial complex a greater imperialistic threat?

It is time to step back from the bullhorn long enough to look ourselves in the mirror.