Letter to the editor: State Department wasting money on foreign sites

If you read Nat Hentoff’s article you learned Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is on a State Department tour (financed by us) of Arab nations in the Middle East to tap Muslim nations for help to build the mosque near ground zero. This is only part of the U.S. government’s outreach to the Muslim world. This year the Obama administration will spend $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents.

That includes $76,000 for a 16th century mosque in China, $67,000 for a mosque in Pakistan, $77,000 to restore minarets in Nigeria and Mauritania, and $50,000 for an Islamic monument in India.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the U.S. program to restore Islamic and other cultural sites abroad is money will spent.

I don’t know about you but I think we could use that money right here in the U.S. to put some of our citizens to work, and more to the point, what part of “broke” does the government not understand?

What are our representatives doing to stop this senseless spending?

Cindy Hinz

Jamestown

Tags: opinion, editorials, muslim