Some commenters in this post (and over at Little Green Footballs) are (unaccountably, to me) skeptical about Laura Mansfield's tale of the mosque. I emailed her to ask if she wanted to respond, and she wrote:

I did not provide details as to the location of the mosque or the date of the visit simply for safety reasons. They do not have my full name. However if I provide the date and the name/location of the mosque I might as well walk back in, hand the imam a copy of the article, and wait for the backlash.

I do not have the weight of a governmental agency behind me; I have had to redact certain information for security purposes.

Let me also add that the sessions were audiotaped - not broadcast quality but certainly understandable.

I suspected that was the situation, as I noted in previous comments. People will, of course, continue to believe (and disbelieve) as they choose.

I see no reason to doubt the authenticity of her report.

I lived for a few years in Jordan not long ago. Although I spoke only a few words of Arabic, most of my friends and co-workers were Jordanian and Palestinian. Their reports about what they heard at Friday prayers (when they bothered to go) synchs precisely with Mansfield's report. Since many fundamentalist Arab Muslims (yes, there are millions of rather undevout nonfundamentalist Arab Muslims, too) hold to an allegiance to their faith and their Arab ethnicity rather than their country, there's no reason why this kind of rhetoric shouldn't spread here.

For what it is worth, a lot of people seemed to consider these imams ill-educated money-grubbing hucksters. More than one person told me he regretted their popularity, but felt their anti-American rhetoric was paralleled by the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric of American right-wing fundamentalist Christian preachers. (Stories alleging some Yankee nutjob preacher had slandered Muslims and Mohammad were common tabloid fodder.)

Someone in the earlier post made a comparison to Rathergate which was off-balancing until I realized it was a red herring.

Rather had a political agenda to destroy a president... so what?, it's what we expect from him. However, promoting terrorism (what else would you call it?) in one language in secret, while speaking peace and love publicly, during a time of war... even as a rumor is so serious it deserves our attention and investigation.

Recruitment from mosques and prisons is being done (I don't believe this is seriously disputed) which isolated to itself is no big deal. What is a big deal is that these are recruitments of POTENTIAL TERRORISTS on a NATIONAL LEVEL (and now I repeat myself) DURING A TIME OF WAR.

This is serious and worthy of dedicated investigation. Is our government up to the task? It may not be. Citizens need to be aware and prepared to defend themselves. While nobody wants hysteria (at least I don't) this is a dangerous situation that must be addressed. We don't need panic. We do need to be clear thinking and suspicious. Do we wait until thousands more are killed or do we act first? This war is about hearts and minds and it's insidious.

It needs to be fought in the bright light of day. Americans know when they are being lied to. Some buy into the lies, but I believe that most don't. Ann Coulter went a bit overboard after 9/11 when she essentially called for a new crusades, but her heart was definitely in the right place. Evil exists and must be confronted.

As has been pointed out (but rarely paid attention to), Yassir Arafat regularly made speeches in favor of peace w/ the Israelis in English---only to promptly remind his audience in Arabic that he meant no such thing.

IIRC, the clause in the PA constitution about being dedicated to the elimination of Israel was removed, as per Oslo---from the English language version. It apparently remains in place in Arabic.