9/11 Link Around

Via Freedom’s Lighthouse:Remembering September 11, 2001 – The Day in Video:

Below is video showing much of what happened on September 11. It is posted in remembrance of the 2,974 innocent people who died that day, and as a historical record of those terrible events. May we never forget.

September 11, 2001 – The Initial Bulletins – WTC North Tower Hit (8:46 AM EDT)

Michelle Malkin: 9/11: Remembrance, resolve, action:

Across the nation, public officials will strike somber poses and shed television-friendly tears and bow their blow-dried heads in memory of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

They’ll hold hands, light candles, and pass around a plateful of platitudes: “Never forget,” they’ll intone. “Let’s roll,” they’ll thunder. “God bless America,” they’ll warble in perfect harmony.

They’ll assure us that they are committed to fighting terror and securing our borders and doing whatever it takes to protect the homeland from another horrific mass murder at the hands of freedom-hating fanatics. And then?

And then, from Washington state to Washington, D.C., they’ll go back to work, roll up their sleeves, and spit on the graves of the 9/11 dead.

Your pious city councilwoman will return to the office to draft a resolution condemning the common-sense detention and deportation of Middle Eastern illegal aliens suspected of terrorism.

Your politically correct police chief will refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in criminal investigations of illegal visa overstayers and border-crossers and ship-jumpers.

Your pandering mayor will stealthily renew his policy of preventing city employees from reporting illegal aliens.

Your indignant local librarian will promote fear-mongering and misinformation about the Patriot Act.

Your regional Chamber of Commerce president will join forces with Canadian and Mexican government representatives to put business interests ahead of border enforcement.

Your tuition-thirsty university president will lobby behind closed doors against federal efforts to track foreign students and ensure that they go home when required. Your vote-hungry governor will encourage document fraud through his support of insecure foreign-issued identification cards and driver’s licenses for “undocumented workers.”

Error Theory: 9/11: New Park Service images prove the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 is unchanged:

The original Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial (left) was laid out in the configuration of an Islamic crescent and star flag (right). The crash site sits between the tips of the giant crescent, in the position of the star on an Islamic flag.

When this apparent symbol of Islamic triumph caused a national uproar seven years ago the Memorial Project (a public-private entity overseen by the Park Service) promised to change the design, but as demonstrated by the images below, they never did make any significant changes:

Above: original Crescent of Embrace design. Below: a frame from the Park Service’s new virtual fly-by of the Circle of Embrace “re-design” as it is being built. (Comparison image thanks to MaxK.)

The most significant change is the few extra trees that are being planted outside the mouth of the original crescent (starting at the crescent tip on the right, where the flight path symbolically “breaks the circle,” and continuing down behind the Sacred Ground Plaza that marks the crash site). These few trees supposedly turn the crescent into a circle, but as you can see, they do no such thing, but only apply the most minor window dressing to what is still a bare naked Islamic-shaped crescent.

The circle-breaking, crescent-creating theme of the design also remains completely intact

The Park Service web site explicitly describes the Circle of Embrace as a broken circle, proving that the terrorist-memorializing theme of the design is also unchanged. Way back in 2005 architect Paul Murdoch described his original Crescent of Embrace as a broken circle. The 9/11 attacks broke our circle of peace and the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is a giant Islamic-shaped crescent. The terrorist memorializing intent is obvious, or in the words of Tom Burnett Senior (father of flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Junior), “blatantly obvious.”

The actions depicted in the memorial design are those of the terrorists. They break the circle of peace and the result is their flag planted atop the graves of our murdered heroes. Calling the design a broken circle instead of a crescent does not change this symbolism one whit. The unbroken part of the circle is still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.

View the images and finish reading the post at the link. These alarm bells have been rung for seven years now, but no one seems to care.

Gateway Pundit: Weird… White House Remembers 9-11 By Posting Video of Michelle in Botswana

The White House website posted video of Michelle Obama in Botswana on a 9-11 tribute page.
Bizarre.

There’s nothing weird about it, Jim.

The video shows Michell Obama in Gaborone, Botswana visiting the local teen center and participating in a service project  dedicated to combating HIV/AIDS in the community.

In case you forgot, Obama decided (for all of us) back in 2009, that instead of commemorating the victims of the 9/11 attack, and honoring the heroic first responders, the focus on 9/11 anniversaries would  be on national service and community organizing.

Hoft notes that Obama chose to remember the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in his Weekly Address, Saturday.

In his address he does not mention God once.

Sounds about right. Bet he mentioned himself more than a few times, though.

Weasel Zippers: Compare: Obama’s 9/11 Anniversary Tweet Vs. Mitt Romney’s…

The Community Organizer asks his minions to sign up and volunteer at OFA.

Mitt Romney has a message for peace and freedom for “this most solemn day.”

Which one looks more presidential?

Jeff Quinton is fuming about  how other Democrats celebrated 9/11: 2 Democrats hosting fundraisers on 9/11:

The only solution for both Bromwell and Cardin is to donate every single penny raised to either a 9/11 survivors’ charity or to the USO or Wounded Warrior Project. I’d also urge anyone thinking of going to these events to stay home, Additionally, I would encourage donors to ask for refunds of all campaign contributions to both of these politicians.

Bryan Sears has the details

UPDATED (10:01 a.m.)—A state delegate says his fundraiser on the anniversary of 9/11 is just one of the “patriotic things that we do.”

Del. Jon Cardin, a Democrat who represents Owings Mills, Pikesville and part of Timonium, will hold a fundraiser at the Baltimore home of David Thaler, president of DS Thaler and Associates.

Ticket price for the two-hour reception runs $125 to $1,000 per person.

Also holding an event today is Del. Eric Bromwell, a Perry Hall Democrat, who hosts his annual “Jamaican-Me-Crazy” party at the Bay Cafe in Baltimore at $125 per person.

Bromwell, according to his Facebook page, plans to ask attendees to write notes to members of the military serving overseas.

Write notes to members of the military – but give us your money.

Ace of Spades HQ: First-Hand Account From a 9/11 Survivor:

Gripping.

At the fortieth floor, we started coming in contact with firemen. They were saying, “C’mon, down you go! Don’t worry, it’s safe below.” Most of them were stone-faced. Looking back, there were some frightened firemen.

When we got below the thirtieth floor, they started to bring down injured people from flights above. There was a guy with the back of his shirt burned off, a little burn on his shoulder. One woman had severe burns on her face.

We got down to the twentieth floor and a fireman said, “Does anyone know CPR?” I’m no longer certified, but I know it from college. That was ten years ago. You wouldn’t want me on an EMT team, but if it comes down to saving somebody, I know how.

So me and this other guy volunteer. We helped this one heavy, older man who came down huffing and puffing, and we kept our eyes out for anyone else. “Do you need help? Do you need help?” Nobody needed help. The stairway became wide-open. It was time to go. The other guy took off in front of me. We were going pretty fast.

Rusty Weiss of the Mental Recession shares a very personal 9/11 remembrance, and one worth reading: The Luckiest – How 9/11 Saved My Life

The year prior to 9/11, when word was received of the pending birth of my first child, my reaction, much like the autumn breeze, was a bit chilly. I went so far as to heavily promote the idea of an abortion to my girlfriend. I had failed to recognize the value of life, and though my girlfriend fortunately had, she was unable to instill this in me.

Recognizing that this disagreement was going nowhere, my next move was one that would make any self-respecting coward proud – I ran. Frightened. From responsibility, from acceptance of my actions, from hard work, from any semblance of religious or family values, and the sanctity of life – I ran.

The summer of ‘01 arrived, along with the birth of my daughter, an event that I did not witness. The burden of knowing that I was a father, but was not acting as such, weighed heavily on my mind. Yet still, I took no action.

On September 11th, I drove home from work, having been released early due to the attack and subsequent security concerns. While driving home on the highway, mind numb in trying to process the day’s events, I passed under a bridge. Looking up, there was a man who looked more than a bit ragged, as if he had just awakened to hear the news of the attacks, and simply walked out of his house. Wearing disheveled clothes and a weary face, he somehow found himself standing on this bridge, arms raised skyward, holding the American flag.

Nearly four hours later, needing to clear my head, I decided to get back in my car and take a drive. My route brought me to that same highway, with that same bridge. Four hours later, the same man was still standing there, holding the flag up as high as he possibly could.

Keep reading.

PJTV: The Changing Face of Foreign Policy: 11 Years After 9/11, Are We Any Safer?

It has been 11 years since planes took down the World Trade Center and crashed into the Pentagon and Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 Americans. This year, the mastermind behind these attacks was finally brought to justice by our Navy SEALs. So where do we stand in the fight against terror? PJ Media CEO Roger L. Simon is joined by foreign policy experts Richard Grenell, former adviser to U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, and Robert C. O’Brien, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Romney campaign. They discuss the changes in our society and in national security since 9/11. Don’t miss this wide-ranging interview.

The Right Scoop: Allen West: We must not be complacent because a hateful, determined enemy still exists and is just as dangerous as ever

Allen West released this statement today:

“On this day, we remember the unconscionable attack by the Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda on the United States of America. This attack resulted in the loss of thousands of men and women, and American lives were changed forever.

Even though 11 years have passed, we all remember where we were when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania. The attack resulted in the loss of mothers, fathers, children, teachers, business people, firefighters, police officers, members of our armed forces, and many more victims who were doing nothing more than going to work or boarding an airplane.

On that September morning, America was a vulnerable target. Our adversaries believed we were a “sleeping giant” that had drifted back to sleep. Instead, this atrocity awoke the “giant” and resulted in a reaction from our country against those who wished to tread upon us.

Finish reading at the link.

JWF: Arab World Celebrates 9/11 by Blaming Attacks on Israel and Jews, New York Times Blames Bush:

All the nutcases come out whenever the 9/11 anniversary comes around. This stuff really used to irritate us, but it’s so predictable and boring now.

Expect nothing less.

In the weeks leading up to the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Muslim clerics and academics across the Arab world publicly trafficked in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, blaming Israel and American Jews for the attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans and destroyed New York City’s Twin Towers and a wing of the Pentagon.

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst #74: Mother on Crescent jury: “I don’t want to reach out to those people! THEY MURDERED MY DAUGHTER!”

Alec Rawls, who has been working with Tom Burnett Sr. to stop the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93, explains the circumstances (related by Mr. Burnett in 2008, but not published until now).

Mr. Burnett had been telling his fellow design competition jurors that the crescent is a well known Islamic symbol. In addition to the giant central crescent (now called a broken circle) Tom also objected to the minaret-like Tower of Voices. “I made a point at that meeting,” says Mr. Burnett, “to tell people that we have an Islamist design here that can’t go forward, please, stay with me.”

One of the left-wing design professionals on the jury, Tom Sokolowski (then director of Pittsburg’s Andy Warhol Museum) thought that objecting to the crescent shape, just because it happens to be used by Muslims, was anti-Muslim bigotry. In a rude attempt to shut down criticism, Sokolowski actually called Mr. Burnett “asinine” for objecting to the huge Islamic-shaped Crescent. (Sokolowski would later repeat this performance to the press, calling a local preacher “asinine,” “small minded,” “bigoted,” “repellant,” and “disgusting” for protesting the Crescent design.)

It was in this atmosphere, charged with universal awareness amongst the jurors that the giant crescent was indeed a well-known Islamic symbol shape, but also charged with uncertainty as to whether people would be allowed to mention this fact, that another family member, Sandra Felt, started to explain what she liked about the Crescent design. She liked the “embracing” nature of it, says Mr. Burnett. She liked the way it “reached out…”

At which point another family member “lost it” (Mr. Burnett’s description), screaming in agony: “I don’t want to reach out to those people! THEY MURDERED MY DAUGHTER!”

The Park Service claims it “lost” the minutes

This extreme level of conflict on the jury over perceived Islamic symbolism should have come out years ago. The jury included a designated, non-voting, minutes taker. This was not supposed to be a private deliberation. These were volunteer citizens, doing the people’s business, and the jury minutes were supposed to be made available to the public.

The Memorial Project and the Park Service claim that the minutes were “lost.” No doubt, but that doesn’t mean the loss was accidental, and defenders of the Crescent design had good reason to make the minutes go away. Any faithful record would have been explosive, revealing these fierce objections from multiple Flight 93 family members to the blatant Islamic symbolism in the Crescent design.

The ballot wasn’t supposed to be secret either, but the Park Service refuses to account for what they claim was a 9 to 6 tally in favor of the Crescent design. What does 9 to 6 even mean on what was a ranked vote amongst three designs? Did every ballot that did not rank the Crescent last get counted as a vote in favor?

The whole thing is fishy, and there is one most obvious reason why the defenders of the Crescent might want to keep the vote details hidden. The seven family members on the jury were outnumbered by eight academics and design professionals. Thus all six of the votes against the Crescent could have come from the kin, with only Sandra Felt voting for it. This is more than just possible. It is likely.

Another mother of the murdered said only that she agreed with Mr. Burnett, and he thought that the other two men amongst the family members (Gerald Bingham and Ed Root) were on his side as well, though both have since spoken out against his ongoing effort to rescind the chosen design. Bingham and Root are angry at the anguish that the families are still being put through over the memorial design, but could such men have voted for the Crescent in the first place, in the face of that mother’s anguished cry?

A vicious left-wing ideologue like Sokolowski, yes, but it seems almost inconceivable that family members could vote for a design that other family members saw as a tribute to the terrorists, or at the very least, as reaching out to Islam. Since Bingham and Root are willing to speak out, can they please tell us whether they voted for the Crescent? If they didn’t, then the vote amongst the family members was at least 5 to 2 against.

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst #73: Muslim consultants LIED to Park Service

It’s time for an update on the Flight 93 Memorial which I  opposed for three+ years by participating in Alec Rawls’ many blogbursts raising awareness about the profoundly inappropriate design.  I’m sorry to report that it still sucks after all these years.

Here’s a video he put together in 2008 to help people visualize the many Islamic symbols present in the design:

John Hinderaker revisited the controversy at Powerline: 

Rawls and his colleagues have elaborate explanations of how the elements of the memorial constitute a tribute to triumphant Islam. They have taken out newspaper ads to rally opposition against the still-uncompleted project; you can see the ad here. Are they right? As to the details of their claims, I am not sure. It is hard to believe that the architect who designed the memorial is a fifth columnist who deliberately encoded an elaborate pro-Muslim extremism theme into his design, and that the Park Service fell for it.

More fundamentally, though, I think they are right. There is no question that the original design, which survives more or less intact in the current iteration, is built around the central symbol of Islam. Some on the jury, in a spirit of reconciliation, thought this was a good thing. I think it is an absurdity–much as if the Pearl Harbor memorial were to feature a rising sun, or the Norman American Cemetery were laid out in the shape of a swastika.

As Hinderaker notes, the memorial is not yet complete, and the portions that have been built so far are non-controversial. There is still time to stop the insanity.

Rawls’ most recent blogburst: Muslim consultants LIED to Park Service below the fold:

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst #72: Alan Keyes against the Flight 93 memorial

Conservative hero Alan Keyes is asking whether there is a pattern of submission surrounding the nation’s 9/11 sites. Apparently he has seen our video expose of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). Like any straight-thinker, he doesn’t like what he sees. The Flight 93 crash site is no place for a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, no matter what it is called.

On this point, Keyes cites Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo’s 2005 objection to the newly unveiled Crescent of Embrace design:

Back in 2005, then-Rep. Tom Tancredo was reported to have sent a letter to the National Park Service “asking the Interior Department to reconsider the crescent-shaped design of the memorial to those aboard a plane hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because some may think it honors the terrorists.” Tancredo quite sensibly argues that “regardless of whether ‘the invocation of a Muslim Symbol’ was intentional, ‘it seems that such a symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam.'”

Keyes notes our claim that the design is still replete with terrorist memorializing features and he seems to find it credible. Why shouldn’t he? The damning features are all right there in architect Paul Murdoch’s design drawings. Thank you Doctor Keyes!

“It’s not just embarrassing. It is a dangerous willful blindness, spurning the woken vigilance of Flight 93.”

That’s the last line of the full-page advertisement that Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls will be running in the Somerset Daily American this Friday and Saturday (when the two first ladies will be in town for the 9/11 anniversary):

Click for legible image. Full ad-copy PDF here (large file warning).

We are hoping that visitors will hold onto our ad, maybe even tape it to their car windows, and most especially, show it to any press people they come across. Hey, if the Park Service can use 9/11 to plant the world’s largest mosque on the Flight 93 crash site, we can use 9/11 to object.

To join our blogburst against the crescent mosque, just send your blog’s url.

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst blogroll:

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst #71: Ride to Stop the Crescent Mosque

Anyone live within driving distance of Somerset Pennsylvania? It’s a beautiful place to visit and a group of motorcyclists from Indianapolis is already going.

Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls are buying full page color ads in the Somerset Daily American for both Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th, so anyone who makes the trip will have a ready made protest sign waiting for them. Just buy a newspaper, tape the ad to a piece of cardboard, and let the massed national media know what side you are on.

That’s right. With Laura Bush and Michelle Obama both attending, it’s going to be a media circus, and a rare opportunity to force coverage of our issue. Just self-organize. Ad-holders will show a core of united opposition (and the media might even be forced to read our brief expose).

A PDF of the ad will be posted in another blogburst next week for anyone who wants to make signs ahead of time. There is also a set of small posters that were put together for a previous talk by Mr. Burnett. Just print with tiling to make the finished product as large or small as you want:

Board 1: The giant crescent

Board 2: It points to Mecca

Board 3: The gigantic Islamic sundial

Board 4: The 44 glass blocks

Petition to stop the Flight 93 memorial passes 10,000 signatures

Including a spate of dozen or so by 9/11 family members that feature some very strong comments. (See pages 198 and 199.)

It Points to Mecca video nearing 20,000 hits

Thanks to big fat repostings by Creeping Sharia and Atlas Shrugs. Thank You!

Here are parts 2, 3 and 4 (also worthy):

If you haven’t been to Shanksville before, there really is no lovelier place on earth than an open field in that sprawling Sherwood Forest that is Western Pennsylvania. Drink it in. There is something in the air at that patriots’ grave.

To join our blogburst against the crescent mosque, just send your blog’s url To Alec Rawls, Error Theory, the author of this post.

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst Blogroll:

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst #70: Flight 93 father says ground zero mosque is the SECOND mosque being built on a 9/11 site

This is a flight 93 memorial blogburst, which was started and is written by Alec Rawls, of Error Theory. I began participating  in the fall of 2007. Almost three years later, we are still at it:

Pamela Geller, who is leading the fight against the ground zero mosque in New York, has posted the following letter from Tom Burnett Senior.

To our fellow 9/11 families and to all who are concerned about the Ground Zero mega-mosque in New York:

We want everyone to know that the Park Service is right now building an even larger Islamic victory mosque atop the Flight 93 crash site. Many of you were outraged in 2005 when the Crescent of Embrace design was unveiled to be a half-mile wide Islamic shaped crescent:

Left: 2005 publicity shot of the Crescent of Embrace design. Right: typical Islamic crescent and star, viewed from a similar angle.

Few people know that this giant crescent actually points to Mecca, or understand the religious significance of this orientation. A crescent that points the direction to Mecca is a very familiar construct in the Islamic world. Because Muslims face Mecca for prayer, every mosque is built around a Mecca direction indicator called a mihrab. The classic mihrab is crescent shaped. Here are the two most famous mihrabs in the world:

Left: the Mihrab of the Prophet, at the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. Right: the mihrab of the Great Mosque in Cordoba Spain.

Face into the crescent to face Mecca

As with the Medina and Cordoba mihrabs, a person facing into the Crescent of Embrace will be facing Mecca. In the image below, superimposed red lines show the orientation of the Flight 93 crescent. The green qibla circle is from an online Mecca-direction calculator:

A person standing between the tips of the crescent and facing into the center of the crescent (red arrow) will be facing almost exactly in “qibla” direction (the Muslim prayer direction). You can verify the qibla direction from Somerset PA using any number of on-line Mecca-direction calculators.

To be precise, the Crescent of Embrace points 1.8° north of Mecca, ± a tenth of a degree. The final construction drawings alter this orientation slightly, so that instead of pointing a little less than two degrees north of Mecca, the actual crescent will point less than three degrees south of Mecca. Such small deviations from Mecca are insignificant by Islamic standards, which developed over a period of more than a thousand years during which far flung Muslims had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca.

The Park Service does not call the Crescent of Embrace a crescent anymore. Now they call it Circle of Embrace, but the only actual change was to add an extra arc of trees (planted to the rear of a person facing into the giant crescent) that explicitly represents a broken off part of the circle. The unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is just the original Crescent of Embrace. It is still a giant Islamic shaped crescent, still pointing at Mecca.

This is the Park Service’s official explanation for the design: the terrorist attacks are depicted as smashing our peaceful circle and turning it into a giant crescent. A clearer depiction of Islamic victory is hard to imagine, so no one should be too surprised that the damned thing points to Mecca, and actually turns out to be a mosque.

Other mosque features

Mosque design is based on a dozen typical mosque features, every one of which is realized in the Crescent/Circle design, all on the same epic scale as the half mile wide crescent-mihrab. Note, for instance, that the 93 foot tall minaret-like Tower of Voices is topped with another Islamic-shaped crescent, akin to the crescent-topped minarets seen in many Islamic countries:

An Islamic shaped crescent, soaring in the sky above the symbolic lives of the 40 heroes, which literally dangle down below. In Islam, there is only heaven and hell. Symbolic damnation?

The Flight 93 mosque needs to be stopped, along with the Islamic victory mosque at ground zero in Manhattan. May the fight against these two desecrations strengthen each other.

Sincerely,

Tom Burnett Senior
Loving father of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Junior

Pamela’s Atlas Shrugs post includes a second letter from Mr. Burnett, thanking her for her help and passing on some information about the design selection process. (The vote for was 9 to 6 from a judging panel where family members were outnumbered 8-7 by left wing design professionals.)

Want to join our blogburst against the crescent mosque?

Just send your blog’s url.

There is also an online petition that people can sign.

Contact information for the Flight 93 Memorial Project here.

Flight 93 Memorial Blogburst BlogRoll: