Flight 93 memorial: 'Giant mosque'

[Soldier4Christ]

by Sher Zieve
Sep 16, 2005

After writing my Wednesday column "9/11 Memorial Hijack:  CAIR Again Plays Race Card", I heard from Chris Martin, the Flight 93 Memorial project's public relations person.

Mr. Martin advised me that he was in favor of the project "Crescent of Embrace".  Therefore, I invited him to send me his and the project's official position statement and further advised him that I would publish it-unaltered-in a follow-up column.  Mid-afternoon Wednesday, Mr. Martin said that he would send it to me shortly.  I didn't hear back from him.

This morning, I read news reports indicating that this memorial's design (a mile-long tree-outlined Islamic crescent that most certainly would have honored the terrorist perpetrators) will now be altered.  They heard all of us!

Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced:  "The commission and the architect are making some refinements in the design.  They've changed the name so there is no confusion about the symbolism."  The new name is now purported to be the "Flight 93 National Memorial".  That seems appropriate.
 
Although I had planned to wait to publish this follow-up column until Thursday afternoon, in anticipation of any official comments from Mr. Martin, it no longer seems necessary.  However, if Mr. Martin does deign to send me any official statements regarding any new design proposals, I will be happy to publish them.    

Then, sounding just a tad like Sen. Dick Durbin, architect Paul Murdoch, who designed the original Islamic crescent project, said:  "It's a disappointment there is a misinterpretation and a simplistic distortion of this, but if that is a public concern, then that is something we will look to resolve in a way that keeps the essential qualities."

No Mr. Murdoch.  There was no "misinterpretation".  We did not misunderstand.  We the people got it.  And it was certainly not a "simplistic distortion" on our part.  Your design was not only badly flawed and inappropriate, it was an abomination.  That was the inherent problem.

And in regards to your new design keeping the original's "essential qualities", it had best not be another tribute to the terrorists or some 'slight alteration' of your original design.

We the people will be watching.    

[Shammu]

No Mr. Murdoch.  There was no "misinterpretation".  Your design was not only badly flawed and inappropriate, it was an abomination.  That was the inherent problem.

AMEN!

[Soldier4Christ]

Flight 93 memorial: 'Giant mosque'
Author presents evidence of new landmark's homage to terrorists

The planned crescent-shaped "memorial to heroes" of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania is nothing less than a huge outdoor mosque that pays homage to Islam, charges the author of a new book.

Alec Rawls' "Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93," published by World Ahead documents a long list of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Flight 93 National Memorial.

The primary feature, he says, is the giant central crescent of what originally was called the "Crescent of Embrace" design. A person facing into this half-mile wide crescent – still present in the superficially altered "Bowl of Embrace" redesign – will be oriented almost exactly at Mecca.

That is significant, Rawls said, because a crescent that Muslims face to point them in the direction of Mecca – called a "mihrab" – is the central feature around which every mosque is built.

Rawls said it seems impossible such startling revelations could go unreported, but Pennsylvania newspapers have ignored him.

He learned from a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that editors knew about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent in September 2005 when the design was first unveiled. But the editors decided the information should not be published, accusing critics of being paranoid bigots.

"Like those who look at innocent kids trick-or-treating at Halloween and see only the devil's work," wrote the editors at the time, "a few small and suspicious minds couldn't look past the crescent to see a remarkably sensitive design."

Rawls said he's been battling the same mentality for the past year and a half. He plans to be at a meeting Saturday when the design will be submitted for final approval.

"I'll be there, demanding that this desecration of sacred ground be stopped," he said.

Defenders of the "Crescent of Embrace" design, Rawls contended, "choose their side first, then avoid or suppress all contrary reason and evidence."

"That, of course, is the essence of how political correctness works, and why it is a threat to all of us," he said.

Rawls claims leaders of the project countered his information by lying to the Flight 93 families.

In an April 2006 conference call, Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley told Rawls she was not concerned about the Mecca orientation because it's not "exact."

"That's one we talked about," she said. "It has to be exact."

At the same time, however, according to Rawls, "she was telling the Flight 93 families that my claims had been investigated and debunked."

"Whenever I succeeded in making a news issue of the Mecca orientation of the crescent, the project would send out a family member to say that I was spreading known falsehoods," said Rawls. "But it's an easy matter to check the orientation of the crescent. Were I lying, a smart reporter could expose me as a fraud in five minutes. It took me a year and a half to get a reporter to take me up on that offer."

Rawls gave Kirk Swauger of the Johnstown Tribune Democrat the address of an Islamic website – Islam.com – that has a Mecca direction calculator.

"While I was on the phone with him, Kirk set the calculator to Somerset, Pa., 10 miles from the crash site, and clicked the 'view qibla direction' button. When he placed the resulting Mecca-direction graphic over the original Crescent of Embrace site plan, Kirk said to me: 'Yup. It points to Mecca.'"

Swauger said he would include the verification in his news story, but it never appeared, Rawls recounted.

"Instead, the Tribune Democrat did what it's been doing for the last year and a half: quoting critics who claim that my information is bogus while omitting results of the most basic fact checking."

Rawls said western Pennsylvania newspapers have been in a "virtual state of war" with him over the past two weeks as they report 9/11 family members accuse him of spreading falsehoods. Meanwhile, he is running large, full-color ads in the Somerset Daily American, "providing readers with graphical proof" the memorial is actually a huge, outdoor mosque.

Another feature, he says, is a separate section of the wall – centered exactly on the bisector of the giant crescent – that is in the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag.

He says there also are 44 inscribed glass blocks placed along the path that Flight 93 followed to the ground, matching the number of passengers, crew – and terrorists.

As WND reported in September 2005, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sent a letter to the Interior Department, asking officials to reconsider the "Crescent of Embrace" design due to the symbol's ties to Islam.

"It has raised questions in some circles about whether the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flight's passengers helped to thwart," wrote Tancredo in a letter to Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service. "Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional or not, 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 that their last historic act and the 'Let's Roll' effort has come to symbolize."

A Pennsylvania pastor also fought the design.

"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," said Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh.

[Shammu]

I think the next time Lizzie and I go to Pennsylvania.  I'm wearing a T-shirt saying.........

CAUTION

Being Exposed to the Son

May Prevent

BURNING!

[ibTina]

I think the next time Lizzie and I go to Pennsylvania.  I'm wearing a T-shirt saying.........

CAUTION

Being Exposed to the Son

May Prevent

BURNING!

What a cool saying... did you make that one up?

[Brother Jerry]

Here is another article that just has me speechless

[Soldier4Christ]

9/11 hero's father bans use of name
Similarity to Islamic crescent in Flight 93 memorial protested

The father of one of the heroes of 9/11, Tom Burnett, who led other passengers in an effort to overcome terrorists on Flight 93, is banning the use of his son's name at a memorial planned for the heroics performed by a planeload of ordinary Americans that tragic day.

Tom Burnett Sr. told a blogger who also has been campaigning against the "Crescent of Embrace" design for the memorial that he won't allow his son's name to be used on any memorial with Islamic components.

"He described his own efforts to stop the crescent design, including letters to the press that were never published. With the crescent design still going forward, he has decided that it is necessary to up the ante, and has authorized me to publicize his decision to protest the crescent design by insisting that Tom Jr.'s name not be inscribed on one of the 44 glass blocks emplaced along the flight path, or used anywhere else in the memorial," wrote Alec Rawls.

WND reported earlier on Rawls' book, "Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93," published by World Ahead. It documents a long list of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Flight 93 National Memorial.

Rawls said the primary feature of the memorial is the giant central crescent of what originally was called the "Crescent of Embrace" design. He reports a person facing into this half-mile wide crescent – still present in the superficially altered "Bowl of Embrace" redesign – will be oriented almost exactly at Mecca.

"I think we HAVE to [do something]," said the father. "It's not that I pull a lot of weight around. I know that. I'm one of 40."

Rawls reports there were 40 heroes on Flight 93, along with four terrorists. From telephone calls from the airplane before it crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, while three other jets were crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., it's known that the passengers decided to respond to the hijackers with force.

Burnett has written to Congress, and to various newspapers a number of times condemning in the strongest possible terms the design.

"It is unmistakably an Islamic symbol," charged Burnett: "The red Crescent of Embrace… bastardizes what my son and others did on Flight 93."

Rawls noted that newspapers have declined to publish the letters from the man who served for part of the selection process for the design, which he describes as being "railroaded."

"By consensus the Stage Two jury forwards this section of the Flight 93 memorial to the partner [architect Paul Murdoch] with the full and unqualified support of each juror," said the report that was issued.

On the contrary, says Burnett, the vote was NOT unanimous: "It was 9 to 6," and Burnett for one remained adamantly opposed to the crescent design.

Rawls described the memorial as "a terrorist memorial mosque, built around the half mile wide Mecca oriented crescent."

Burnett told Rawls what would be appropriate is a congressional investigation.

But for now keeping his son's name out is both a moral imperative and a way to force attention to the issue.

"We don't want it used at all if that design stays in," Burnett told Rawls. "We've got to audit this process, and we've got to get to the TRUTH! That's really what we're after."

He said in addition to the giant crescent being an Islamic symbol, the proposed "Tower of Voices" is nearly like an Islamic minaret.

Burnett said his earlier letters described the crescent design as just not acceptable.

"Millions of Americans and I find the 'red crescent of embrace' an insult to my son, and the others on Flight 93, who engaged in a violent and valiant struggle to take that plane back from the Islamic hijackers," he said..

"Without warning, my son and the other passengers and crew of Flight 93 were suddenly placed in the vanguard of the war on terrorism. Facing unfathomable choices, Tom was calm, clearheaded, decisive and fearless. I can only hope that in the years to come the rest of us live up to the standard of heroism that he and others set on 9/11."

"What I am pre-eminently concerned about is what our countrymen will feel and learn when they visit the site. The story, when properly presented, will properly honor and properly reverberate in history what those heroes accomplished for their fellow Americans, and for the entire Western world. I would want them to feel the desperateness of those aboard Flight 93 as they became aware of what was happening, and the cold realization of what they had to do. I want them to ask themselves,'what would I have done, had I been aboard that flight?' We know that in very little time the passengers got out of their seats and attempted to take back that airplane. They tried. We believe, with more time, they could have," he continued.

"No, I cannot approve the suggested memorial, 'red crescent of embrace.' That was accepted without unanimity, by Jury Two, August 2005. It should be thrown out. It is unmistakably an Islamic symbol that has been used by Muslims for centuries. A jarring symbol that, inadvertently or not, commemorates – on such hallowed ground – the hijackers' faith, and on the site where 40 Americans, 40 heroes, died," he said.

"I would like to see a full investigation. Love to have it come from Congress. And find out why? Why Murdoch. What's his reason here? He can't be that dumb," he said.

Rawls said in his book the crescent – and its orientation – are significant because it is such a "mihrab" around which every mosque is built.

Defenders of the "Crescent of Embrace" design, Rawls contended, "choose their side first, then avoid or suppress all contrary reason and evidence."

In an April 2006 conference call, Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley told Rawls she was not concerned about the Mecca orientation because it's not "exact."

Rawls said there also are 44 inscribed glass blocks placed along the path that Flight 93 followed to the ground, matching the number of passengers, crew – and terrorists.

As WND reported in September 2005, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sent a letter to the Interior Department, asking officials to reconsider the "Crescent of Embrace" design due to the symbol's ties to Islam.

"It has raised questions in some circles about whether the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flight's passengers helped to thwart," wrote Tancredo in a letter to Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service. "Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional or not, 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 that their last historic act and the 'Let's Roll' effort has come to symbolize."

A Pennsylvania pastor also fought the design.

"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," said Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh.

[Shammu]

"Without warning, my son and the other passengers and crew of Flight 93 were suddenly placed in the vanguard of the war on terrorism. Facing unfathomable choices, Tom was calm, clearheaded, decisive and fearless. I can only hope that in the years to come the rest of us live up to the standard of heroism that he and others set on 9/11."

AMEN!!

If it wasn't for islamic radicals there would be no need for a MEMORIAL!!  Islam, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, that needs to be spit out!!

[Shammu]

Scrap 9/11 Islamic crescent
Tells Park Service to start Flight 93 memorial design process again
Posted: November 8, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Two years ago U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo asked the Park Service to revamp a proposed memorial to the heroics of Flight 93 passengers and crew, who died trying to retake their airliner from terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, because of its use of a crescent, an Islamic symbol.

But the crescent remains, and now he's telling officials to scrap the plan and start all over.

"I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism," the Colorado Republican told Mary Bomar, the director of the National Park Service, in a letter this week.

As WND reported earlier, the father of one of those heroes, Tom Burnett, who led other passengers in an effort to overcome the Flight 93 terrorists, is banning the use of his son's name at the memorial because of its Islamic symbolism.

Tom Burnett Sr. told a blogger who also has been campaigning against the "Crescent of Embrace" design for the memorial that he won't allow his son's name to be used on any memorial with Islamic components.

"With the crescent design still going forward, he has decided that it is necessary to up the ante, and has authorized me to publicize his decision to protest the crescent design by insisting that Tom Jr.'s name not be inscribed on one of the 44 glass blocks emplaced along the flight path, or used anywhere else in the memorial," Alec Rawls wrote earlier.

WND also reported earlier on Rawls' book, "Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93," published by World Ahead. It documents a long list of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Flight 93 National Memorial.

"I am regrettably writing you in reference to the proposed memorial to commemorate the victims of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. As you may know, I contacted Director Mainella in late 2005 about my concerns with the design," Tancredo said in his letter.

"The appropriateness of the original design, dubbed the 'Crescent of Embrace,' was questioned because of the crescent's prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists. As I pointed out in my September 2005 letter, the use of the crescent has raised questions in some circles about whether the design would make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flights passengers helped to thwart," he wrote.

"When I received Director Mainella's response to my letter on October 6, 2005, I was pleased to read her assurance that the advisory committee and the architect were amenable to 'refinements in the design which will include negating any perceptions to the iconography.' I was also pleased to learn that the name of the memorial was to be changed," Tancredo said.

"Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made. This deeply concerns me," he said.

He said using it is "unsuitable" to use an Islamic symbol as a way to honor the Flight 93 heroes "or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam that their historic last act has come to symbolize."

Tancredo's spokesman T.Q. Houlton, told WND the congressman has a high level of concern that the memorial will end up being just what he warned against – an Islamic crescent.

Rawls noted that for those not familiar, the original design would have planted a naked Islamic crescent and star flag on the crash site:

But he said the changes from "Crescent of Embrace" to "Bowl of Embrace" are insignificant, and importantly, the crescent shape was not changed, only "very slightly disguised."

"Representative Tancredo was right to demand removal of the crescent. It turns out that a person facing directly into the half mile wide crescent will be facing Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the central feature around which every mosque is built," he said.

Burnett also reports he has written to Congress, and to various newspapers a number of times condemning in the strongest possible terms the design.

"It is unmistakably an Islamic symbol," charged Burnett: "The red Crescent of Embrace… bastardizes what my son and others did on Flight 93."

Rawls noted that newspapers have declined to publish the letters from Burnett, who served for part of the selection process for the design, which he describes as being "railroaded."

"By consensus the Stage Two jury forwards this section of the Flight 93 memorial to the partner [architect Paul Murdoch] with the full and unqualified support of each juror," said the report that was issued.

On the contrary, says Burnett, the vote was NOT unanimous: "It was 9 to 6," and Burnett for one remained adamantly opposed to the crescent design.

Rawls described the memorial as "a terrorist memorial mosque, built around the half mile wide Mecca oriented crescent."

"Millions of Americans and I find the 'red crescent of embrace' an insult to my son, and the others on Flight 93, who engaged in a violent and valiant struggle to take that plane back from the Islamic hijackers," Burnett said.

"What I am pre-eminently concerned about is what our countrymen will feel and learn when they visit the site. The story, when properly presented, will properly honor and properly reverberate in history what those heroes accomplished for their fellow Americans, and for the entire Western world. I would want them to feel the desperateness of those aboard Flight 93 as they became aware of what was happening, and the cold realization of what they had to do. I want them to ask themselves, 'what would I have done, had I been aboard that flight?' We know that in very little time the passengers got out of their seats and attempted to take back that airplane. They tried. We believe, with more time, they could have," he continued.

"No, I cannot approve the suggested memorial, 'red crescent of embrace.' That was accepted without unanimity, by Jury Two, August 2005. It should be thrown out. It is unmistakably an Islamic symbol that has been used by Muslims for centuries. A jarring symbol that, inadvertently or not, commemorates – on such hallowed ground – the hijackers' faith, and on the site where 40 Americans, 40 heroes, died," he said.

A Pennsylvania pastor also has fought the design.

"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," said Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh.

[ibTina]

We know that if this 'design' resembled a Cross that the ACLU and the kind would be all over this!

[HisDaughter]

Another outrage!  I'm with the father.  If it were my son I wouldn't allow it either.  My son and any other would already be memorialized in my heart and in the heart of God and any other "sane" American.
We'll take our rewards later, Thank you very much!

[nChrist]

A Pennsylvania pastor also fought the design.

"This is a memorial to the terrorists who killed those people, not a memorial to the folks who died there innocently," said Rev. Ron McRae, head of the Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome, Pa., about 55 miles from Pittsburgh.

Brothers and Sisters,

To say that I'm shocked would be an understatement. This is obscene. A memorial for the terrorists could be ANY unmarked pig-pen around the world. Decent people can't allow something like this.

[Soldier4Christ]

This is obscene to put it much nicer than it really deserves but this is what we are seeing in the world around us. Criminals having more rights than victims, decadence taking a front seat with evil people being called normal and given extensive rights while decent Christians are being muzzled and persecuted, hard working people having to pay for the criminals way of life, Soldiers that are doing their jobs correctly being charged as criminals or unduly harassed, Veterans that have given their health and lives for this nation while people that are here illegally and have done nothing for this nation except increase crime are handed a silver platter full of benefits, true heroes are ignored or belittled while murderers are given great recognition and honors .....

Do we see a pattern here?  It has to do with the definitions of evil and good.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Flight 93 Memorial Mosque supporters are playing semantics games

Memorial superintendent admits giant crescent still present in memorial design

No comment from the Park Service yet on Congressman Tancredo’s request for a new Flight 93 Memorial. We did a little better with last week’s blogburst letters. Some emailers got a response from Memorial Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley, answering Mr. Tancredo’s contention that the original giant crescent is still present in the redesign. Interestingly, her description of the redesign actually admits that the giant crescent IS still present, both geometrically and thematically.

In 2005, architect Paul Murdoch explained his original Crescent of Embrace design in terms of the flight path: as the hijacked airliner came over the ridgeline above the crash site, its flight path symbolically broke the circle, turning it into a giant crescent. In the original design, the broken off part of the circle was removed entirely

Flight 93 came down from the Northwest (the upper left). The flight path breaks the circle at the upper crescent tip, says Paul Murdoch, then continues down to the crash site, which is located between the crescent tips (roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag).

In describing the barely altered redesign, Superintendent Hanley uses the exact same “breaking the circle” language that Paul Murdoch used to describe the original design, only now the broken off part of the circle is not completely removed. A broken chunk of it remains, so that the design now includes “two breaks” instead of one:

    The most prominent refinement was in the treatment of the naturally occurring bowl-shaped landscape feature. The design now surrounds that area with a circle of trees which is broken in two places - the location which marks the flight path as it breaks the circular continuity of the bowl edge, and the Sacred Ground where the crash occurred. The locations of the two breaks in the circle are based on the flight path and crash site of Flight 93.

The site plan graphic for the redesign was dramatically re-colored, making the crescent LOOK more like a circle. You have to examine closely to see that the original break in the crescent is still there, along with the new “second break.” But as Superintendent Hanley admits, the original break IS still there, and it is still intended to be seen as being there. Hanley is directly admitting what Congressman Tancredo is complaining about, that the original crescent has only been disguised.

A side-by-side comparison of the Crescent of Embrace site-plan and the redesign site-plan confirms that the only change was to include a chunk of the symbolically broken off part of the imaginary full circle

Ignoring the re-coloring of the image, the only change is the additional arc of trees to the left side of the crescent. (Click pic for larger view.)

Including a chunk of the broken off part of the circle does nothing to remove the original crescent, but on the contrary is perfectly consistent with it, both geometrically and thematically. The terrorists are still depicted as breaking our humanitarian circle and turning it into a giant Islamic shaped crescent.

Just to make sure people get it, Paul Murdoch has placed a huge glass block at the spot where this circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat takes place. It is the 44th translucent block emplaced along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists) and is inscribed: “a field of honor forever.”

Earlier admissions that the redesign retains the crescent and star configuration of an Islamic flag

An August 18th article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette quoted Superintendent Hanley denying the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent:

    “The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said.

    Mr. Murdoch reinforced that idea.

    “It’s oriented toward the Sacred Ground,” he said. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

    The symbolism of the memorial, he continued, is representative of the geography of the crash site, an idea that predates Islam or any other major religion.

They are not calling it a crescent and star configuration, but that is what they are describing, and what they are talking about here is the redesign. They are admitting that the design still has the arms of the crescent reaching out towards the crash site, which sits between the crescent tips, in the position of the star on an Islamic flag. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

Connect a line from the lower crescent tip to the thematic upper crescent tip (the 44th glass block, commemorating the spot where the flight path breaks the circle) and a perpendicular to this line (the direction of a person facing directly into the giant crescent) points exactly to Mecca. Thus does Paul Murdoch tie the Islamic features and the terrorist memorializing features of his design into a perfect bin Ladenist embrace. The 44th block defines the exact Mecca orientation of the giant crescent.

Very simply, we hosted an open design competition in time of war. Of course the enemy would enter. The only thing that is hard to understand is why the Memorial Project is willfully blind to this ploy.

[Soldier4Christ]