I honestly don't know what to make of this.
The memorial for the passengers and crew of Flight 93, the airliner in the 9/11 attack which was brought down in a Pennsylvania field, has some extremely unusual features.
For starters, it involves a crescent of trees. In today's tolerant, sensitive, and multicultural America, I'm not very surprised.
It would be unthinkable for a memorial to victims of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, to involve a burning cross.
However, using a crescent as a major, even defining, element in a memorial to people who died as a result of an attack by Muslims, seems to be a non-issue.
I've run into a few blogs on this topic, like "Error Theory" don't seem on a cursory examination, to be the work of raving maniacs.
The Flight 93 memorial even seems to be aligned toward Mecca.
A memorial to people who died in an attack by jihadists using a huge Islamic symbol aligned toward Mecca seems to be carrying multiculturalism rather far.
What impresses as much as anything about these allegations is the remarkable degree to which traditional news media is ignoring a story involving explosive current events, the pathos of bereaved relatives, and astronomical/spiritual alignments.
Normally, the news seems to live juicy stories like that. It's like noticing paparazzi studiously ignoring a celebutant
I'm not a conspiracy theorist: but when a group of people stop acting the way they usually do, I start wondering why.
[UPDATE October 2, 2007. Thanks to American Interests, for the following URL: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_9_8_05_1045.html ("IS THE "CRESCENT OF EMBRACE" AN OUTRAGE?" The first paragraph reads, "Perhaps I'm being oversensitive, but is anyone else struck by the fact that the design for the memorial unveiled yesterday in Pennsylvania to commemorate the crash of UAL Flight 93 on 9/11 bears a striking resemblance to one of the major symbols of Islam? Take a look:" with an overhead rendering of the proposed memorial design, as unveiled in 2005. This cluster of coincidences, or whatever it is, has been around for 2 years. This might be a good time for the rest of us to get interested: and maybe involvled.]
Welcome to the 21st century. The Cold War, WWII, and WWI are over.
The 19th and 20th centuries' class conflicts and colonial issues are behind us.
"Oppressed proletariat" and "European expansionism" are no longer relevant.
Religious fanatics want their beliefs to rule the world.
Free people want to stay that way.
Here's my view of the 21st century's great conflict -
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Blogroll
Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1
Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.
In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.
- American Islamic Congress
- American-Islamic Forum for Democracy
- Americas Interests.blog an Australian's perspective (on January 29, 2009 the author announced the end of new posts, and explained his reasons for doing so. He is, however, keeping the 21 months of accumulated posts on line, because of "the role that it plays in a larger ecosystem of information" - I recommend AI as an archival resource. )
- Blog 4 Human Rights: Human Rights in Georgia (the nation) News, Opinions, Videos and Photos (Why blogroll this? Georgia is about 10% Muslim, very near the Middle East: and human rights is a critical part of the War on Terror.)
- CAIR Council on American-Islamic Relations
- The Capitol Tribune "A Journal by a Citizen and Servant of the Republic."
- The Conservative Hawk An articulate conservative blog: definitely political, opinionated, informed, and intelligent
- Defenders Council of Vermont "...our mission is to educate the citizens of Vermont about the nature, reality and threat of radical Islam, deepen Vermonters' understanding of America's heritage, honor the men and women of the armed services and their families, and support the efforts of others to help our armed forces work with local populations in foreign lands."
- DefenseLink Blogger's Roundtable provides source material for stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) by bloggers and online journalists.
- FactCheck.org "aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics". It's "a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania". From what I've seen, this non-partisan website must be quite annoying to all sides
- Fiqh Council of North America "...a body of qualified Islamic scholars who live in the United States or Canada."
- Foreign Policy Watch "Diplomatic strategy, international news, and thoughtful political analysis"
- www.free-minds.org Another flavor of True Islam: one more articulate than many
- Free Muslims Coalition "American Muslims and Arabs of all backgrounds who feel that religious violence and terrorism have not been fully rejected by the Muslim community in the post 9-11 era."
- GlobalSecurity.org "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. We try to bring you the facts, to help you form your opinion."
- Hudson Institute: Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World
- IntelCenter "Our focus as a company is on studying terrorist groups and other threat actors and disseminating that information in a timely manner to those who can act on it."
- Iraq the Model "New points of view about the future of Iraq."
- Islam.com "...an information portal site on the internet that is pure, clean and 'worthy of its name', InshaAllah."
- islamispeace.org.uk "...invites you to challenge your ideas of Islam and Muslims."
- Islamic Circle of North America "... to seek the pleasure of Allah (SWT) through the struggle of Iqamat-ud-Deen (establishment of the Islamic system of life) as spelled out in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)"
- Islamic Republic News Agency Iran's official news agency
- Islamic Society of Central Florida (ISCF) "...an organization which strives to serve the greater Central Florida community by catering to the social, religious, and educational needs of its Muslim inhabitants."
- Islamic Society of North America "...playing a pivotal role in extending those bridges to include all people of faith within North America...."
(but note another view) ) - Islamic World News أخبار العالم الاسلا
- Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal The War on Terror, as observed on the ground
- Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center A research resource for United States Air Force Air University students, "provided as a public service by Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center and the Maxwell Support Division."
- Muslamics Affad Shaikh and "A Writing Collaborative" This American Muslim Affad Shaikh, a very west-coast Muslim Los Angelano
- Muslims Against Sharia An organization of Muslims, presumably dedicated "...to educate non-Muslims about the differences between moderate Muslims and Islamists..." - with a curious way of practicing Peace, Love Light, (words in their website's logo).
- National Interest, and as a corollary, Primacy "These are indeed my personal pontifications on the vicissitudes of International Affairs." (Be prepared for big words, long sentences: and unexpected insights.)
- PM’S World
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty "disseminating factual information and ideas"
- The Straits Times (Singapore) "...strives to be an authoritative provider of news and views, with special focus on Singapore and the Asian region...."
- Urban Conservative "Conservative 2.0 - A New Breed of Conservative
- Why Islam? "... articles, books etc on Islam and comparative religion. ... initiated by volunteers from ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America). ..."
Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.
In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.
2 comments:
I know symbolism is important in memorials but this is odd to say the least. Is it generating any controversy over there? An Islamic crescent, a tower pointing in the direction of Mecca and 44 glass blocks on the flight path that appears to be directed at the White House. I mean really…Some may argue that we are all misinterpreting it but who could blame us. Said one news report on the matter, “Who would want to replace the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor with a Japanese flag”? “Who would place a Nazi swastika at Normandy”? Frankly, I am not happy with it, has tolerance gone too far?
See also: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/blog_9_8_05_1045.html
It's generating controversy, only in the sense that a few bloggers and at least one bereaved father have noticed the peculiarities, and discussed it publicly.
The crescent, and all the other details, could be a set of peculiar coincidences.
But there are a great many 'coincidences' here.
In my part of the country, believing that there isn't Islamic symbolism in that memorial design is a little like assuming that pile s of I-beams and corrugated metal just happened to get formed into a pole barn by accident.
The identification of the Flight 93 memorial as, in effect, the biggest mosque in America may be "misinterpretation," but I doubt it.
My own 'gut feeling' is that this is tolerance and multiculturalism run amok.
Aside from the possibility that an Islamic attack, conducted by Muslims, may be memorialized by building a King-Kong-size mosque, what concerns me about this is the monumentally low-key approach taken by every one of the tiny number of news articles on the matter.
And, thanks for the URL.
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