Entries Tagged 'September 11, 2001' ↓

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 d***ed 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.

Originally posted at 2.0: The Blogmocracy

It takes a particular type of self-righteous and aggressive ignoramus to think that the real evils of this world will all go away if enough people can be shamed or bullied into denying that those evils exist.

Case in point:

Russell Simmons Unveils ‘Coexist’ Banner Near Ground Zero

Simmons’ apartment on Liberty St. overlooks Ground Zero. Each letter of the banner features different religious and spiritual symbols. Like Bloomberg, Simmons is a big supporter of the planned center: “I was trying to figure out ways I could reach people and promote a message of tolerance…The fact that it is a public discussion, that there’s so many against it is what I think is disappointing to me, that so many people don’t know that we founded our country on the First Amendment,” he told the AP.

Read the rest.

I am not the only one to complain

Recently, I have noticed that I am not the only one who despises this asinine symbolic slogan:

YouTube: Allen West Hates the Co-Exist Bumper Sticker
h/t: Kitman TV

More of Allen West’s speech here.

By Charlie Sykes
Story Created: May 15, 2009
(Story Updated: May 15, 2009)

As John McAdams sums up the story so far:

It all started with a parody from Tom McMahon, who was aggravated by the extremely smug and intellectually slovenly bumper sticker in which a variety of religious symbols spell out “COEXIST.”

McMahon produced a parody bumper sticker with Nazi and Communist symbols substituted.

His point, of course, was that some religious views are simply impossible to coexist with, and must (like Nazism and Communism) be fought.

Read the rest.

Update: Here’s another parody, courtesy of Mike C. on Blogmocracy:

‘Coexist’ in Firearm Manufacturer Logos

The underlying spiritual problem

When ‘tolerance’ proves to be nothing more than moral indifference and cowardice cloaked in self-righteousness, it is not a virtue but a vice.

Gates of Vienna: The Sin That Believes in Nothing

We Christians strongly believe in tolerance, and this is what British novelist Dorothy Sayers pointed out about “Tolerance”:

In this world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called indifference, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

If any viewpoint is equally as valid as any other, then no viewpoint has any meaning, and it matters not what any of us thinks, says, or does. This philosophy is truly satanic, and it is called nihilism.

Letter in Washington Times from Michael Pravica

h/t: Sparta

Fast-track mosque, delay church

Friday, August 20, 2010

When I resided in New York City, I visited one of the most unassuming and humble houses of worship I have ever encountered: the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which sat directly in front of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers (“What would 9/11 architect say?” Commentary, Thursday).

The church was obliterated on Sept. 11, 2001, during one of the most deeply symbolic moments of our new century. Why is it that Greek-Americans have encountered nine years of red tape frustrating their efforts to rebuild what is rightfully theirs, but our misguided leaders, eager to pander to those who financially support or bribe them, are bending over backwards to accommodate some Muslims in their suspect quest to build a mosque near Ground Zero? All that mosque will be is a commemoration of their “victory” over us, the infidels.

Religious favoritism is un-American, violates our Constitution and is very dangerous in a democracy.

MICHAEL PRAVICA
Henderson, Nev.

Mosque = security risk

The Ground Zero Mosque, and ANY mosque, has the potential, and in fact the likelihood, of becoming a focus of jihadism and a source of subversive propaganda (taqiyya). That is simply because jihadism (and no, I do not mean “internal struggle”) and taqiyya are central and indispensible tenets of Islam.

If the 9-11 mosque in the US were to be built, it too would become a pilgrimage and recruitment center for jihadis. This is a matter, not only of respect for the dead, but also of national security.

While the tranzi-progressive/pro-jihadi NYC bureaucrats, politicians, and media pundits are doing everything they can to smooth the way for this mosque (and being very self-righteous about their reasons for this), they are creating every possible obstacle to the rebuilding of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed in the 9-11 attack when the South Tower fell on it.

What you can do

Rebuild St. Nicholas CHURCH at Ground Zero, not a mosque

The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox parish still has an active congregation but no building; they have been meeting to worship in Brooklyn. Now, many of us Orthodox Christians, working pretty much independently by word of mouth among friends and parishoners, have finally succeeded in getting some news media attention to this matter.

I’d like to ask all Americans supporting St. Nicholas Church to call, write, or better yet, GO AND VISIT the offices of their US Representative and US Senators. You will probably just get to talk to a staffer, but the staffer will pass this information along. It makes a BIG difference if you take the trouble to write a personal letter or show up in person.

Everyone, please, pass the information along to everybody else you know who might be interested. Put it on Facebook, repost it on your own blog, email it to your friends and relatives, whatever else you can think of.

Let’s keep the pressure on, and keep this issue before the public eye!

Church web site:
http://www.stnicholasnyc.com/

Address for donations to rebuild:
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, PO Box 420968, Brooklyn, NY 11234

Thanks again to everyone who has helped us spread this message.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

From the 1389 Blog Mailbox:

From: slvrfox55
Subject: WHY MICHELLE CAME HOME
Date: August 11, 2010 2:16:17 PM EDT

Sheppard Smith, Fox News:

“If you check President Obama’s last trip over-seas, his wife left just after their visit to France…She has yet to accompany him to any Arab country. Think about it. Why is Michelle returning to the states when ‘official’ trips to foreign countries generally include the First Lady.”

Here’s one thought on the matter.

While in a Blockbuster renting videos I came across a video called “Obama”. There were two men standing next to me and we talked about President Obama. These guys were Arabs, so I asked them why they thought Michele Obama headed home following the President’s recent visit to France instead of traveling on to Saudi Arabia and Turkey with her husband. They told me she could not go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Iraq…I said “Why not,(?) Laura Bush went to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Dubai..” They said that Obama is a Muslim and therefore he is not allowed to bring his wife into countries that adhere to Sharia Law.

Two points of interest here:

1. I thought it interesting that two American Arabs at Blockbuster believe that our President is a Muslim, who follows a strict Islamic creed.
2. They also said that’s the reason he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. It was a signal to the Muslim world, acknowledging his religion.

For further consideration, here is a response from Dr. Jim Murk, a Middle Eastern Scholar and expert on Islam. This is his explanation of what the Arab Americans were saying.

“An orthodox Muslim man would never take his wife on a politically oriented trip to any nation which practices Sharia law, particularly Saudi Arabia where the Wahhabi sect is dominant. This is true and it is why Obama left Michelle in Europe. She will stay home when he visits Arab countries. He knows Muslim protocol; this includes, bowing to the Saudi King. Obama is regarded as a Muslim in the Arab world, because he was born to a Muslim father; he acknowledged his Muslim faith with George Stephanopoulus. Note that he downplays his involvement with Christianity, by not publicly joining a Christian church in D.C. And occasionally attending the chapel for services at Camp David. He also played down the fact that America is a Christian country and said, unbelievably, that it was one of the largest Muslim nations in the world, which is nonsense.

He has publicly taken the side of the Palestinians in the conflict with Israel and he ignored the National Day of Prayer, something no other President has ever done. He is bad news! He conceals his true faith to the detriment of the American people.” — Jim Murk, Doctor of Philosophy in Middle Eastern Culture & Religion.

ACTIONS speak louder than words. Another interesting item regarding Sharia Law. Why has Barack Hussein Obama insisted that the U.S. Attorney General hold the trials of the 911 Muslim Terrorists in Civilian Courts as Common Criminals instead of as Terrorists who attacked the United States of America ? If the Muslim Terrorists are tried in Military Tribunals, convicted and sentenced to death, by LAW, Barack Hussein Obama, as President of the United States, would be required to sign their Death Warrants. He would not be required to sign the death warrants if they are sentenced to death by a Civilian Court…Recently, Muslim Jihadist, Army Major Hassan slaughtered non-Muslim, soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas rather than go to Afghanistan and be a part of anything that could lead to the deaths of fellow Muslims. He stated that Muslims ‘could not and should not kill fellow Muslims.’ Is the motive for Barack Hussein Obama’s insistence on civilian trials, to make sure he doesn’t have to sign the death warrants for the Muslim Terrorists? Why would he, as President of the United States, not sign the death warrants for Muslim Terrorists who attacked the United States and murdered over 3,000 U. S. Citizens on 9/11? Could it be that he is FORBIDDEN by his RELIGION to authorize the execution of Muslims?

Think about that! Open your eyes, ears and mind to who the President is, how he behaves and what he is doing.

Originally published at 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Rebuilding has been blocked for nearly nine years. Where’s the outrage?

Amid all the brouhaha about the intentions of our Muslim enemies to build a monument to terrorism at Ground Zero in New York City, we seem to have forgotten about rebuilding the little Orthodox Christian church that was destroyed in the same attack.

George Demos: REBUILD THE CHURCH AT GROUND ZERO, NOT A MOSQUE

H/T: Sparta

Brookhaven, NY- George Demos, the Conservative Republican Candidate for Congress in New York’s First Congressional District issued the following statement on the proposed mosque amid the sacred ruins of Ground Zero and expressed outrage at our own government’s refusal to rebuild the only house of worship that was actually destroyed on September 11th- the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

George Demos said:

“On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 Americans, including 168 residents of our community in Suffolk County, were taken from us by the evil acts of Islamic extremists bent on destroying our freedoms. Amid the thick smoke and choking ashes of that fateful day, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was reduced to dust.

Since 1922, St. Nicholas Church had stood as a quiet sanctuary of prayer and reflection amidst the tumultuous and bustling crossroads of commerce. For nine years the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey has used bureaucratic obstacles and false promises to hinder the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church. This must end and it must end now.

What an outrage that our government has put roadblocks in the path of its own citizens trying rebuild their beloved Church destroyed by Islamic extremists, while Saudi Arabia, a nation that prohibits people from even wearing a Cross or the Star of David, now provokes the families of those who lost loved ones by apparently funneling money to build a mosque at the same location.

As our Congressman, I will always remember that our Constitutional freedom of religion starts with respecting our own sacred Judeo-Christian heritage. Now is the time for the Port Authority to stop hiding behind its bureaucracy and to facilitate the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church that was taken from us on that quiet September morning nearly a decade ago.”

Local bureaucrats block rebuilding the church, but smooth the way for a mosque

I suppose that’s what passes for “freedom of religion” these days! How sadly ironic, considering that there is no greater enemy of freedom of religion than Islam. Islam unjustly avails itself of Constitutional protections by calling itself a religion, but it is not a religion in any recognizable sense of the word. Islam is instead an expansionist, totalitarian political ideology that, much like Nazism and Communism, seeks to rid the world of everything but itself.

Evidently, that’s just fine with the tranzi-progressive/jihadist alliance that is currently running the show in New York City. The New York/New Jersey Port Authority bureaucrats are refusing to budge, and, with few exceptions, the local politicians are doing nothing to get justice for the St. Nicholas congregation and other Orthodox Christians who have the right to worship and to commemmorate the dead in a church on this site.

This story ran in the New York Times over a year ago, and still nothing has been done.

NYT: Church’s Troubles Typify Ground Zero Delays

Photo by Eric O’Connell
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Sept. 11, 2001, minutes before it was crushed by the falling south tower. Seven years later, the Port Authority and the church have failed to agree on a land swap needed for rebuilding.

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: July 3, 2008

The story of the tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and its efforts to rebuild after the collapse of the World Trade Center is one of well-intentioned promises that led to endless negotiations, design disputes, delays and mounting costs.

It is, in other words, a microcosm of the seven-year, $16 billion, problem-plagued effort to reconstruct the entire trade center site.

Within a month of the attack on the trade center, Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, pledged that the four-story church would rise “on the same sacred spot as a symbol of determined faith.” Gov. George E. Pataki agreed.

But today, the church exists only on blueprints. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency overseeing reconstruction, has not finalized the exchange of land needed to provide the congregation with a new home near ground zero. Until that deal is completed, the authority cannot proceed with building the southern foundation wall for the entire site, and cannot draw up designs for a bomb screening center for buses and trucks that would go under the new church.

Read the rest.

More information here:

Church Website: St. Nicholas Church in New York City

Also see:

Article on New York Daily News blog:
GOP Hopeful George Demos: Rebuild Church At Ground Zero, Not Mosque

New York Daily News email address:
voicers@edit.nydailynews.com

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Deflecting suspicion by pretending to ‘liberalize’ Muslim life

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who, despite what some of his supporters claim, is neither peace-loving nor “moderate”, has warned Muslims in western lands to ‘cool it’ for the time being.

Why this strategic retreat? It seems that the constant efforts to import the benighted and savage Muslim ideology and lifestyle into western nations has begun to draw negative attention. More and more of the citizenry (though not yet the governments) of western nations have learned to be suspicious of everything having to do with Islam, and with very good reason. For just one example, the outrageous attempt to build a huge mosque next to the Ground Zero site has alerted much of the public to the true nature of Islam, and has given rise to widespread public protests. (See SIOA: NYC’s MTA Drops Restrictions on Free Speech, Allows Bus Ads Linking 9/11 to Ground Zero Mosque.)

As far as Qaradawi and other jihadis are concerned, it will never do to have the public catch on while there is still time to put a stop to their activities.

Top Muslim Cleric Qaradawi Urges Western Muslims to ‘Liberalize’ – Outwardly, Anyway h/t: Gates of Vienna

…Qaradawi is referring to those other aspects of Sharia law — you know, subjugation of non-Muslim infidels, absolute authority over women, jihad, draconian punishments, and all the rest — that do create “hardships” for Muslims who try to implement them in the West, for instance, by getting them arrested and imprisoned.

In other words, far from “liberalizing” Muslim life, taysir allows only for insincere conformity. As Qaradawi made clear, to practice taysir is not to renounce Sharia’s otherwise harsh obligations; it is to put them on hold till circumstances are more accommodating.

Qaradawi’s Muslim Brotherhood colleague, Tariq Ramadan, provides an ideal example: he recommends that a “moratorium” — a temporary ban — be placed on the Muslim practice of stoning adulterers to death; yet he refuses to say that stoning is intrinsically un-Islamic. This, of course, is taysir in practice: because stoning people in the West is liable to get the stoner incarcerated or worse, upholding the Sharia mandate to stone adulterers is “hard” on Muslims living in the West, so best to put it on hold — that is, till circumstances are more opportune.

A final observation: the notorious doctrine of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims, is rooted in taysir; in fact, one of the few books devoted to the topic, al-Taqiyya fi al-Islam, spends some time rationalizing taqiyya in light of taysir. And there it is: when Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the most authoritative Muslim voice in Sunni Islam today, calls on Muslims “especially in Europe and America” to practice taysir, he is, in essence, calling on them to practice taqiyya — calling on them to conform outwardly to Western standards while inwardly maintaining loyalty to Sharia.

Read it all.

What the “Stealth Jihad” is all about

The long and the short of it is that our Muslim enemies are in the process of using western beliefs and ideals, including protections enshrined in the US Constitution, as a cover for their efforts to overthrow and destroy western civilization. This book review by Janet Levy at American Thinker sums up the modern stealth jihadi agenda very well.

Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration

h/t: vagabond trader, who found this link on Weasel Zippers

By Sam Solomon and Elias Al Maqdisi
ANM Publishers, 2009
139 pp., $14.95

Within the past few decades, mosques have increasingly dotted the landscapes of American and European cities and towns, with mega mosques often overshadowing adjacent, centuries-old churches in predominantly Christian regions. Islamic schools or academies and a host of Muslim organizations have become omnipresent across the West.

Meanwhile, Americans and Europeans have made countless accommodations to Muslim demands. They have included footbaths; high-decibel, five-times-daily calls to prayer; segregated male-female gym and swimming pool hours; halal food; workplace dispensations for handling pork products and for female head and face coverings; and special, public prayer rooms. Also, shari’ah-compliant financial transactions, the expunging of offensive likenesses of Mohammed or imagined depictions of Arabic characters that connote “Allah,” official swearings-in on Korans in place of customary Bibles, the neutralizing of official descriptive language about Islamists and the jihad, the revision of so-called offensive content in movies and television programs, the removal of representations of pigs from the public sphere, and many other acculturations to Muslim entreaties have all been made in the service of respecting Muslim religious beliefs and practices.

To those in Western democracies, these accommodating actions appear, on the surface, to be little more than harmless civil gestures, respecting the needs of a growing religion in their midst and welcoming a new addition to their proud, multicultural tradition. Many Westerners pat themselves on the back for their liberal bent, their tolerance and their open-mindedness.

Little do they realize that this strategic pattern of demands is part of an insidious, 1,400-year-old proscription for Muslims that originates in the Koran and the Sunnah, the deeds of Mohammed. It is the Hijra or doctrine of immigration. Modeled by Mohammed’s migration from Mecca to Medina, this immigration is not to a romanticized melting pot wherein newcomers gratefully search for opportunities for a better life in liberty and freely offer their talents and loyalty to benefit their new homeland. This is immigration for Islamic expansionism employing ethnic separatism to gain special status and privileges within the host country. Hijra is immigration designed to subvert and subdue non-Muslim societies and pave the way for eventual, total Islamization.

Read it all.

By 1389

It’s time to stir the pot some more

My last post on the brouhaha at Grouchy Conservative Pundits (GCP) was harshly worded indeed, but nonetheless it was not harshly worded enough. I haven’t rattled enough cages yet. Until I start getting some hate mail, enraged comments in all kinds of languages, and maybe even some juicy death threats, I never know if I’m getting my message out, rather than just preaching to the choir.

Lots of people talk about respect…

Talk is cheap. If you’re going to play that game with me, you’ll have to ante up. I believe in giving respect ONLY where respect is due. People who want my respect have to earn it, and they cannot earn it by spewing flagrant and undeserved disrespect toward me and others, as did “Mike C.” and “Rayra” on GCP.

Intellect alone is not deserving of respect; it depends on what people do with it. I have known many people far more intelligent than those two, and who behave far better.

Current or former military service (assuming these people are who they say they are, and I have my doubts) in and of itself is not enough to earn my respect either; there are just as many despicable people among the military and former military as there are everywhere else. I had a recent ex-boss of that description; he was, and is, a crook who treated me like dirt and then got rid of me by transferring me to another position where I would not be paid as much as my contract specified, simply because I didn’t play along with his chicanery in manipulating department budgets. That ex-boss was one more example of the fact that the most consistently untrustworthy people out there are the ones who always talk the loudest about “having someone else’s back.” Yeah, right…with a knife between the ribs.

As far as military personnel are concerned, don’t even get me started on those US military who willingly took part in the bombing of the Serbs during the Kosovo War, or who failed (and still fail) to protect the lives, property, and freedom of the Serbs in occupied Kosovo. Every officer involved should have resigned their commissions. Those who failed to resign have genocide on their consciences, though I doubt that any of them will ever admit it.

Is he or isn’t he? Only his gardener knows for sure

As I said, I cannot determine for sure whether or not “Rayra” is a plant. It’s just as likely that “Rayra” is merely a deeply angry, confused, frightened, and mentally and emotionally unstable individual who is too impulsive to think anything through, can never admit being wrong about anything, sees no reason to learn to control his temper, has no respect for women or anybody he considers to be weaker than himself, has no interest in where anybody else is coming from, and lashes out blindly at anybody or anything that he sees as a threat to his ego or to his self-centered world view. Or he could simply be an outright psychopath; I’ve had the misfortune to be acquainted with a few of those too.

For obvious reasons, I would never WANT somebody like “Rayra” even to claim to be on my side. He is more a danger to his friends, such as they are, than to his enemies.

But whether “Rayra” is actually a plant isn’t the most important concern here. The point is that, whether “Rayra” intends it or not, his intemperate and misguided remarks further the interests of expanding the corrupt and tyrannical use of federal government power.

Why do so many people hate Russia?

As I mentioned in my earlier post, a truly irrational hatred of Russia is rife on GCP, and anybody who says a word in favor of Russia becomes a target. I have reason to believe that Russia is not only far less of a “despotism” than the US, but also it runs the country in the interest of its own citizens, its economy is growing instead of collapsing, it respects Christianity, and its leaders are loyal to their own country. Russia is nothing like its portrayal in the mainstream media.

We are acquainted with an American expat who has lived near Moscow for many years, and we get some information about what is going on in Russia from the inside. Also, one of our friends is an amateur astronomer who travels all over the world whenever there is an eclipse. He’s a rock-solid conservative Republican and has been so for many decades. He went to Russia the last time there was an eclipse there, and he liked it so much that he seriously considered blowing off the eclipse-viewing to spend more time traveling in Russia and meeting Russians.

No, I don’t agree with everything that the Russian government does, just as I will never agree with everything that any government does. We live in a fallen world and all governments are fallible. But I can well understand why, at this stage, Russia is a rival of the US and not an ally. Yes, Russia COULD have been an ally, but Americans blew the opportunity through our own selfishness and ambition. The carpetbaggers that came over to Russia from Harvard and the liberal think-tanks after the Berlin Wall came down inflicted incredible damage; they are the ones to blame for letting the oligarchs and gangsters take hold for as long as they did. Since that time, Putin and Medvedev have made considerable inroads against the oligarchs and gangsters. They’ve also instituted a flat tax that is not excessively high, they collect it even-handedly, and unlike the US, they don’t double-tax Russian citizens earning money overseas. If they’ve had to play rough against the Chechen jihadis and the media whores and NGOs that support the jihadis, then good for them.

I understand that many people continue to harbor suspicion and hatred against Russia as a result of the heritage of the Cold War. I myself was as ardent a supporter of the US during the Cold War as anybody could be. However, in the present day, such hatred against Russia is counterproductive and it sinks to the level of irrational bigotry. I haven’t observed the same degree of opprobrium leveled at China, our other Cold War enemy, even though China is much less free than Russia, China is not primarily a Christian country, China is more of a rival to us than Russia is, and the remnants of communism persist much more strongly there.

Pot, meet kettle

I would no more condemn Putin for having been in the KGB in the distant past, than I would condemn George H. W. Bush for having headed the CIA, which has done little to protect us, and much to get us into needless trouble. At least Putin is a Christian who has repented of whatever wrongdoing he has committed in that regard. Can you imagine an American president ever repenting of anything? I sure can’t. I doubt that we’ve had a real Christian president since Ronald Reagan, despite numerous photo-ops intended to prove the contrary.

Anybody can see that we have an even bigger mess in the US. What inroads has our federal government made against the Latin-American drug gangs, the SEIU, George Soros and his circle of oligarchs, the traitors at the New York Times and CNN, the traitors in the State Department, the commies in our universities, the crooks who run Detroit and Chicago, and last but not least, the jihadis that infest every corner of the US?

Shooting the messenger

Of course, it sent many people on GCP into fits of outrage to hear me say that Russia, despite its current rivalry with the US, has been cleaning up its internal messes, while the US has been sinking into an abyss. Their response was to shoot the messenger.

And why do so many people hate the Serbs?

There is plenty of evidence that they hate the Serbs over at GCP. This is ironic, considering that GCP was founded by people banned from Little Green Footballs, and considering that I was banned from Little Green Footballs for supporting the Serbs. Their antipathy toward the Serbs also serves to explain some of their hatred toward Russia, simply because the Russians have made some efforts to help the Serbs.

The US government, along with NATO and the EU, is still doing everything it can to destroy the economy and livelihood and what little remains of the sovereignty and culture of the Serbs, in order to help the jihadis to create a stronghold in the Balkans. And that includes the US military. I don’t even want to think about how many people on GCP might have been personally involved in one way or another. That’s between them and their Maker.

This foreign policy is not merely stupid, it sinks to the level of treason. The whole purpose of throwing the Serbs under the bus is to curry favor with the Saudis and other Muslim oil-producing nations. A lot of good that has done us! We would have done better just to colonize them and take over and de-Islamize the Middle East just as we once de-Nazified western Europe. As anybody could have predicted, like every other bunch of totalitarians, the jihadis are inherently evil and they will always bite the hands that feed them, which is what led to 9-11.

Does that statement surprise you? In case you don’t know, Osama bin Laden travels on a Bosnian Muslim passport granted to him by the late Alija Izetbegovic, who was literally a Nazi. It is not appropriate to invoke Godwin’s Law here, because we’re talking about an actual Nazi of the Third Reich. Notice that I do not call Izetbegovic an ex-Nazi, in that he was a lifelong unrepentant Nazi who recruited for Hitler as a young man. And the US government sided with Izetbegovic in the Bosnian War.

This collaboration with the jihadis in the Balkans has been going on ever since Reagan left office. I have grave doubts about the moral worth of the American people for consistently electing governments that support our enemies in this way. How am I supposed to be loyal to a government that is collaborating with our enemies? If I had been in Norway during the Second World War, should I have been loyal to Vidkun Quisling?

I harbor a faint hope that enough people in some state, somewhere in the US, will see the light in time to secede from a Quisling federal government that is deliberately laying us open to our enemies, so that at least some part of the US will be salvaged. If the turnaround doesn’t happen very soon, long before the 2012 election, it will be too late, and the America that we thought we knew will exist in name only.

Some will insist on remaining under the US federal government no matter what, so that their livelihood (and maybe their lives) will be bled away to support a socialist/jihadi federal tyranny that has chosen to represent not “American exceptionalism” or the “city on a hill” but the worst of all possible worlds. That’s their choice, but let them not claim their willful blindness as moral superiority.

…from Alec:

A petition to stop the crescent memorial is now being circulated on the ground in western Pennsylvania. As a complement to this old fashioned canvassing effort, an electronic petition has also been created at ipetitions.com. Please circulate far and wide!

The petitions highlight four cases of apparent Islamic symbolism in the memorial design. Here is the text (electronic):

Call for Congressional investigation of Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial

Many features of the chosen Flight 93 Memorial design are intolerable:

1. THE GIANT CRESCENT. The centerpiece of the original “Crescent of Embrace” design was a giant red Islamic shaped crescent. Every particle of this original crescent design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only added a few irrelevant trees. The giant crescent is still there.

2. IT POINTS TO MECCA. The giant crescent points to Mecca. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a “mihrab,” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The Flight 93 Memorial is on track to become the world’s largest mosque.

3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL. The minaret-like Tower of Voices is a year-round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial (one of many typical mosque features that are realized in the crescent design, all on the same epic scale as the half mile wide central crescent).

4. THE 44 BLOCKS. There are 44 glass blocks on the flight path, equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists.

Intentional or not, these features are entirely unacceptable. This travesty must stop and investigations must begin.

1. We the undersigned call on our state and federal legislators to undertake their own thorough and independent investigations of the Flight 93 Memorial design. The truth must come out.
2. We ask that the crescent design be scraped entirely and that it be replaced with a new design that is not tainted by Islamic or terrorist memorializing symbolism.
3. We demand a fitting and proper memorial that HONORS the brave men and women of Flight 93.

Please take a minute to electronically sign this petition. All signatures collected by the end of April will be printed out and delivered to the May 3rd public meeting of the Memorial Project, along with Xeroxes of the hand-signed petitions.

That is just the start. There will be another public meeting in August, where we hope to present a much larger pile of petitions, and all signatures will eventually be delivered to the Pennsylvania state legislature and to Congress. Keep sending until the crescent design is stopped!

In the short term, we have a number of supporters in the Pennsylvania legislature at this point who are working to gain backing for an investigation. A demonstration of public demand should help that effort.

The paper petition

In order to make the paper petition self-sufficient, there is a second page, to be printed on the back of the petition, that provides explanations and graphical documentation of the four highlighted cases of Islamic symbolism. The idea is to have a petition that can circulate virally. Anyone can print it out and have enough information right on the petition itself to know that the objections are legitimate. (Mailing instructions are also included.)

Here are the back-side explanations of the four intolerable features:

1. THE GIANT CRESCENT

The original Crescent of Embrace design was a giant Islamic shaped crescent with the crash site placed between the crescent tips, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag:

The redesign was supposed to eliminate these Islamic symbol shapes, but as Congressman Tom Tancredo wrote to the Park Service in November 2007, these features remain completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only disguised the crescent with a few additional trees. Architect Paul Murdoch’s refusal to eliminate the Islamic symbol shapes suggests intent, but intentional or not, these symbol shapes are unacceptable. Congressman Tancredo is now calling for the crescent design to be scrapped in its entirety, and we join in that request.

2. IT POINTS TO MECCA

Several credible analysts have found that a person facing directly into the giant crescent (still present in the redesign) will be facing almost exactly at Mecca:

The green “qibla” circle in the graphic above is from the prayer-direction calculator at Islam.com. It shows the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA (ten miles from the crash site). The red arrow shows that a person standing between the crescent tips and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca.

This Mecca orientation claim must be authoritatively investigated and answered. If it is true that the crescent points to Mecca, and hence can serve as an Islamic prayer direction indicator (the central feature around which every mosque is built), then whether this construct was intentional or not, it indelibly taints the design.

3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL

Anyone can see the overt similarity between a traditional Islamic sundial (left-hand image) and Tower of Voices part of the Flight 93 Memorial (right-hand image):

When the shadow of the traditional sundial reaches the outer curved vertical in this photo, it will be time for Islamic afternoon prayers. Shadow calculations confirm that, on any day of the year, when the shadow of the 93 foot tall crescent shaped Tower of Voices reaches the inner arc of trees, it will also be time for Islamic afternoon prayers.

4. THE FORTY-FOUR BLOCKS

Tom Burnett Sr. does not want Tom Junior’s name inscribed on one of the 44 translucent blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path. Forty-four is the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists:

The left side of this graphic shows the Memorial Wall, which follows the path of Flight 93 down to the point of impact. At eye level are 43 glass blocks. Forty are inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes. Three are inscribed with the 9/11 date.

Right-hand image: the 44th glass block sits at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway, where the flight path crosses the upper crescent tip. It marks the spot where, in architect Paul Murdoch’s description, the terrorists broke our humanitarian circle, turning it into a giant (Islamic shaped) crescent. This circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat is memorialized by the inscription: “A field of honor forever.”

The Park Service dismisses the suspicious block count on the grounds that the 44th glass block is much larger than the others. Mr. Burnett is not comforted by the magnificence of the 44th block, and neither are we. This design must be stopped, and investigations must be launched!

Other petition formats

The same four intolerable features are described in the annotated “Map of Betrayal” that was the subject of one of last month’s blogbursts. Thus the map makes a perfectly serviceable back side for the petition, providing an alternative petition/flyer combination.

The information on the map is denser than the explanations above, but has its own intrigue, showing how the different terrorist memorializing parts fit together like an elaborate puzzle.

The petition being circulated on the ground now in Pennsylvania is still another variation. It has slightly different wording than the electronic petition, and slightly different explanations of the four points than presented above. All the different formats are interchangeable. They all highlight the same four objectionable features, and they will all be delivered together to state and federal legislators.

Until we get a Congressional investigation, the petition will be an ongoing tool for raising awareness and registering opposition. If you participate in any activist fora or email lists, please forward the text and links along. (The electronic and paper-petition links are collected together on this petition Page at CrescentOfBetrayal.com.)