Given the current events of the President making a speech at Hiroshima yesterday, and figuring out I hadn’t gotten around to making this post already, here’s another small bit of history that proves, that as horrible as the A bombs were on Japan, the decision by FDR and later Harry Truman, may well have saved a culture from extinctions.

It would be nice o pursue a World without nuclear weapons. I actually concur with him. I do, however, take exception to him presenting this topic at Hiroshima, and even Nagaski would have been inappropriate. The reason atomic, and later, nuclear weapons were invented, was because of the agressive actions of Japan in the Pacific region of the planet. Long before Pearl Harbor, Japan had occupied, just to name some significant one: The Korean Pennisula, and large portions of Manchuris. In fact, the US had cut off selling scrap metal, lumber and petroleum products via an embargo, as a less than military response to make an international diplomatic point. The embargo hampered Japanese military efforts, but the unintended consequence was then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, strategically planning to take our powerful Naval forces out of action, so they could then invade SE Asia, where the tin, lumber and POL resources were that they needed to continue their empire building in China.

The massive human wreckage and war crimes of the Japanese military are well documented along the way, the term “The Rape of Nanking” is but one term in this accounting.

In a twist of irony, our President goes to Japan, and says he is there to mourn the dead of our use of atomic weapons the bring the war to a close, started by the Japanese and filled with brutality towards civilians. I doubt a moment was devoted to considering the men, women and children used for bayonet and beheading training for Japanese soldiers and officers in China (and what is now Korea), let alone the many Korean women who were taken, in today’s lexicon, as “sex slaves” for the Japanese military. Back then, they were called “comfort girls” and that issue is still major issue between Japan and Korea even now.

Little known history is Japan had successfully developed and tested and atomic weapon before the end of WWII. Revealed by a Japanese immigrant physics professor, who was part of the research team, he had saved docuemtns ordered destroyed before the Allies could find them. The History Channel has a documentary on this bit of history, and the details are also found here on Wikipedia.

Has the President, or his staff bothered to realized both Germany and Japan were working to build the same type of weaponry, and speficially planning to use them for domination? Not likely, it doesn’t fit the narraitve of how bad America has been, trying to build an empire aggressively against the peaceful Japanese peoples.

Ans, yes, they higher irony is the enabling of Iran to build the very weaponry he says the World would be better off without.

Now, on to a telling bit of 2nd hand storytelling that proves we are blessed to have the Japanese culture, economy and as a security partner in peace, and all because of some very difficult decision making, in the end, by Harry Truman.

Assigned to the COMNAVSURFLANT Combat Systems Mobile Training Team (CSMTT) in 1990, one my shipmates, Paul, had been stationed at Naval Station Sasebo, Japan earlier in his career. On his desk, he had a carved wood pen and pencil holder, with his name “bookened” by china globes. The globes were fine white china, about 3″ in diameter and had a little “chimney,” like you would see on a Christmas ornament with out the cap to hold the hanger. Certainly it was a conversation starting piece, and I asked, as I’m sure many others have over the years: Just what are those globes?

“Grenades.”

The long version: Sometime in the 80s, the in Sasebo Harbor channel needed dredging and the dredging spoil came up with pile after pile of those spheres. No one, at first, had any idea what they were or for, but someone began asking around.

Some very old Japanese revealed the story. Noritake made them. The Japanese Government directed them verbally to manufacture globes for inexpensive grenades, to be issued to every man, woman and child in the event of an invasion by the Allied Forces. They would run up to them and kill themselves and ans many Allied troops as possible. When the war ended, the globes produced and stored, were order to be dumped in the harbor, to conceal their existence.

It was an entirely undocumented production contract. Consider why any one, or any government, would, with all their mandatory red tape, all of a sudden doing something verbally?

I don’t recall the book, but about 10 years ago, it was on the new book shelf at Borders, the topic was the contents of the diplomatic cables between Toyko and Berlin we had intercepted. The author’s analysis was Japan’s leadership was poised to expend every Japanese citizen, rather than have anyone remaining, standing in defeat. His conclusion was: The delivery of the two atomic bombs were the tipping point in the Japanese Government’s decision to end the war, with out the coming horrific toll in lives that would be an expected outcome.

Paul’s memorabilia of his time in Japan tells of the internal planning to enable national suicide, which means it wasn’t “words, just words” of one ally to another in the midst of global war, but a purposeful plan the had put into motion. Knowing the events of Saipan and Okinawa, it is even more clear the Japanese military had great control over what they could get civilians to do in the face of the Allied Forces.

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.

In support of Powerline’s John Hinderaker

The immediate impetus for making these revelations public now is to support John Hinderaker’s 10th anniversary 9/11 post:

You may remember that there was considerable controversy when the design for the Flight 93 memorial was unveiled. It was called “Crescent of Embrace.” The crescent is, of course, the central symbol of Islam, and the design apparently was intended to symbolize some sort of rapprochement with that religion. The winning design was chosen by a jury, and some members of the jury, including Thomas Burnett, whose son was one of the heroes who brought down the airplane, vigorously opposed it. As I understand it, no one on the jury questioned the Muslim reference inherent in the crescent, but a majority believed that it would somehow be “healing” for the memorial to be, in part at least, a sort of tribute to Islam.

That was John’s response to Tom Sr.’s revelations, and his statement is fully supportable, but for people to know why, the supporting information has to be available to everyone. Now it is.

Given the conflict between Mr. Burnett and Tom Sokolowski, there could not have been any doubt in any juror’s mind that the Crescent was an Islamic symbol shape. Indeed, the jury made a specific request, not honored by the Park Service or by architect Paul Murdoch, that:

The crescent should be referred to as ‘the circle or arc,’ or other words that are not tied to specific religious iconography.

The only question was whether the use of this Islamic symbol shape should be seen as bad, and for a majority to favor the crescent design, a majority just have decided that it wasn’t bad, even in the face of family members who found it horrific.

Maybe these left-wing design professionals actually wanted to torture the families, but the generous interpretation is the one John gives: that they saw the Crescent design as symbolizing “some sort of rapprochement” with Islam. Certainly that seems to have been Sandra Felt’s idea, and at least one family member not on the jury thought it obvious that this must have been the intent of everyone who voted for the Crescent design. Mark Bingham’s mother, Alice Hoglan, just wished that the outreach to Islam had been made explicit:

The Flight 93 Memorial selection committee has admitted to misgivings about the word ‘crescent.’ I almost wish that instead they could claim they deliberately chose the crescent design as a gesture of peace and unity with the Islamic world. If they were to make that claim, I would not object. I would welcome such a compassionate gesture.

Unfortunately, regardless of the intentions of the jurors, architect Paul Murdoch did not have a compassionate gesture in mind.

A terrorist memorial mosque

Mr. Hinderaker’s anniversary post does not investigate whether the giant crescent actually does point to Mecca (allowing it to serve as an Islamic mihrab), or whether the Tower of Voices really is a year-round-accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial. Perfectly understandable, as these claims take some work to check and John had only just learned that the memorial controversy is still aboil, after thinking that it had been resolved in 2005.

But he does provide links to the evidence, and notes that some of it is accessible just by looking. Like why in the world does the Tower of Voices have an Islamic-shaped crescent on top?

The minaret-like Tower of Voices is formed in the shape of a crescent and is cut at an angle at the top so that its crescent arms reach up to the sky, as seen on mosque minarets across most of the Islamic world.

Literally dangling down below these symbolic Islamic heavens are the symbolic lives of the 40 heroes. This symbolic damnation is repeated over and over in Murdoch’s design. The memorial is not just any mosque, it is an al Qaeda victory mosque.

So much for trying to reach out to Islam without bothering to vet what part of Islam is being reached out to. Nothing could be worse for the decent people of the Islamic world than to hand a great victory to the very worst in the Islamic world. That is the problem with doing this Muslim-outreach thing on the sly.

Knowing the American people would never go along with intentional Islamic outreach, the Memorial Project had to cover up what actually went on in the jury room, and once they got into cover-up mode, they just kept covering up revelation after revelation about what is actually contained in Murdoch’s design.

Sokolowski’s own vile cover-up: attributing the Crescent choice to the families, after vilifying family members who opposed the Crescent design

Here is how the Post-Gazette reported on local preacher Ron McRae, who believed that architect Paul Murdoch had intended the Crescent as a tribute to Islam:

It’s a memorial to the terrorists,” McRae said. “It’s not a memorial to the innocent Americans who died there.”

But Tom Sokolowski, the director of the Andy Warhol Museum, and one of the Stage II jury members, said that claim is “asinine.”

“If the families of the 40 people who were killed felt this was an appropriate symbol to honor their loved ones, then I think he is delusional,” he said. “To take this small-minded, bigoted view is disgusting and repellent.”

Sokolowski knew that family members on the jury had taken that exact same “disgusting and repellent” view because he had said as much to their faces, and now here he was pretending that it was McRae, not himself, who was vilifying the families. Absolute moral trash of the highest order, even if he is just a feckless little worm. By intent, he is as evil as Murdoch.

Gordon Felt’s defense of the Crescent design is also belied by what transpired on the jury:

Gordon Felt, whose brother, Edward, died in the crash, called the focus on the crescent an “unfortunate distraction,” from the fourth anniversary memorial service tomorrow at the crash site.

Still, he continued, “It would be silly of us to have some sort of symbolism [in the memorial] that would be offensive to people.”

This from the man whose own sister in law had spoken in favor of the “reaching out” symbolism of the Crescent, symbolism that was seen by other family members as intending to reach out to Islam, inspiring the most dreadful offense. All this is FACT, and Gordon Felt waves off any thought of it as “silly.”

Did Gerald Bingham lie in his letter to the Memorial Project?

Mr. Bingham’s letter to the Memorial Project (p. 21 here) was timed to counter Mr. Burnett’s appearance at the 2008 Project meeting. It in-effect calls Mr. Burnett a liar, denying that Tom Sr. had ever raised any protest about Islamic symbolism when they served on the jury together:

Attention: Joanne Hanley
RE: Mr. Tom Burnett’s disapproval of the Memorial scheduled to be built honoring those on United Flight 93

Please read the following letter into the minutes of the Flight 93 board meeting scheduled for August 2, 2008.

I served on the Jury to select the final design for the Flight 93 Memorial along with Mr. Burnett. As I recall, Tom liked the design with a line of rocks along a 2 ½ mile walking trail. He indicated in his discussion with me that when it came to final vote that this would be the design of his choice. After the vote was taken and his design was not chosen he was very upset. Not once during these discussions did he mention that the design chosen by a majority vote of the committee had anything to do with a “symbol to the terrorist” as he is now saying.

The final design was chosen because its’ layout fit the landscape where the plane crashed and kept with the surrounding area.

I believe that Mr. Burnett has forgotten that this memorial is for 40 individual people who were on a flight taken over by terrorists and that all 40 of those people became heroes that day. All he is accomplishing at this point is causing other families aggravation and needless controversy.

We need to forge ahead with the plans as voted upon and join together as one just like our loved-ones did on United Flight 93, September 11, 2001.

Respectfully,
Gerald Bingham
Father of Mark Bingham

Mr. Bingham’s denial that Tom Sr. said anything about Islamic symbolism is contradicted by numerous data points, starting with the fact that Mr. Burnett spoke out to the press immediately after Crescent design was unveiled in 2005:

Tom Burnett Sr., whose son died in the crash, said he made an impassioned speech to his fellow jurors about what he felt the crescent represented.

“I explained this goes back centuries as an old-time Islamic symbol,” Burnett said. “I told them we’d be a laughing stock if we did this.”

But his fellow jurors — and it turns out, many of the other family members — disagree with his interpretation.

“I got blown off.”

But not entirely. The jurors, in their final report, suggested the name of Murdoch’s design be changed from crescent to something with less religious significance, like an arc or circle.

This is corroborated by Helene Fried, who helped to manage the design competition:

Fried said the connection was raised by some history buffs on the jury during three days of deliberations last month.

Compare “old time Islamic symbol,” with “history buffs.” And if the Jury’s statement that the Crescent name is “tied to specific religious iconography” was not in response to Mr. Burnett’s protests, where did it come from? Is Bingham saying that others on the jury were more vehement than Mr. Burnett in pointing out and objecting to this tie?

Then there is Mr. Burnett’s account of Tom Sokolowski calling him “asinine” for objecting to the Islamic symbolism of the crescent. This is corroborated by the fact that Sokolowski used the exact same language to condemn Pastor Ron McRae. Altogether, the evidence is overwhelming that it is Gerald Bingham who is lying when he accuses Mr. Burnett of lying.

For the sake of the families

Bingham makes his motivation clear. He opposes Mr. Burnett because:

All he is accomplishing at this point is causing other families aggravation and needless controversy.

But notice what Bingham doesn’t say. He is willing to discuss how Mr. Burnett voted, but he keeps his own vote secret. (Gerald Bingham has been divorced from Mark Bingham’s mother Alice Hoglan since the 1970’s, so her stated approval of Muslim-outreach in the Flight 93 Memorial should not be linked to him.)

If Bingham voted for the Crescent, his secrecy about his vote would make no sense. Everyone from Sokolowski on up appeals to the will of the families. Bingham himself does this. These appeals obviously turn on whether the nine votes for the Crescent design came from family members or from the cadre of left-wing design professionals who outnumbered the families 8 to 7.

For Bingham’s objective of ending the controversy, the most weighty thing he could say is that he voted for it, but he doesn’t. And how could he have voted for the Crescent? This is a man who is so keen to avoid pain for the families that he is even willing to tell slanderous lies about the one family member he blames for dragging out the controversy. Surely such a man would never have voted in the first place for a design that was already causing the most extreme anguish to multiple family members.

Ed Root is also loud in his condemnations but mum about his vote

Jury member Ed Root also attacks Mr. Burnett and Mr. Rawls for continuing to oppose the Crescent design (p. 22 here):

Those who oppose this Memorial, for whatever misplaced reasons, have voiced their belief on numerous occasions. That is a striking example of the democracy we hold dear. When those unfounded beliefs turn to a zealotry that attempts to overthrow the very democratic process that selected the winning design it does a terrible disservice to those who worked long and diligently during the design process and, to me, it mocks those very 40 that we long to honor. Our nation is one of laws and due process. To let a few destroy what many have built is not democracy, but tyranny.

Yet Root too keeps his vote secret. It could just be embarrassment, not wanting to admit that he voted for such an obvious perversion, crammed to the gills with Islamic-shaped crescents. Or it could be that he was better than that, and despite the magnificence of Murdoch’s Crescent, was unwilling to vote for as design that other family members found so appallingly offensive.

Mr. Burnett says he liked Mr. Root, and it is easy to see why. They both believe the passengers and crew were fighting, not just to stop the terrorist attack, but to get back to their families:

“The people of Flight 93 wanted to live,” Root said while visiting “Father Al” and the chapel in July. “There’s no doubt in my mind, they didn’t want to die.”

That distinguishes the passengers and crew from the hijackers, in Root’s eyes.

“[The passengers and flight attendants] wanted to try to get control of the plane and, if possible, to survive,” he said. “But they knew from all of the phone calls that if they didn’t do something, it would be far worse. So it really is this comparison of philosophies of a free society versus a terrorist society. One is, their cause is death; the other is, their cause is life. And that’s what makes this worthy of a national memorial. That’s what makes this worth being remembered.

Maybe he can join with Mr. Burnett in demanding an explanation for Memorial Superintendent Keith Newlin’s claim that it was the passengers and crew who crashed the airplane: “They are the one’s who brought the plane down,” says Newlin. This is his way of avoiding the implication that the circle-breaking crescent-creating theme of the memorial can only be depicting the actions of the terrorists. “[The terrorists] TRIED to break the peace,” says Newlin, “but they failed.” Surely Root would disagree.

But Root is wrong about who is refusing to respect democratic principles. Their 15 person jury does not take precedence over the will of the nation, clearly expressed in the national uproar over the original Crescent of Embrace design. The Memorial Project promised to remove the offensive features—the Islamic symbol shapes—but they never did. They just disguised them.

“The difference is at best a subtle one”

Thanks to Powerline for exposing this as well:

Crescent of Embrace, left. Circle of Embrace, right.

They call it a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11, is just the original Crescent of Embrace. All they did was recolor the graphics, then add an extra arc of trees, placed to the rear of a person facing into the giant crescent, that explicitly represents a broken off part of the circle. As a result, Murdoch’s circle-breaking crescent-creating theme is now even more explicit, and so are its obvious terrorist-memorializing implications.

Will other front-line conservative blogs and publications take notice?

John Hinderaker is a top lawyer, a lifelong expert at evaluating evidence. When he announces that there is serious substance to the Flight 93 controversy, serious people ought to listen.

Everybody understands the difficulty. With multiple Flight 93 family members crying their anguish against anyone who prolongs the controversy, people need to actually look at the facts before taking a position. So take a look! MANY of the facts are perfectly straightforward and utterly damning. Not everyone can be as brave as Pamela Geller, but no one should let the whiff of danger stop them from examining this most important issue.

We’re talking no less than the re-hijacking of Flight 93 by an actual al Qaeda sympathizing architect. Think 9/11 folks. The whiff of danger should be an attractant, a chance to tackle a hijacker. Those lied-to and in some cases lying family members need to have their fat pulled out of the fire. Ride to the sound of the guns.

That day I was retired from the Navy, way in the rear, without any gear of helpfulness to those on the front lines. So, where I was, suffice it to say, I remember, but it wasn’t off significance to the big picture.

That day/event shattered a major belief structure I had held since the summer of 1988: Major, large scale wars have no place in the post Cold War World…think about it: The issues are no longer taking over crop land, but the economic might of the “competing” nations. To go for the scortced earth, have an artillery division take 3 feet of dirt off a sqaure mile does nothing to preserve the economic resources you’re coveting.

After 9 months at War College, reading much more history, to add to the many tomes already ingested, I was thinking we’d be more in the “staring each other down” mode in the future. Prepared to fight, but not doing it in a big way. Bad outcomes on both sides, but then, I didn’t give guerilla forces much of a place in my thinking.

Then came September 11th, and the face of war in the modern era (meaning when I’m living), took a radical turn: A religiously based, ideologially driven, small group of people, not aligned with any one nation, and certainly not organized to meet the definition of the armed force of a soverign nation, without the direct or monetary support from and established nation-state, arrived on the scene, outdoing even the Japanese Naval Forces of 12/7/41, and then stood up to take a bow. Thus Al-Queda became part of the lexicon.

The “Laws of War” were not written to primarly handle this type of conflict. They were designed to “manage” the conflict between nation states, with easily identified military forces, loyal to one flag or another. Guerillas were but a side show. Certainly not without impact, but still a side show, until 9/11/01 arrived.

There went my construct on how conflict would happen in the now definitely post-BiPolar Supwer Power era.

Other things changed. How those combatants, illegal as they were, were to be handled. We got Guantanamo Bay, a place I had frequented as a training base during my time in uniform, converted into a holding facility for those we captured on the battle field. Why? By all I can rekon is we didn’t want to “go there” and handle the illegal combatants (those who were armed and attacking US troops, yet without an identified national uniform or affiliation), and summarily execute them where they were captured. It’s allowed, but, by being compassionate (I’m all in on this one), we then ended up with a situation on our hands as how to ensure justice was done. You know the history of that discussion, which still isn’t completed (despite a pledge to handle this from the current Commander-in-Chief).

We now, as an entire society, began looking over our shoulders, and eyeing suspicious acts of any one around us. Top it off with pre-suspecting every single air passenger as a real possibility of being a hijacker not wanting cash, like D.B. Cooper. On top of the untold billions invested in equipment to clearly show we trusted no one citizen of our nation, the tremendous loss of productivity we have suffered, which I suspect will never be calculated, but it is clearly a cost we have incurred by having to arrive earlier, sit longer, just to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Along the way, we developed an extreme phobia of telling someone else something that might hurt their feelings, such as “If you’re willing to consider killing us for your ideology, we’re willing to try to kill you first to prevent it.”

The phobia then extended to ensure we didn’t inflame those who, by their deeds, had already shown they were upset by us.

And, along the way, it has become acceptable to determine something that happened in the name of Christianity in the 2nd millenia AD, was a workable rationale to give a pass to those who began mass killings in the name of Allah, like the modern world, was still in the Middle East doing something other than run of the mill economic trade and business.

On top of that, while trying to shut out Chritianity as the root cause of the attacker’s anger, therefore justified (in some circles), we have been told to even think someone who subscribes to a faith that clearly has scriptures detailing the destruction of the “infidels,” is Islamophobic and is a crime of hate.

Excuse me, but slaughtering just anyone in their way, Christians, Hindus, Buddists, atheists and Muslims alike is a hate crime to me, but I’m being “intolerant” of saying killing for killings sake is a hateful thing.

Enough of that, so onto a set of rhetorical issues befuddle me:

I’m really missing the point of those who say we “over reacted” or, as on man put it a about a month ago, “we went to war for no reason.” Getting on board with those, like President Clinton, and the early version of President Obama (and I disagree with this, but it helps address the people who think war was not the answer): I’d like to ask them how they have reacted when they are told that a serial murderer is on the loose in their area. I know, as we see this all the time, from both sides of the aisle politically, they demand the law enforcement not rest until the person responsible is found and brought to justice. They want dragnets and sweeps and police to protect them from the threat of being next, and have no problem “judging” the murderer without a trial. So my question would be: What if 2996 people were murdered and that person announced that they had done it and they would do it again, and again, until they had their way with all of you? I think I know the reaction, but the craziness here is they somehow think the 2996 lives lost on 9/11 was no call to action to find those who did it and remove the capability for it to happen anymore, particularly in of the continued statements of future attacks, let alone having seen the actual carnage all over the world, in Europe, India, the Middle East, Malasia, and more places. What kind of a society would we be, saying we are a nation of laws, who turned our backs on that tragedy of 9/11 and said “we can’t respond, we had it coming to us.”?

Anyhow, much has changed. Politicians are fearful of making waves, because we can’t hurt feelings. Small organizations get people to belive they have a big voice, then proceed to peddle disinformation, and we are told they are the experts and do not question tham (side note: We somehow hate corporate lobbyists doing the same thing, but once again, when it’s from an outside force, we must now bow and scape in their general direction, so they don’t do it again…but wait: They tell us they will and then we still cower).

On top of that, it has become fashionable to ask the person on the street their opinion, on complex matters, and honor their answers. We’re not getting any smarter, as seen by standardized tesing, and revisionist history, yet somehow we have to hear from those who lack even a modicum of understanding, as if they are all expert scholars on the subject.

And my last item before stopping rambling: I heard it this morning. On the about to be dedicated “Peace Pole,” the message of “peace on earth” was done in four languages, and particularly in English, as “we need to hera it the most.” I may have missed it, but Arabic native speakers attacked us on 9/11, and have done so for many more years, thankfully overseas, and “we” need to hear it most inplies very strongly we were the cause. And, by the way, the other three languages didn’t include Arabic. At the services, the same leader read a letter from a very close friend who has very recently served in Afghanistan about his year’s tour. The Army Captain was obviously in Civial Affairs, as he was in charge of getting wells put in for the people. In his letter he mentioned, how during his tour, he was amazed at the massive out pouring of help from people all over the US, mostly strnagers to him, to all him to deliver school supplies and so much more to the chldren of Afghanistan. The majority of the letter reiterated how he couldn’t fully comprehend this help sent to a far away US population to people they didn’t even know, just because it was a gift….and “we” who speak English need to hear about “peace on earth” more.

When was the last time the Taliban send school supplies to the mid-West after the tornados, or the mid-Atlantic and North Eastern States in the awake of the hurricane?

So, yes, things have changed. And some people have still not bothered to fully understand we didn’t attack because we “over reacted,” we did it beacuse 2996 people are no longer there to continue conducting “peace on Earth” operations, as they were doing that morning, ten years ago.

The Park Service enlisted three outside consultants to assess whether the Crescent of Embrace memorial to Flight 93 really can be seen as a giant mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. All three consultants, including two Islamic scholars, were blatantly and provably dishonest.

Consultant #1 (details below) confirmed to the Park Service that the giant crescent (now called a broken circle) does indeed point almost exactly at Mecca, then when asked about it by the press, denied that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca (insisting that “you can face any direction to face Mecca”).

Consultant #2, a professor of Islamic architecture at MIT, lied about one of the most familiar of all Islamic doctrines, claiming that a legitimate mihrab must point exactly at Mecca. (The original Crescent of Embrace pointed less than 2° north of Mecca. The broken-circle “redesign” points less than 3° south of Mecca. Both highly accurate by Islamic standards.)

Consultant #3, a professor of sharia law at Indiana University (!), came up with an almost comically dishonest rationale for dismissing concern about the giant Mecca-oriented crescent: don’t worry, no one has ever seen a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before. Not so funny is the Park Service’s eagerness to embrace such a transparently ludicrous excuse.

The details are documented in a large advertisement that Alec Rawls and Tom Burnett Sr. are running this week in Somerset Pennsylvania as President Obama and the national press arrive in town for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

The press has so far been unwilling to check even the most basic facts about the memorial, like whether the giant crescent really does point to Mecca (takes about 2 minutes). Maybe charges that the Park Service and its consultants are telling easily verifiable lies will be more up their alley.

That’s the hope, but a strong push might also make the difference. If you want to help, here are email addresses for the new Park Superintendent Keith Newlin and for a few Pennsylvania newspapers. You can write your own letter, or just copy the first four paragraphs above, and tell them that you want these charges checked!

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Ad copy, with links to documentation

After a brief primer on the giant Islamic crescent-and-star flag that the Park Service is building on the Flight 93 crash site, the ad exposes the three blatantly dishonest consultants that the Park Service invited to please pull the wool over their eyes:

Academic charlatan calculates the direction to Mecca, then tells the press that there is no such thing as the direction to Mecca

Here’s a novel way to deny that the giant crescent points to Mecca. Just deny that there is any such thing as the direction to Mecca. This from the Park Service’s first consultant, as reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Daniel Griffith, a geospatial information sciences professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, said anything can point toward Mecca, because the earth is round.

That is not an errant paraphrase. Griffith said the same thing to Tribune Democrat reporter Kirk Swauger:

He said you can face anywhere to face Mecca.

So when Muslims face Mecca for prayer, they are just deluding themselves? They could actually face any old direction and still be facing Mecca? Is there really no such thing as a direction on planet earth?

Griffith was lying of course, and the Park Service knew it, because the first thing Griffith’s report on the orientation of the Crescent of Embrace does is calculate the direction from Shanksville to Mecca:

I computed an azimuth value from the Flight 93 crater site to Mecca of roughly 55.20°.

“Azimuth” means direction, in degrees clockwise from north. Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca by the “great circle” or “shortest distance” method (“as the crow flies,” curving only in the over-the-horizon direction), and this is the method Griffith used. He also accepted that the Crescent in the original design drawings points a mere .62° away from Mecca (about a degree closer than it actually points, but no matter).

In short, Griffith confirmed the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent, then denied it to the public, but the Park Service knew the truth, because they had Griffith’s actual report. Thus when the Park Service repeated Griffith’s denials that the giant crescent points to Mecca, they too were knowingly hiding the truth from the public. One example is the previous Park Superintendent Joanne Hanley. Asked directly whether the giant crescent points to Mecca she denied it, telling the Post Gazette that:

The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site.

The Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent is clear evidence of an enemy plot to re-hijack Flight 93. The American people need to know the facts, while these public figures have worked desperately to keep the facts from them.

Muslim consultant from MIT lied about one of the most familiar of all Islamic doctrines, claiming Mecca-orientation must be exact

After Griffith verified that the crescent/broken-circle does indeed point almost exactly at Mecca, the Park Service asked two Islamic scholars whether there was any Islamic significance to this giant Mecca-oriented crescent. Could it by any chance be seen as a giant mihrab? After all, the archetypical mihrab IS crescent shaped.

The Park Service’s second consultant, a professor of Islamic and mosque architecture at M.I.T. named Nasser Rabbat, assured the Park Service that because the crescent does not point exactly at Mecca it cannot be seen as a mihrab:

Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.

That is a bald lie, and every practicing Muslim knows it. For most of Islam’s 1400 year history far-flung Muslims had no accurate way to determine the direction to Mecca. Thus it developed as a matter of religious principle that what matters is intent to face Mecca, with no requirement for precision in actually facing Mecca. Two or three degrees off is highly precise by Islamic standards. Many of the world’s most famous mihrabs face 20, 30, 40 or more degrees away from Mecca and it matters not one whit.

Every practicing Muslim knows that they only need to face very roughly towards Mecca for prayer because they are constantly availing themselves of this allowance when, five times a day, they seek out walls that they can pray towards that will leave them facing roughly towards Mecca. Not having to face exactly at Mecca for prayer is one of the most familiar of all Islamic doctrines.

Saudi religious authorities confirm: mihrab orientation does NOT have to be
exact

The mihrab-orientation issue came up in 2009 when the denizens of Mecca itself realized that even their local mosques only face very roughly towards the Kaaba. is is an unusual case because the people who built these mosques couldn’t say they didn’t know the actual direction to the Kaaba. They could see it. No problem, according to the Saudi Islamic Affairs Ministry, which assured worshippers that, “it does not affect the prayers.”

Nobody would know this better than Nasser Rabbat, who actually teaches mosque design. Indeed, he would know the full basis for the primacy of intent: that intent is given preeminence throughout Islamic teaching, not just in Mecca-orientation. For instance, Islam’s first instruction to converts is that they are supposed to lie about their religion (Tabari 8.23):

en Nu’aym came to the Prophet. ‘I’ve become a Muslim, but my tribe does not know of my Islam; so command me whatever you will.’ Muhammad said, ‘Make them abandon each other if you can so that they will leave us; for war is deception.’

What matters in Islam is not whether Muslims tell the truth, but whether their intent is to advance Islamic conquest.

Of course we made sure the Park Service saw the proof from the Saudi Islamic A airs Ministry that their Muslim consultant had lied to them about the Mecca-orientation of a mihrab needing to be exact. That was a couple of years ago now. If they had any integrity they would re-open their investigation, but then if they had any integrity they would never have handed their watchdog role over to a pair of Muslim consultants in the first place.

Islamic scholar from Indiana University says don’t worry, no one has ever seen a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before

Kevin Jaques, a professor of Islamic sharia law at Indiana University, does not say whether he is Muslim (remember Tabari 8.23: converts who live amongst the infidels are supposed to hide their religion), but he did write an article right after 9/11 urging that any U.S. response should be based on the principles of sharia law, so he pretty much has to be Muslim. He is definitely an Islamophile.

Professor Jaques’ report to the Park Service acknowledges that the crescent is geometrically similar to the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built, but dismisses any concern about Islamic symbolism on the grounds that no one has ever seen a mihrab anywhere near this BIG before:

… most mihrabs are small, rarely larger than the figure of a man, although some of the more ornamental ones can be larger, but nothing as large as the crescent found in the site design. It is unlikely that most Muslims would walk into the area of the circle/crescent and see a mihrab because it is well beyond their limit of experience. Again, just because it is similar does not make it the same.

You know, like no one can recognize Abe Lincoln’s likeness on Mount Rushmore. It’s just too darn big for ordinary folks to get their tiny little minds around, and the Flight 93 crescent is much bigger than that. It’s actually big enough to be easily visible from airliners like Flight 93 passing overhead. The scale would be epic beyond belief so … don’t believe it!

[Jaques full comment was left anonymously on this radical fruitcake left-wing blog (scroll to the last comment at the bottom). It can be identified as Jaques’ because a chunk of the text is identical to what the Memorial Project released a few months later, naming Jaques as the source. Notice that the Park Service did not release the revealing part of Jaques’ statement, where he acknowledges that the giant crescent IS similar to a mihrab, but is too big to worry about.]

Too big to worry about is not technically a lie perhaps, but it is a transparently dishonest excuse. That it was good enough for the Park Service shows how badly they wanted to be deceived. It would even be funny if the issue were not so deadly serious. Muslims are not allowed to deceive for just any reason. Orthodox doctrine tells them to deceive when by doing so they can advance the cause of Islamic conquest, and one of the oldest traditions of Islamic conquest is the building of victory mosques on the sites of their attacks.

To be completely certain that the memorial is actually intended to be a mosque one has to work through Murdoch’s endless proofs of intent: his elaborate repetition of the Mecca-orientations, the year-round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial (tomorrow’s ad), the 38 instead of 40 Memorial Groves (Thursday’s ad), etcetera. But the Park Service’s extensive lying to the public about the most basic facts of the design should by itself be a clarion call to everyone to insist on an independent investigation. The Service’s own internal investigation was nothing but proven lies from beginning to end. That is not acceptable!

Neither is the news media’s consistent refusal to check and report the facts. News-people all know that Muslims face Mecca for prayer, yet the Post-Gazette did not question Griffith’s claim that “anything can point to Mecca, because the earth is round.” They too are complicit in foisting this lie on the public. Every reporter who reads this ad and does not try to fact-check our easy-to-verify claims is part of the problem.

What this means, people, is that you have to stand up on your own. Your opinion leaders have abandoned you to this Islamic assault, but if you do stand up to your supposed betters, if you check the facts for yourselves and demand that the press and the government conduct proper investigations, then Murdoch’s plot can still be undone. The hijacker can still be ousted from the cockpit. Now that would be a fitting memorial to Flight 93.

Alec Rawls and Tom Burnett Sr.

Received via email:

MEDIA ALERT

Navy Memorial Screens Award-winning Documentary “Chosin”

On Battle’s 60^th Anniversary

Contacts:        Taylor Kiland                                                    Linda Heiss

[email protected] [email protected]

United States Navy Memorial                            Linda Roth Associates, Inc.

(202) 380-0718                                                  (703) 417-2709

WHAT: The Navy Memorial is screening “Chosin,” a documentary about one of the most savage battles of the Korean War: the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir.  Despite being surrounded and trapped by more than 200,000 Chinese troops, 15,000 U.S. troops fought 78 miles to freedom and saved 98,000 civilian refugees.  Survivor accounts combined with never-before-seen footage take the viewer on an emotional journey.  A panel discussion with the filmmakers and two DC-area Chosin Reservoir survivors will follow the screening.

Participating Filmmakers and Chosin Reservoir survivors:

• Anton Sattler, Producer and Marine veteran from Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Brian Iglesias, Director and Marine veteran from Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Col. Warren Wiedhahn, USMC (Ret.), Chosin Reservoir survivor
• Dr. Stanley Wolf, Chosin Reservoir survivor

WHEN:          December 15, 2010; 6:00 PM

WHERE:       United States Navy Memorial

Naval Heritage Center

701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C.  20004

www.navymemorial.org

Metro: National Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter (Green and Yellow lines)

COST: Free and open to the public

About the United States Navy Memorial

Conveniently located on Pennsylvania Avenue – halfway between the White House and the Capitol, the United States Navy Memorial provides a living tribute to Navy people and a place for them to gather and celebrate their service. The outdoor plaza features a “Granite Sea” map of the world, towering masts with signal flags, fountain pools and waterfalls and The Lone Sailor© statue.  Adjacent to the plaza is the Naval Heritage Center, where visitors can find educational displays about the contributions of the men and women of the Sea Services (Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine).  Also housed in the Naval Heritage Center is the Navy Log – the online place for Navy people to stay connected with each other, celebrate their service and preserve the memories of their service.  There, Navy veterans can build a record of their service online.  Call (202) 737-2300 or visit www.navymemorial.org for more information.

Sounds like a great opportunity for those in the DC Area for this Wednesday!

The anniversary of one of the most significant battles in US Naval history took place on Oct 25th, 1944, near the island of Leyte in the Philippines.

RADM Callo, USN (Ret) leading the panel. Author of “John Paul Jones, America’s First Sea Warrior,”

Wants us to leave thinking not “I didn’t know that,” but “I hadn’t thought of it.”

Consider the technology of piracy. That which supports it, that which suppresses it.

Thought: “Piracy is a business. It has a business model. If you are to suppress it, you need to treat it like a business.”

We have the best operators, but if the political aspect of counter piracy isn’t handled well, we can’t stop it. Political will a huge factor involved.

Professor Dr Lundsford, @ USNA, Author: “Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands.” Notes the Brits didn’t just go after pirates with raw Naval Power, but by looking at altering the economics and the social morays, too. Good idea to look at the societies that use piracy for clues as to how to deal with it. Factors in long term piracy:

• Available population of recruits.
• Base of operations
• Sophisticated organization
• Financing
• Cultural bonds for solidarity
• Access to goods to be raided

Frederick Lanier, Attorney, author: “The End of Barbary Terror: America’s 1815 War against the Pirates of North Africa.” The Barbary Pirates are the most noted in US historical memory. It only affected us 30 years, but had haunted Europe for centuries. It took taking two of our ships and hundreds of our people to get us to act, and that was the spawning of our Navy. We did begin with paying off the Pirates, from George Washington, to the tune of 12% of the Federal Budget, and the lack of power, we were at their mercy.

The Barbary Pirates were driven by money, but did have some elements of Jihad.

They were not localized geographically, but ranged outside the Med, as far as Ireland and maybe Iceland, using amphibious assaults.

They had been around for centuries. John Adams said don’t take them on, unless we were willing to deal with it for centuries. Think about that for a moment…

Sponsored by the current regimes of the day, for their financial gain. The goal was ransom money. An organized ransom market. Options: Pay or use force. You could pay in advance! Protection payments, which we did for almost 20 years with Algeria.

Conveys, blockade their ports, arm your merchants, bombard their bases, or…regime change.

“Intelligence” between sailors useful.

Brits payed Pirates to keep their Naval costs down, as then the pirates raided the ships from other countries. Incentiving?

LCDR Ben “BJ” Armstrong, USN. Active duty HSC-2 pilot. Masters in Military History and a real operator.

Personnel: Need to be trained in “Irregular Warfare.” Boarding and landing operations need to be practiced.

Aggressive junior officers are a necessity, Like Decauter. Stephen Decauter was the one who came forward with the idea to burn the PHILADELPHIA. The right vessels need to be available to engage in the fight. “Littoral Warfare” needed effective ships.

You also need partnerships, for logistics and other support.

Use history, but there is no exact parallel.

Now to questions.

Dr Lunsford: When it’s a “way of life,” it’s very difficult to eradicate, eg: The “bucaneers.”

RADM Callo: Sophistication: The Ability to adjust. They are doing that now.

How does the 1820s pirate experience fit today? CNA rep. LCDR Armstrong:
Biddle, Poter and Wearington.

Biddle: Bring ships and run convoys.

Porter: go “inshore.” ROE: Spain wouldn’t grant permission to go ashore.

Be careful as how you draw historic parallels.

Dr Lunsford: Don’t see the parallels with Latin America break away period. Get ride of the recruits and base of operations, you solved the problem. Make sure you look for operational and political (i’d add economic) lessons for application of parallels.

Danish Navy Officer: Can small navies make an impact: LCDR A: “Yes, absolutely.” The US Navy was the “small Navy” when it took on the pirates in the 1800’s. Frank Lanier: Us wanted to act unilaterally, but James Madison instructed to allow Dutch Navy to act as allies. The Dutch Navy bombarded Algiers the next year. Dr Lunsford: The US Navy can’t be everywhere. TF 151 is an example to address the problems. RADM Calo: “quantity has a quality of it’s own.”

ADM McKnight chimes in (he commanded TF 151): Danish Navy ship ABSOLOM was excellent on TF 151. Well prepared.

LCDR Armstrong: Cooperation can be extended beyond navies. NGOs and commercial interests and other government.

Frank Lanier: State supported terrorism? The Barbary pirates made money for the political structure that supported them. They made money off of “Christian Dogs” but it wasn’t about expanding the Caliphate.

Any “fingers of the Russians, Chinese or other Arab states funding these activities (in Somalia)?” No one has heard of it, but LCDR A indicated Russians and Chinese are part of the anti-piracy work.

Former Adm of MSC: “Struck by the number of ‘stakeholders’ who came to join in the current discussions.” Maritime unions, Lloyds of London, commercial companies, etc.

Frank Lanier: Much more interrelated today, it was simpler back then.

(Off to find a power outlet……)

RADM Callo: every US Citizen is a “stakeholder” in this issue…..

Dr Martin Murphy opening the conference.  His book, “Small Boats, weak States, Dirty Money:  Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World,” is speaking.

When some one is called a “pirate,” ask: “In who’s eyes?”

Piracy rises as a clash between military, political or economic issues,

Piracy has been around a long time, first noted in writing in 140 BC.

Piracy became a label for anyone who managed to interdict the current economic system of commerce, for Rome and the early days of England.

The Muslim Wahhabi Sect was a group in history that practiced piracy about 1808.

The Barbary Pirates were more properly classified as privateers, as they were under the direction of countries.

The current day “pirates” are the ones we’ve seen before: Organized, layered protection, brutal to maintain discipline, negotiation skills to extract money and the ability to range over ocean areas in small boats.

The argument of piracy in Somali of the area being over fished is not a valid rationale, as Somalis are fish eaters, but the story works well to justify their continued actions in the minds of the West.

“Politics and piracy are rarely separable.” Politicians can benefit from allowing this to happen.

Piracy and religion is now linked today, as use in the service of Jihad. The influence of Wahhabism is on the rise in Somali.

Before labeling all piracy criminal, we need to review the context, and ask “under who’s law?” It has it’s rules and it’s limits.

An accidental find, worthy of today’s situation in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Wars and battles are not lost by private soldiers. They win them, but they don’t lose them. They are lost by commanders, staffs and troops leaders, and they are often lost before they start.

– LtCol (BG) Sam Griffith, USMC
CO 1st Raider Battalion

It goes to the responsibility of the leadership, at every level to set the stage for a win or a loss in conflict. The Marine or soldier or sailor cannot change that outcome much at all.

Will will soon see the effect of this in 2011, as the war, that has gone on too long for some, is hastily retired from, with some rationale of we need the money elsewhere.

It will be penny wise and pound foolish, if the enemy that has been beaten back is allowed to thrive in our absence, to enable us to see if we really can absorb another major terrorist attack.

Update: another yellowed 3″x5″ card holds this bit of history to put things in perspective once again:

Come with me into Macedon, most portent, grave and reverend senators and taste the rigors of a soldier’s bed, the blood and anguish of a soldier’s wars. Come with me into Macedon, fat comfortable strategists at home, and you will see how humble men have died to save the freedoms – and the baths – of Rome!

– General Lucius Aemilius Paulis addressing the Roman Senate after being critisized by same for certain aspects of his victorious campaign against Perseus in the Third macedonian War, 2nd Century BC

Rings true today. Just change a few names and places and it’s a good fit.

I found this chasing links via Little Green Footballs.

Not only does this man tell us something of the actuality of Al Qaeda in Iraq, before 2003, but also of how they are among us now, and others are being actively recruited as they arrive in the US. The oft asked question: Where are the moderate Muslims? Here he is, and he is not just saying it, he is engaged in helping in the hunt to track and contain the very real threat to our very safety while doing that for the sake of his family. His vision is a large one, which seeks to protect us all, in order to protect his family All I can think is how is he being selfish for us all and I’ll accept that any day from a fellow human being. He’s more than moderate, he’s a man we should one day be able to bring into public and award him for his courage and desire for real peace among humanity.

The “teaser,” but I’d recommend you sit and read the entire interview at FrontPage Magazine carefully. Sobering, insightful, myth destroying, and uplifting to know at least one man will take a stand, even if Harry Ried, Nancy Pelosi and their majority will not:

Al Qaeda in Iraq Under Saddam
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, March 13, 2008

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Osama al-Magid, a former police officer in Iraq (1992- 2003). He can be contacted at [email protected].

FP: Osama al-Magid, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Al-Magid: Thank you Mr. Glazov. I hope to provide information to the American public that will help them understand that terrorism in the U.S. from Al Qaeda did not end on September 11th, 2001. There are currently supporters of Al Qaeda not only outside of the U.S. but also inside of it.

This is my first interview pertaining to many of the issues I am going to discuss with you. Right now I can provide some details, but as time goes by I will be providing the Americans with more about the truth in Iraq. There have been friends of mine who have tried to inform the American people about things in Iraq before 2003 and after the Americans came to Iraq, but for some reasons the information has not been widely publicized. I will tell the American people that a person who is like a brother to me has risked his life to tell people about many important issues in Iraq. I met Special Agent Dave Gaubatz in 2003 (Nasiriyah). Dave and I started working together to obtain intelligence about threats against the U.S. forces. We traveled in Nasiriyah and other cities. We protected one another and today in 2008 we are still working together. I can’t explain everything right now for security reasons, but we are traveling through America and trying to identify terrorists and their supporters who want to attack America like in 2001. We are trying to help law enforcement so they can protect America.

Both of us have families and we do not want the children in America, Iraq, or any country to suffer from terrorism.
[…]

A man for the times. A man who stands for a future of peace, exactly the left says they want. Will they acknowledge him and lend their support?

Update: Maybe we are witness to the dam breaking, first the article above, then about a Muslim who equates Islam with fascism. Brave men, these two, and needed urgently to stay strong.