Quack! Quack! Quack!

On one hand, good news: CDR Hesham Islam, USN (Ret) will leave the Government Civil Service after all the scrutiny brought in his direction after talking Gordon England into consorting with Islamic groups with tags as “unindigted co-conspirators” in Federal trials, and getting the contract for a know expert on radical Islamic elements, MAJ Stephen Coughlin, USAR, dropped as a “Christian zealot with a pen.”

Now, consider the issue at hand. CDR Islam grew up in Egypt, came to the US, became a naturalized citizen, rose to the paygrade of O-5 in the Navy, then retired and became a trusted advisor to a top level DoD office.

In reading the linked article, it seems Hesham England’s resume didn’t “add up.” I take that as parts of it were false. Bad idea for applying for any job, but in this case, it also seemed that he left out some “contacts” he had made, with some who are cozy with our enemies.

[…]
But as a result of the ensuing firestorm that played out in the conservative press – led by Washington Times Pentagon reporter Bill Gertz – Islam was put under a microscope, and questions were raised regarding his background.

For example, Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote a column challenging key claims in Islam’s official biography. Within days, a Defense Department profile of Islam was removed from the department’s website.

A Pentagon spokesman said it was “taken down in an attempt to reduce the rhetoric and the emotion surrounding this issue while we try to determine the facts.”

A senior U.S. official says the life story Islam presented now appears sketchy.

“His resume didn’t add up, and he knows it,” the official said. “He’s voluntarily leaving the government in March.”
[…]

But: The scary part:

[…]
At the same time, a report by terror expert Steven Emerson revealed that Islam, as special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, has scheduled at least two meetings in the Pentagon with Syrian-tied radicals – including a leading member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – in direct violation of U.S. policy.

As WND previously reported, FBI officials believe Islam is involved with the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and is helping its front groups run “influence operations” against the U.S. government.

“He’s a Muslim brother,” an FBI official told WND. “He’s a bad actor, and he’s made other unreported nefarious contacts.”

Islam has worked closely in the Pentagon with Muslim chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam, who as WND also previously reported, received his training at a radical Islamic school in Northern Virginia that was raided by federal authorities after 9/11.
[…]

There you have it. Sad, but it fits the stereotype of one who came to this country and showed the patience to work his way into positions of access and authority, and along the way would be given an exceptional education in the operations at sea of the most advanced navy in the world. Trust me, as ship driver, you have to learn a lot of things, not just how to get around the oceans safely. I’d love to see his list of duty assignments, which wold alow me to futher analyze what CDR Islam was taught and trained for.

Then it gets more interesting: His son is currently a serving Navy Officer aboard ships, with a TS/SCI clearance. Long hand: “Tops Secret/Special Compartmented Information.” TS is one thing and seriously high enough. SCI is very specific information, but confined to functional “need to know” special topic areas.

The rest of the story:

[…]
The Pentagon had no comment. And Islam, who has not been accused of any crimes, has refused interviews.

Emerson says Islam prescribed a steady diet of Muslim Brotherhood-connected outreach for his unwitting boss, deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England….
[…]

Whispering in the ear of some of our highest DoD officials “there’s nothing to fear here…just move along.” Great.

The comments by the Congressional rep who had the cojones to stand up and ask hard questions: Rep Sue Myrick (R-NC) says this:

[…]
Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who co-chairs the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, has been fighting to keep Coughlin in the Pentagon, where she says his blunt analysis of the Islamic enemy is sorely needed….

“I know that some people will refuse to admit there is a subversive movement going on here, but let me remind you that we have underestimated the will and capability of our enemy for more than 30 years,” she added. “They are patient and determined to achieve their radical agenda.”

It looks like, before the fact, that a mole has been uncovered. Not reporting contacts with know groups sworn to our defeat. Directly violating State Dept regulations on meetings with specific countries. Your “resume” of where you grew up and what happened “don’t add up.” Oh, yeah, and what about his Islamic brothers-in-arms now in the service, who come from a background of anti-American training?

So he resigns from his civil service position. Where does he go next? That’s the really bad news. Between damage control training, ship engineering training, weapons systems training, small boat defense, internal security teams set up and operations, and detailed knowledge of command and control systems and their inner workings. I’m sure there’s a big paycheck out there waiting for him and it’s not with a US contractor. Armed with this type of insight, those not praying for the success and well being of our sailors, would have the increased opportunity to go for the weak points.

I guess, as one commenter likes to indicate, that we have no problems internally. This must have just have been an aberration and there’s nothing to it. I hope the FBI is burning the midnight oil to vett his entire background and all his recent activities. On the other hand, they missed the 9/11 hijackers, too, when they even had one in their hands.

There is a bright light here: Another victory for the power of the blogosphere to move important data to the right places and get the right people into action.

Update 2/12/2008: Just know, this type of tactic isn’t most likely anything new… Too Late the Hero trailer

Update 2/13/2008: Claudia Rosett of NRO has ferreted out some interesting info by fact checking Hesham’s own story… Big details don’t hold up to even a moderate level of scrutiny, and then it turns out he married a pen pal from the US, sight unseen. It gets more interesting with each scraping of the top coat.

Update 2/7/2008: I was given a heads up by a reader that Nickeloden work by Linda Ellerbee is strongly suspect and this may be not what it appears to be.

More detailed reading available at BlackFive and Army Wife Toddler Mom.

I’m also going to send this feedback to VAJoe.

Original Post below.

Received via email from the staff @ VAJoe. If you can pitch in and pass the word, you may be able to get the voice of our service member’s kids in front of the public!

VA Joe.com was contacted by Jessie Findlay over at Nickelodeon recently with this announcement. Help spread the word!

“The Nickelodeon news series “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee” is looking for kids of soldiers currently home from deployment who are willing to be interviewed about the readjustment process. We’re looking for a few well-spoken kids around 11 to 15 years old to talk about how life has changed now that Mom/Dad has come home – particularly those dealing with a physical injury, divorce or PTSD. This show will recognize that war affects whole families, acknowledge the sacrifices of American troops and their families – especially their kids, and portray the good feelings that come with being reunited. Filming will be completed by the end of February.

Interested families please contact Coordinating Producer Jessie Findlay

Must Love Dogs release

at Lucky Duck Productions – 212-463-0029 ext. 153 or [email protected]. “

Thank you,
-VAJoe.com

There will be a meeting on the Flight 93 Memorial, thanks to lots of people pushing the issue. That’s the good news. The bad news is only five days notice of the public hearing for this Saturday (Feb 2nd, 2008) was given for this meeting. Here is a call for help from the residents of the Somerset, PA area, and for non-residents, to contact your federal representatives:

From Alec Rawls of Error Theory, who has been on top of this issue for a long time now:

The Memorial Project gave only five days public notice for this Saturday’s public meeting in Somerset. Tom Burnett and I are trying to crash their party, calling on the population of Somerset to come out and protest the terrorist memorializing design.

Here is the ad copy for Tom’s call to action, which will be published in color in tomorrow’s Somerset Daily American. Please post this advertisement ASAP. I’m not putting on a blogburst header, since this is Tom’s statement, but feel free to add a commentary linking it to our regular blogbursts if you want.

I am optimistic that we might even get a few PA politicians jumping on the bandwagon this time.

There is a second color ad with my information that Tom asks readers to follow on to. It is linked at the bottom of Tom’s ad, so there is no need for you to post that as well.

HTML at the bottom as usual.

We might have them this time.

Alec

Below is the post in support of this effort to get the Islamic format of the memorial to those who died on Flight 93 on 9/11/2001 removed:

A plea from Tom Burnett Sr. to the wonderful people of Somerset

(The ad copy below is running in tomorrow’s Somerset Daily American.)

My son Tom confronted a terrible moment of truth. Faced with a plot against our nation, he and the other heroes of Flight 93 fought back, and at the cost of their lives, foiled that plot to destroy the White House or the Capitol. Now it is time for the rest of us to face our moment of truth. Flight 93 has been re-hijacked, and I am requesting that if you can, you go down to the public meeting of the Memorial Project at Somerset Courthouse Saturday, sign up to comment at the end, and demand that a proper investigation be conducted.

THIS was no accident:

The Memorial Project held an open design competition in time of war, inviting the entire world to enter. Guess who joined in? That group of trees that sits roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic flag is the crash site. Who do YOU think is being memorialized here?

A second Islamic feature that I also protested when I served on the Stage II jury is the minaret-like Tower of Voices, formed in the shape of a crescent, with its top cut at an angle so that its crescent arms reach up into the sky.

Upturned crescents are a standard mosque adornment in many Muslim countries.

Every iota of this original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called “redesign.” That is why Congressman Tancredo asked the Park Service this autumn to scrap the existing design entirely. Instead of getting rid of the giant crescent as Tancredo demanded back in 2005, architect Paul Murdoch only disguised it with a few surrounding trees.

Also remaining are those damned 44 glass blocks on the flight path. (There were forty passengers and crew and four Islamic terrorists on Flight 93.) The Memorial Project acknowledges the 40 blocks inscribed with the names of my son and the other heroes, and they acknowledge the three inscribed with the 9/11 date, but they pretend not to know about this one: the huge glass block that dedicates the entire site.

When this 44th glass block is pointed out, Project Partners say that it can’t be counted with the other blocks because it is not the same size. What? Because the capstone to the terrorist memorializing block count is magnificent, that is supposed to make it okay?

For every Islamic or terrorist memorializing feature of the crescent design, the Park Service has another equally phony excuse. Please read the exposé below of the Park Service’s fraudulent investigation, and please come to the meeting on Saturday to demand state and Congressional investigations into the Flight 93 memorial.

Tom Burnett Sr.
February 2008

PDF of ad copy here.

Non-locals who want to help, please contact your senators and representatives!

Not all of the Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial is hidden. One of the things that Tom Burnett Sr. protested from the beginning was the overtly minaret-like Tower of Voices. The Tower is formed in the shape of an extruded crescent, and even has its top but at an angle so that its crescent arms reach up into the sky, similar to the upturned crescent motif seen atop minarets all over the world:

Up tower view (left) shows the Tower of Voices to be formed in the shape of an Islamic crescent, covering about 2/3rds of a circle of arc, with a circular inner arc. The top of the tower is but at an angle (right) so that the crescent arms reach up into the sky.

This sky-reaching crescent is a standard mosque motif, seen from the Abdul Gaffoor mosque in Singapore:

… to Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland:

… to the Uppsala mosque in Sweden:

There is no way that the Islamic shaped crescent atop architect Paul Murdoch’s minaret-like tower is an accident, any more than THIS could possibly be an accident:

That’s before you even get to the hidden stuff, like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent; the 9/11 date placed in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag; or the fact that the Tower of Voices turns out to be a year round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial:

Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign, which only disguised the original crescent with a few irrelevant trees.

That Islamic crescent reaching up into the sky is completely undisguised. How can anyone abide this?

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog
Big Sibling
Cao2’s Weblog
Cao’s Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Dr. Bulldog and Ronin
Error Theory
Faultline USA

All About Eve hd

Flanders Fields
Flopping Aces
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Freedom’s Enemies

Ft. Hard Knox
GM’s Corner
Hoosier Army Mom
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
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My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
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Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The Renaissance Biologist
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

If you want to join the blogroll/blogburst for the Crescent of Betrayal blogburst, email Cao at caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com, with your blog’s url address. The blogburst will be sent out once a week to the participants, for simultaneous publication on this issue on Wednesdays.

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Funny, and not all at once:

Update: commenter Theodore pints us at the truth and it’s false…but it almost sounds plausible these days.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.

-Winston Churchilldownload Ready to Rumble

Nasser Rabbat, a Syrian professor of Islamic architecture at MIT, told the Park Service not to worry about the giant Mecca oriented crescent at the center of the Flight 93 Memorial. He said that since it does not point quite exactly to Mecca (it is off by 1.8°) it can’t be considered a proper mihrab (the central feature around which every mosque is built).

Liar. Many of the most famous mihrabs face as much as 20 or 30 degrees off of Mecca.

Here is another Rabbat deception:

Mosques are never in the shape of a crescent or a circle. This defeats the purpose of lining up the worshipers parallel to the Qibla wall (Mecca orientation), which usually translates into a rectangular shape, or sometimes a square. [From the White Paper released by the Memorial Project in August 2007.]

It is true that most mosques are rectangular, the more clearly to mark the direction to Mecca, but this is certainly not a requirement, given that the two most religiously significant sites in Islam are round mosques. Significant site #1 is the Sacred Mosque in Mecca:

Second most significant is the Mosque of Omar, also called the Dome of the Rock, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, from which point Muhammad supposedly ascended into heaven:

Perhaps because of the prominence of these precedents, a small but significant number of mosques around the world follow the round model.

There is the Tun Abdul Aziz mosque built in Malaysia in 1975, referred to colloquially as the “Masjid Bulat,” or “round mosque.”

There is the new 5,000 person Arafat Mosque in Nigeria, which the architect claims is “the only round mosque in Africa,” but he is wrong. Another round mosque, Al Nileen, sits at the confluence of Blue and White Nile rivers in Khartoum:

[From Google Earth. Look up “alnileen mosque”.]Africa is also home to some older round mosques. Here is a round mosque from the Ivory coast. Similar mosques have also been found in Sierra Leone.

Here is a modern Russian mosque, laid out in shape of an eight point star.

There is even a famous round mosque right in the heart of the EU, at the northwest corner of the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels.

There is a round mosque in Kuwait, a round mosque in Kadavu India, and probably many more.

At the Islamic architecture website Archnet, a Muslim architect (not a native English writer) explains the problem with round mosques:

… a circular mosque can not function well because a mousqe should have an oriantation to kibla and as we all know that a circle does not have an orientation, How can we know the kibla wall if it is a circle ?

This problem does not afflict Paul Murdoch’s mosque design for the Flight 93 memorial because Murdoch’s giant crescent does create an orientation. Face into the crescent to face Mecca, just as with a smaller size mihrab.

Geometrically, Murdoch’s Crescent of Embrace is just a gigantic Islamic prayer rug:

A Muslim prayer rug is a two dimensional mihrab, laid out to face Mecca, just as the Crescent of Embrace is.

Notice that to a person looking into the Flight 93 crescent, the irregularity of the outer arc of the crescent is not visible. The radial arbors are all behind the double row of red maples that line the walkway. The ends of the crescent are also well defined by the end of the walkway of red maples at the bottom and the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall Entry Portal Wall on top. This is a perfectly comprehensible and recognizable Mecca direction indicator.

Rabbat’s comments to the Park Service do not even pretend to be objective. He lists “talking points” in defense of the crescent design without ever even pretending to weigh the merits of the case against the design.

Most obviously, Rabbat never considers the almost exact Mecca orientation of the giant crescent as a grounds for concern, but limits his remarks to possible excuses for not worrying about this obviously worrisome fact. The same for all of his other talking points. He only even considers ways to absolve the crescent design.

In short, Rabbat is as overtly biased as he could possibly be, yet the Park Service has no qualms about this overt bias. Rabbat gives them the excuses for unconcern that they want and they eagerly embrace him. The Park Service investigation into warnings of an enemy plot was a total fraud.

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog
Big Sibling
Cao2’s Weblog
Cao’s Blog
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Flanders Fields
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Four Pointer
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Hoosier Army Mom
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
Kender’s Musings
My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
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Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
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Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The Renaissance Biologist
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

Listen to this podcast

The military’s top expert on the religious doctrine of the Islamic terrorists was fired last week at the behest of a Muslim aide to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England. The aide is a friend to the terrorist sympathizing Muslim Brotherhood, amounting to penetration of the top levels of the Pentagon by our terror war enemies.

What happened in the Park Service’s Flight 93 memorial investigation is very similar. Our last three blogbursts exposed how two Muslim academics fed the Park Service blatantly dishonest excuses for the giant Mecca oriented crescent in the Murdoch-designed memorial.

Kevin Jaques from Indiana University said that the similarity to an Islamic mihrab should be ignored (a mihrab is the Mecca direction indicator around which every mosque is built) because there has never been a mihrab anywhere near this big before.

Nasser Rabbat said that because the Flight 93 crescent does not point quite exactly at Mecca (it is 1.8° off), it cannot be regarded as a mihrab:

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

From the Park Service’s White Paper.

Liar. Many classic mihrabs are oriented 10, 20 or 30 degrees from Mecca. The most elaborate mihrab in the world, the mihrab at the great mosque in Cordoba Spain, is oriented more than 45° off Mecca:

Cordoba mihrab points south. Mecca is east-southeast of Spain.

Source

Rabbat’s deceptions do not stop there. He questions whether the crescent is really an Islamic symbol at all, and denies that it is used by any Islamic terror groups:

The Crescent is a debatable Islamic universal symbol. Many groups do not use it. I know in fact of no militant group that uses it. Islamic modern states have opted to use it, sometimes with the star, which is a modern symbol with no Islamic connotation.

How interesting that he fails to note that it is the archetypical mihrab shape, used for both the vertical dimension and the depth dimension in the Prophet’s Mihrab at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina:

Rabbat is a professor of Islamic architecture. Mosque design falls within his field of expertise. He knows full well that the crescent is the archetypical mihrab shape, which is the specific application of the crescent that he was addressing. Just as he lied about the Mecca orientation of the crescent having to be exact, he also pretended ignorance of the use of the crescent shape.

And that bit about no militant groups using the crescent?

There are at least 3 South West Asian terror groups in Afghanistan and the Tribal Regions of Pakistan that have crescents as part of their logo or flag. In fact MANY of them do it, and many do it in a very subtle way, such as Hezbollah. Take a look:

When the terror groups show the crescent embrace the globe, they are simply conveying the message that Islam will rule the world one day and eliminate all the infidels.

Here are some more:

Perhaps a better question is whether there are Islamic terror groups that do not identify with the crescent.

At both the Park Service and the Pentagon, Muslim consultants who are engaged in blatant cover up of terror threats are being given the last word by top level administration officials.

In both cases, a Congressional Investigation not only makes sense, but is necessary. Contact your representatives so they can join Tom Tancredo in calling for a Congressional Investigation into the mosque memorial before it’s planted on the graves of our heroes of Flight 93.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog
Big Sibling
Cao2’s Weblog
Cao’s Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Dr. Bulldog and Ronin
Error Theory
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Flopping Aces
Four Pointer
Freedom’s Enemies
Ft. Hard Knox
GM’s Corner
Hoosier Army Mom
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
Kender’s Musings
My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
Ogre’s Politics and Views
Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The Renaissance Biologist
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

If you want to join the blogroll/blogburst for the Crescent of Betrayal blogburst, email Cao at caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com, with your blog’s url address. The blogburst will be sent out once a week to the participants, for simultaneous publication on this issue on Wednesdays.

Check this out!

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Her site is Sand Fantasy. Lots of demos on YouTube and her site.

Professor who white-washed the Crescent of Embrace was Paul Murdoch’s classmate at UCLAAn excerpt from the Park Service investigation into the Flight 93 memorial identifies one of their consultants as a scholar from MIT who “wishes to remain anonymous.” Another document identifies this person as a religious scholar or a professor of Islamic architecture. MIT does not have a religion department, and they only have one professor of Islamic architecture: Professor Nassar Rabbat, who has confirmed that he is the Park Service consultant.

A check of Rabbat’s background shows that he was a classmate of Paul Murdoch, both getting masters degrees in architecture from UCLA in 1984 and both doing their masters work on Middle Eastern subjects. Murdoch wrote a “masters project” titled: “A museum for Haifa, Israel.” Rabbat did a masters thesis titled: “House-form, climactic response and lifestyle: a study of the 17-19th century courthouse houses in Cairo and Damascus.”

This connection between Murdoch and Rabbat raises the possibility that Murdoch himself orchestrated the Park Service investigation into warnings about his own design. Rabbat denies knowing Murdoch, but given the blatant dishonesty of what he told the Park Service, that denial cannot be trusted.

Rabbat lied about something that every practicing Muslim knows

Rabbat’s first “major talking point” (from the Memorial Project’s White Paper, towards the bottom) is a blatantly dishonest excuse for why the Park Service should not be concerned about the almost exact Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. Rabbat assures the Park Service that because the Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is inexact, it can’t be seen as a mihrab:

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

Absolutely false, and Rabbat certainly knows it. This goes to the most basic principle of mosque design: that all mosques are expressions of Muhammad’s prototype.

Muhammad’s original mosque in Medina was not oriented precisely on Mecca. It was built to face Jerusalem. Later in his career Muhammad changed the direction that Muslims were to face for prayer (their qibla direction). Instead of facing north from Medina to Jerusalem they were to face south, towards Mecca (Koran 2.142-145). To effect this change, Muhammad just started using the southerly wall of his mosque as his “qibla wall” instead of the northerly wall, even though this wall had not been built to face Mecca.

In the abstract, Muhammad held the qibla direction from Medina to be “south.” But Mecca is not quite due south from Medina either. Thus both in practice and in the abstract, Muhammad was not particular about an exact orientation on Mecca, and in Islam, what is good enough for Muhammad has to be good enough for everyone. He is the model.

This leeway to face only roughly towards Mecca for prayer is not some obscure bit of doctrine. Every practicing Muslim knows that qibla orientation does not have to be exact because they all have to avail themselves of this allowance pretty much every day as they seek walls that are oriented not too far off of Mecca which they can face into for their frequent prayers.

Rabbat just flat out lied about something that every practicing Muslim knows, and this is an expert in Mosque design. He knows better than anyone the historic leeway afforded in Mecca orientation.

Is Rabbat the source of Patrick White’s foolishness?

Rabbat’s dishonest report to the Park Service may explain an amazing argument made by Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93. At the July 2007 public meeting of the Memorial Project, White argued in a private conversation that the almost exact Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent cannot be intended as a tribute to Islam because the inexactness of it would be “disrespectful to Islam.”

At the same time as White was privately making excuses for the almost exact Mecca orientation of the crescent, he was telling the newspapers that the Mecca orientation claim was false and preposterous, so he certainly cannot be absolved. But it is possible that he himself was misled about how Muslims would regard an inexactly oriented mihrab.

The Memorial Project received Rabbat’s comments about a year earlier, and Patrick White certainly had access to them. It seems likely that when White said that an inexact orientation on Mecca would be “disrespectful to Islam,” he was following Rabbat’s “can’t be off” lead.

The crescent design also includes an exact Mecca orientation

If Nassar Rabbat actually read the information that Alec Rawls sent to the Memorial Project, he would know that in addition to the physical crescent, the Crescent of Embrace design also includes a thematic crescent, defined by architect Paul Murdoch himself. The upper tip of this thematic crescent is the point where, in Murdoch’s explanation, the flight path breaks the circle. If this thematic or “true” upper crescent tip is used to define the orientation of the crescent, then the crescent points exactly to Mecca.

If Rabbat really thinks that exactness is what matters, he would have been alarmed to see that this thematic crescent is oriented exactly on Mecca. Instead, he ignored it.

The Park Service already knew about the Mecca orientation of the crescent

The Park Service’s other Islamic scholar, Kevin Jaques, did the same thing as Rabbat. He admitted the similarity between the giant Mecca oriented crescent and a traditional Islamic mihrab, then concocted a blatantly dishonest excuse for why the Park Service shouldn’t be concerned about it. Jaques assured the Park Service that there was no reason to worry because no one had ever seen a mihrab this big before:

Thirdly, 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 at 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.

If Jaques and Rabbat were willing to engage in such blatantly dishonest excuse-making, why did they start out by admitting that the giant crescent was geometrically close to a perfect mihrab? Because the Park Service already knew that the giant crescent was oriented almost exactly on Mecca, and that a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is the central feature around which every mosque is built.

Advisory Commission member Tim Baird would admit this explicitly in 2007, but it was obvious much earlier. What the Park Service wanted when it conducted its internal investigation in the spring and summer of 2006 was excuses not to be concerned about these damning facts, and that is what Jaques and Rabbat provided. Similarly for the egregious Daniel Griffith, the “professor of geospatial information,” who told the newspapers that “anything can point to Mecca, because the earth is round.”

The Park Service knew this was all fraudulent. Griffith’s “anything can point to Mecca” and Rabbat’s “it has to be exact” were complete contradictions of each other, but the Park Service gladly embraced both as excuses to pretend that there was nothing to worry about.

If these government functionaries were this desperate for a cover up, it is certainly plausible that they would accept any help they could get from Paul Murdoch. Not that it is hard to find radically dishonest, America-hating academics, but these three frauds are outliers even by worst standards.

More dishonest excuse-making from Rabbat

Rabbat’s next talking point is more of the same dishonest excuse-making:

Besides, in the US, a debate has been going on as to which is the right Mecca orientation: the one going through the North Pole or the one that follows a flat representation of the globe.

The orientation “through the North Pole” (55.2° clockwise from north, to be precise) is the great-circle direction to Mecca. This great circle direction to Mecca is the orientation of the Crescent of Embrace (almost exactly), and it is the direction in which almost all Muslims pray.

A few dissenters pray in the rhumb-line direction to Mecca (the direction of constant compass heading, which spirals down the globe in an east-southeasterly direction from North America). Rabbat pretends that the existence of these few dissenters somehow makes the whole matter of the Mecca oriented crescent a non-issue.

If anything, the debate over qibla direction shows the flexibility of the qibla direction, giving the lie to Rabbat’s earlier assertion that mihrab orientation “can’t be off.”

Rabbat certainly knows that the great-circle direction to Mecca is the dominant qibla direction. (It won out over the rhumb line direction for the very good reason that a person facing in the rhumb-line direction to Mecca is not actually facing Mecca, since the rhumb-line follows a curved path.) But don’t worry about a little thing like the crescent facing in the dominant qibla direction. Rabbat has plenty of lame excuses why you don’t need to care.

Tom Burnett’s call for a Congressional investigation

The Park Service won’t say how they came up with Griffith, Jaques and Rabbat so we have to force them. A lot of People must be forced to answer these and a lot of other hard questions, and the only way to do it is to heed Tom Burnett’s call for a Congressional Investigation.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

1389 Blog – Antijihadist Tech
A Defending Crusader
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
And Rightly So
Big Dog’s Weblog
Big Sibling
Cao2’s Weblog
Cao’s Blog
Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Error Theory
Faultline USA
Flanders Fields
Flopping Aces
Four Pointer
Freedom’s Enemies
Ft. Hard Knox
GM’s Corner
Hoosier Army Mom
Ironic Surrealism II
Jack Lewis
Kender’s Musings
My Own Thoughts
Nice Deb
Ogre’s Politics and Views
Part-Time Pundit
Right on the Right
Right Truth
Stix Blog
Stop the ACLU
The Renaissance Biologist
The View From the Turret
The Wide Awakes
Thunder Run

If you want to join the blogroll/blogburst for the Crescent of Betrayal blogburst, email Cao at caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com, with your blog’s url address. The blogburst will be sent out once a week to the participants, for simultaneous publication on this issue on Wednesdays.