Posted on 09/15/2005 4:20:43 PM PDT by SJackson
One would be unlikely to come across an Allied D-Day memorial called the 'Swastika of Embrace.'
At 9.58 a.m. Eastern time, Tuesday September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Why? As UPI's Jim Bennett wrote, "The Era of Osama lasted about an hour and a half or so, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty." Exactly right. Six decades earlier, the American people had to wait four months between Pearl Harbor and the retaliatory Doolittle Raid. But September 11 was Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid wrapped up in 90 minutes. Flight 93 was supposed to be the fourth of Osama's flying bombs, its destination either the White House or the Capitol. If not for quirks of flight scheduling and al-Qaida personnel management, the headlines would have included "The vice-president is still among the missing, presumed dead." Had Flight 93 sheared the top of the White House, that would have been the day's "money shot," as it was in the alien-invasion flick Independence Day – the shattered fa ade, smoke billowing, the seat of American power reduced to rubble.
But the dopey hijackers assigned to Flight 93 were halfway across the continent before they made their move and started meandering back east. And, by the time the passengers began calling home on their cell phones, their families knew what had happened in New York. Todd Beamer couldn't get through to his wife, so the last conversation of his life was with the GTE telephone operator, who stayed on the line with him and overheard his final words: "Are you ready, guys? Let's roll!" And then a brave group of passengers jumped their hijackers and, at the cost of their own lives, prevented that day's grim toll rising even higher. At a terrible moment for America, their heroism was the only victory of the day.
FOUR YEARS on, plans for the Flight 93 National Memorial have now been revealed. The winning design, chosen from 1,011 entries, will be built in that pasture in Pennsylvania where those heroes died. The memorial is called "The Crescent of Embrace."
That sounds like a fabulous winning entry – in a competition to create a note-perfect parody of effete multicultural responses to terrorism. Indeed, if anything, it'stoo perfect a parody: the "embrace" is just the usual huggy-weepy reconciliatory boilerplate, but the "crescent" transforms its generic cultural abasement into something truly spectacular. In the design plans, "The Crescent of Embrace" looks more like the embrace of the Crescent – ie, Islam. After all, what better way to demonstrate your willingness to "embrace" your enemies than by erecting a giant Islamic crescent at the site of the day's most unambiguous episode of American heroism?
Okay, let's get all the "of courses" out of the way – of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims aren't terrorists; of course, we all know "Islam" means "peace" and "jihad" means "healthy-lifestyle lo-carb granola bar"; etc, etc. Nevertheless, the men who hijacked Flight 93 did it in the name of Islam and their last words as they hit the Pennsylvania sod were no doubt "Allahu Akhbar."
ONE WOULD like to think that even today one would be unlikely to come across an Allied D-Day memorial called the Swastika of Embrace. Yet Paul Murdoch, the architect, has somehow managed to conceive a design that makes a splendid memorial to the hijackers rather than their victims.
Four years ago, most of us understood instinctively the courage of Flight 93. They were honored not just by chickenhawks and neocons and Zionists and the usual suspects but even by celebrities. The leathery old rocker Neil Young wrote a dark driving anthem called "Let's Roll" that began with cell phones ringing. Then: I know I said I love you I know you know it's true I got to put the phone down And do what we gotta do One's standing in the aisle way Two more at the door We got to get inside there Before they kill some more...
Granted, even then, there were a lot of folks eager to "embrace" their enemies. The day after September 11, Robert Daubenspeck of White River Junction, Vermont, wrote to my local newspaper advising against retaliation: "Someone, someday, must have the courage not to hit back but to look them in the eye and say, 'I love you.'" That's not as easy as it sounds. If you try to look Richard Reid the shoebomber in the eye as he's bending down to light the fuse sticking out of his sock, you could easily put your back out.
BUT EACH to his own. If Murdoch sincerely believes in a "crescent of embrace," let him build one, in his own name, on his own turf. To impose it on Flight 93 – to, in effect, hijack those passengers a second time – is an abomination.
Flight 93 is about what happens when you understand that some things can't be embraced. Perhaps Beamer and the rest did indeed "look them in the eye" and saw there was nothing to negotiate, nothing to "embrace." So they acted – and, faced with a novel and unprecedented form of terror, they stopped it cold in little more than an hour. Todd Beamer asked that telephone operator to join him in reciting the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." He knew there would be no happy ending that day, but in their resourcefulness and sacrifice he and his fellow passengers gave their country the next best thing: a hopeful ending. That's what the Flight 93 Memorial should be honoring.
Instead, in its feeble cultural cringe, the Crescent of Embrace hands the terrorists of Flight 93 the victory they were denied on September 11. And it profoundly dishonors Todd Beamer, Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham and other forgotten heroes of that flight.
Most of us are all but resigned to losing the Ground Zero memorial to a pile of non-judgmental if not explicitly anti-American pap: The minute you involve big-city politicians and foundations and funding bodies and "artists" you're on an express chute to the default mode of the cultural elite. But surely it's not too much to hope that the very precise, specific, individual, human scale of one great act of American heroism need not be buried under another soggy dollop of generic prettified passivity.
Four years ago, Todd Beamer's rallying cry was quoted by presidents and rock stars alike. That's all that's needed in Pennsylvania: the kind of simple dignified memorial you see on small-town commons honoring Civil war veterans, a granite block with the names of the passengers and the words "LET'S ROLL."
The "crescent of embrace," in its desperation to see no enemies and stand for nothing, represents a shameful modification: Are you ready, guys? Let's roll over.
The writer is senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group.
True. It's a semicircle. If they called it the semicircle there wouldn't be this trouble.
Indeed, attaching a name to a design -- other than it's official title -- is foolish. Washington Monument -- George's Needle. Lincoln Memorial -- Abe's Pagoda. Jefferson Memorial -- Tom's Cup. Vietnam Veteran's Memorial -- the Boomerang. FDR memorial -- Frank's Stones.
When Pompey captured Jerusalem and entered the temple, he went into the Holy of Holies to see what it contained. To his surprise he found that it was nothing more than an empty room--the perfect symbol of an omnipresent deity, above and apart from the universe.
The architect made some kind of feel good statement that the design could be changed. But I doubt they really intend in changing anything serious.
Anyone who would design such a "memorial" in the first place should be fired outright from the project.
It's time to start over with a blank sheet of paper.
I propose a large cross, with the words "Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his
friends" (John 15:13). That would really get the ACLU's
panties in a wad.
Surely he must have Muslim roots. Otherwise it is just plain "hate America".
A statement by the architect before the scandal got started made it clear that the "crescent" was deliberately meant as a peace offering to Islamic terrorists. Something to the effect about "reconciliation". Obviously reconciliation with Islamic terrorists that did this in the first place.
The designers need to be fired, not given another chance if they're that stupid.
I love the idea. The bible quote is perfect!
The ACLU can go stick a sock in it.
is this a joke?
Yup...and I'm gonna ride those anti-American jackwits like a rented mule.
No joke. The Leftists actually wanted to "honor" the Flight 93 heroes by making a Mecca-pointing Islamic red crescent for a memorial.
Just when you think the Left can't sink any lower, they start digging.
BUMP!
"It's a disappointment there is a misinterpretation and a simplistic distortion of this, but if that is a public concern, then that is something we will look to resolve in a way that keeps the essential qualities," Murdoch, 48, of Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview.
The architect's pompous attitude is in no way reassuring.
Family member Gordon Felt is going to kick and buck as well. He has too much "ownership" in this design.
Not only is it not a joke, I think it's very close to a done deal.
Count me in on that Prime!
Michelle Malkin: "The next step for those wishing to object to the memorial design--partially funded with your tax dollars, and wholly belonging to all of us--is to contact Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton, who along with Congress, has final approval authority over the design."
Her e-mail address is gale_norton@ios.doi.gov.
Her phone: 202 208-7351.
Her mailing address: Department of Interior 1849 C St, NW, Washington DC 20240.
Also contact:
Superintendent - Flight 93 NMEM
(814) 443-4557
and
Architect Milena or Paul Murdoch
5150 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 504
Los Angeles, California 90036
323.931.2271 Office
323.931.9203 Fax
info@paulmurdocharchitects.com
Actually, the red crescent jumped out at me when I looked at the news article BEFORE I ever read the text. I could not have been the only one struck instantly by this oversized statement "welcoming" every airplane landing in Philly or DC?
This is beyond grotesque.. I want to throw up. It's a national blasphemy IMO. How repugnant can you get - erecting a monument in the name of fallen heroes that basically pays homage to the enemy. It's akin to memorializing fallen Christians with a pentagram overhung with an upside-down cross. HOW BLIND AND UNTHINKING CAN PEOPLE BE! During an earlier day in America, such bold oppressive nonsense would have been met with a horsewhip in the townsquare. IMO, it's as close to treason as you can get without firing a shot or compromising national security. And the idea that this should be presented rationally as a "Good idea" by someone in America says a lot for how far the
state of America has eroded. I'm shutting up.. the more I think about it the madder I get.
Letter sent!!
"Today in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat,I saw that they are changing the name to "Arc of Embrace."
Oh, yeah, it's not the "Crescent of Embrace, its the "Arc of Embrace." That makes it completely different.
Look... me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's... I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds.
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