Given that the only Muslims on that flight were the hijackers, it's an absolute disgrace that Paul Murdoch is allowed to get away with this.

Why not go the whole enchilada and build mosques @ the Pentagon crash site, and have twin minerets at Ground Zero?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 30, 2007 1:16 PM

Thanks to everyone who keeps this issue alive.

Posted by: Old Atlantic at August 30, 2007 1:43 PM

That was very heavy! I feel sick..no sht! Unreal red of all colors tells you right there-memorial? what bull they are giving him. This man is as strong as his son! What an outcry..needs to be heard! What the..? This is not so,, but I saw it!
Tom needs an answer and so do 'WE!' What bull is going on? Something is!!! I was looking at a chime I have and there it was the cresent! Like 6 of them! I have had this chime for like 10 yrs.
Why there is no media attention BIG TIME on this!
It makes me feel things are a mares nest!
This is a Big MeaningfuLL story! I will keep thinking about this! ...It is so sad! I feel them both!

Posted by: MZ at August 30, 2007 2:10 PM

Alec Rawls says, "it is like rehijacking flight 93! I agree!

Posted by: MZ at August 30, 2007 2:19 PM

The fact that the designers call it the Crescent of Embrace (which arrogantly pushes the designers' particular PC viewpoint of Islam on everyone) and the fact that the design memorializes all 44 people on board (including the 4 murdering terrorists) is a sign of very poor judgment by the designers. The designers should keep their personal political and religious views of Islam out of the memorial and have a little respect for the dead heroes of Flight 93. Instead of spending 100 million dollars for the designers' personal propaganda on behalf of Islam, fire them, and build a simple and beautiful cemetery, and spend whatever remains of the 100 million on something that will make future terror less affordible to Muslims: energy independence for the U.S. Somehow I think that would make the heroes of Flight 93 happier than enriching some stupid design firm with a PC agenda to push on everyone.

Posted by: traeh at August 30, 2007 2:39 PM

I've looked at the material again, and it's truly amazing: the giant crescent to be built at the memorial site really is oriented virtually perfectly toward Mecca. The damned structure will be a huge qibla! A quibla, for those who don't know, is a structure in every mosque that shows the direction toward Mecca, hence the direction in which Muslims are supposed to pray. So the designers are planning to turn the memorial site for Flight 93 into a huge mosque. Outrage piled on outrage.

Posted by: traeh at August 30, 2007 2:54 PM

One bit more: the fact that the designers tried to do this under the radar, turn the site into a giant mosque before anyone noticed that's what was happening, is very disturbing.

Posted by: traeh at August 30, 2007 3:03 PM

Shouldnt they build a mosque on that spot to encourage understanding and tolerance?

Posted by: KAOSKTRL at August 30, 2007 3:27 PM

This is an outrage of the first order. Has ground broken yet?

I would make a Greek style parthenon, 5x8 columns will get you to 40.

Posted by: Ruebacca at August 30, 2007 3:34 PM

KAOSKTRL:
I was thinking the design firm should turn its home headquarters, and the family cemeteries as well, into mosques. I wonder how "enlightened" and brilliant the designers would find that to be.

Posted by: traeh at August 30, 2007 3:43 PM

It should be torn to pieces! Burned to the ground! It is VILE! It is UGLY TOO! I HATE IT TOO!

Posted by: MZ at August 30, 2007 4:21 PM

Truly truly disturbing. Is there any connection between CAIR and Paul Murdoch? Where is he getting his input?

Posted by: UK Infidel Lover at August 30, 2007 5:20 PM

Fire the designer and back charge him for all the wasted government time and money used in dealing with him.

Posted by: senor doeboy at August 30, 2007 5:34 PM

this is all a bit too strange for me, but it does seem clear that they need to shred the design and start again.
did anyone ask the nearest relatives of the victims what form of memorial they would like to see ?

Posted by: M Al-Content at August 30, 2007 5:42 PM

M Al-Content:
It seems there was a balloting that involved some of the relatives, but apparently the ballot counting was not done openly.

Posted by: traeh at August 30, 2007 6:11 PM

I thought this thing was changed some time ago. Just goes to show you that sneaky sneaky prevails.
I guess someone will have to write islam sucks in the middle of the ground inside the design....with Roundup® maybe?

Posted by: interestinconundrum at August 30, 2007 6:34 PM

Oh, and it's a damn shame that citizens of this country have to act like the underground in their own country...while those who want to kill us all have free reign.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at August 30, 2007 6:38 PM

This is as important as the day of 9-11! It is what they died for, from! I would like to know who and how they got behind these designs? The reason we are fighting for, while these things take place?..obsurb!
Did my eyes burn blink, I thought I read there is a mosque there?? I have ignored the times I have seen bin-laden standing in front of ground 0. Just my imagination. I would see it again. His smile must look like this-the chesire cat! What a BIG V for them! I am going to show people!

Posted by: MZ at August 30, 2007 6:42 PM

I wonder when they'll erect a holocaust memorial in the shape of a swatsika?

Posted by: The fanatic at August 30, 2007 7:34 PM

Fear not, the offending symbols will quickly be unofficially removed or "corrected" in a short manner of time. I'm not in the USA, so I would not have the honour, however good on those who would.

Posted by: James Martel at August 30, 2007 9:06 PM

The memorial should be a cross - perhaps laid flat into the ground rather than upright, and shaped so as to suggest also the shadow of an aeroplane.

On it there should be a plaque briefly stating what happened.

There should also be this text - which should surely be understood even by non-Christian families: "Greater love has no man than this, than that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13). If some of the non-Muslim passengers spoke a first language other than English, the text should be given in their languages also. If there were Jews among them, the text should be given in Hebrew, perhaps accompanied by the 'Shema Yisrael'.

In a great circle around the cross, let the families of every dead passenger (EXCEPT those of the hijackers) plant a long-lived tree in memory of their loved one, and at the foot of each tree place a stone with the person's name.

Those people on Flight 93, whether they were Christians, Hindus, Jews, or non-religious, died in the attempt to ensure that their plane would NOT be used as a bomb to kill their fellow citizens. Whether they took part directly in the fightback against the hijackers or not, they died so that others might live: they laid down their lives for their fellow citizens, for their neighbours, for their friends.

The murderers deserve no part in the memorial whatever.

The thing has not been built yet. There is still time to change.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at August 30, 2007 9:29 PM

Aside from the memorial's obvious homage to Islam, its bug ugly. It looks like the architect took a page from Nazi Germany's architecture to create a supersized and grotesque memorial that only a bloodthirsty Aztec high priest or Muslim could love.

The sense of proportion is waay off and reeks of post-modern architecture that belittles humanity there is no warmth in that design at all.

Fire the architect and try to find a old school architect, one that understands proportion among other things.

Posted by: waltc at August 30, 2007 9:52 PM

Let them finish the "memorial" and then fly in a squadron of FA 18 Hornets from a carrier off the Jersey Shore. Bomb this national disgrace into small pieces. Then let's talk. Then let's talk to Mr. Burnett, my neighbor.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at August 30, 2007 10:21 PM

What the hell ever happend to the simple column or obelisk with a simple inscription and some nice simple landscaping. It should look like a nice civil war memorial that fits the location in PA.

This is where we need a protest! Hell this is where anti-jihadi Americans need our woodstock! Our rallying point! This is our Concord and Lexington!

Take it back!

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at August 31, 2007 12:58 AM

All such Memorial-mania is repellent.

But, on top of it, to overlay this prime symbol of Islam onto the site of a crime by Islamic fanatics, should get the unctious designers bitch-slapped.

A large, upright disc (sun symbol of rebirth) of plain white stone, with the words "Let's Roll" carved on it, and the names of the passengers below, is all that is needed.

No big expense, no inflated egos, no kowtowing to p.c., and no covert insertion of Islamic symbolism.

Too much money floating around only attracts pimps.

It's a farm field in rural Pennsylvania.

Gaudy poseurs looking for resume enhancement and an Architectural Digest puff piece need not apply.

This travesty will not be built.

Or it will so be unbuilt.

(I'll gladly take a sledgehammer vacation.)

Let's roll.

Posted by: profitsbeard at August 31, 2007 2:14 AM

I don't like the design, either, but the guy who writes that website sounds crazy.

Posted by: Bingo at August 31, 2007 4:09 AM

I watched the video and am in shock. Sometimes you can only say (and I mean, with love in one's heart, not with spite) "only in America" - because only in the USA is there such a broad band spectrum of freedom, which sometimes can also bite us in the rear-end, and I think this is the case this time.

But: when 100,000,000 americans were to start a letter writing and telephone call campaign, just watch how quickly this memorial will be wiped from the table and another design will come up.

I also think that dumbleadoresarmy has an excellent and very appropriate scripture passage. And I still think that the best of memorials are the simplest...

Posted by: bonncaruso at August 31, 2007 4:30 AM

Ive not heard of this issue before, thanks for reporting it. How on earth can this be going on, where has the sensibility gone?

It is a smorgasbord of insults.

Posted by: payingattention at August 31, 2007 7:05 AM

How all this time has passed and I never knew! Even long enough for people to write books on it!
OUTRAGES!

Posted by: MZ at August 31, 2007 11:06 AM

I heard about this design awhile ago, and thought that it had already been changed, but I guess I was mistaken.

There are so many things wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin.

First you have the obvious Islamic look of the memorial, which even if Islam were a "religion of peace", would still be inappropriate. It's like ,has someone else already stated, putting a swatsika on a holocaust memorial, and then trying to argue that it's an ancient symbol of fertility and the harvest. Even if you are using the symbol for that purpose it is inappropriate because the victims of the holocaust were murdered by people who used that very same symbol.

A less outragous example would be putting a Union Jack on the graves of American soldiers who served in the revolutionary war. Even though the United States and the United Kingdom are allies today, it would still be an inapptopriate symbol.

Now there is an arguement that even the most PC-minded people should be able to understand.

Let's also not forget that the people on flight 93 were heroes, and instead of mourning that loss of these passangers and treating them forever has victims, we should instead celebrate their heroism, and build the memorial that reflects that heroism.

I believe it reflects poorly on our society when we can no longer celebrate heroism, and can only focus on loss and victimhood. There is something wrong with very soul of our civilization.

Posted by: GuitarBob at August 31, 2007 12:47 PM

I signed a petition to stop the Islamizing of the Flight 93 memorial several years ago and was under the impression that the federal government had rescinded the decision to permit the memorial from being landscaped with Islamic iconography.

I received bad information evidently.

Had I known about what was done with this memorial I would have called my government representatives before this as I would NEVER have stood for it! This is like a memorial to Imperial Japan at Pearl Harbor!

We must ask ourselves WHO WAS IT IN OUR GOVERNMENT THAT KNOWINGLY GRANTED PERMISSION TO CONSTRUCT A MEMORIAL TO VICTIMS OF A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY TO INSTEAD BE SUBLIMINALLY DEDICATED TO THE PERPETRATORS OF THE CRIME ITSELF INSTEAD. (I just hope it wasn't Barack Obama behind this).

Then we should prosecute them for misappropriation of public funds (NO ONE wold have wanted this!!!) to the full extent of the law.

This is truly horrifying. Just horrifying. (And the Bush Administration could probably have stopped this by the way...).

Posted by: pythagoras at August 31, 2007 1:58 PM

Yes can you imagine the outcry if it was a Cross or the Star of David?

Posted by: MZ at August 31, 2007 11:18 PM

It is like walking through these BIG MAJESTIC walls it just- does NOT FIT what needs to be SAID! What is this Cropdusters?""of 3rd kind?

Posted by: MZ at August 31, 2007 11:23 PM

I vehemently disagree with the use of the Islamic crescent and with honouring the terrorist murderers.

The Mecca orientation is beyond the pale.

Now, I wonder if anyone can shed some light on my question.

I caught the tail end of an interview with someone involved in this on Canadian radio recently. I believe it was Alec Rawls but I can't say for certain it was him. He kept calling the memorial a mosque.

Someone phoned in to the radio show and explained away the Mecca orientation. I can't remember what made this caller such an expert but he said that Muslims have to be extremely precise in facing Mecca and that the direction of the memorial is off by too much to be in correct Islamic alignment.

He said that the orientation is off by a certain degree and, when you factor in the distance (or something else, I'm sorry I can't remember), it ends up being a huge difference.

The radio host said to the guest (probably Alec Rawls) something like, Well, you're really wrong about that, there goes your whole basis for a complaint, bye-bye.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Having asked that, I am still opposed to the design of this memorial. I think it's a slap in the face to those victims of Islamic terrorists and their friends and families. I agree with another poster who said it would be like putting a swastika on a Holocaust memorial.

Since when do we have to be so sensitive to a culture that attacked us and keeps on attacking us? We don't owe them anything.

Posted by: Josephine at September 1, 2007 11:05 AM

As meaningful points of reference, why not orient memorial features toward the positions of sunrise and sunset on that momentous day? Why not toward the position of the sun at the time of impact that day?

Posted by: John C at September 2, 2007 12:50 AM

Why not memorialize the victims with an unbroken ring of forty tributes nine degrees of arc apart, or some such thing?

Posted by: John C at September 2, 2007 1:07 AM

Why not orient memorial features toward the plane's originally scheduled destination before the hijacking--a fitting gesture of respect for Flight 93's crew?

Posted by: John C at September 3, 2007 1:15 AM