9/11

Arizona’s 9/11 editorial memorial

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The Arizona Republic reports that, in a 5-5 vote “debated along party lines,” the Arizona Senate blocked the removal of some “phrases” from the state’s 9/11 memorial adjacent to the capitol building in Phoenix. Yet the newspaper left readers to surmise which political party blocked the legislation. Before reading the article, scan down, review a sampling of what will remain, and guess which party blocked a bill to remove “phrases” unrelated to the September 11 attacks from the memorial:

cultural understanding

Why did the FBI and CIA not prevent the attacks?

May 2003 a Sikh is shot in Phoenix

Middle East violence motivates attacks

While they reported the, “…memorial commission now will work to complete their own revisions, which include the removal of two inscriptions considered most objectionable — ‘Erroneous U.S. air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians’ and ‘Terrorist organization leader addresses American people,'” many unrelated “phrases” will remain on the memorial.

One of Arizona’s most rollicking political debates appeared to come to a close Tuesday with the defeat of a legislative effort to impose additional revisions on the state’s 9/11 memorial. The measure, House Bill 2700, failed on a 5-5 vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Bill sponsor Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican, said it’s unlikely he’ll attempt to revive the proposal this session. “I don’t think anything can be done practically at this stage in the game,” he said following the vote.

His proposal would have removed an additional dozen inscriptions from the memorial of concrete and steel, which sits adjacent to the Capitol at Wesley Bolin Plaza. Members of a citizens commission that designed the memorial have viewed the legislative push as an affront to their own, less drastic revisions, which should be completed by early June.

Following the bill’s defeat, relieved memorial supporters hugged each other in the hallway outside the hearing room, rejoicing in a vote that appeared to catch several as a surprise. “This was a great discussion and we’re very pleased with the vote,” said Shelley Cohn, a member of the 9/11 memorial commission.

The memorial has been at the heart of controversy since shortly after it was dedicated in 2006.

Some of the 54 inscriptions laser-cut into its disc-like face have drawn fire for being anti-American or anti-military. Others have been called trite or meaningless. But supporters of the memorial have consistently risen to its defense, saying the phrases represent America’s conflicted psyche following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Those needing to examine their “conflicted psyche” of what followed should take their editorials elsewhere; 9/11 memorials are to remember the ‘victims’ and ‘heroes’ and not you.

Lastly, if you just now read the words ‘victims’ and ‘heroes’ and were traumatized by my using them because you believe I was making some sort of political statement, you need your head examined, in my humble opinion.

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Previous posts on this:

A comment about Arizona’s 9/11 memorial
Arizona House votes to alter 9/11 memorial

Islamofascists, War on Terror

Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad

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'Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad' (hardcover)

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Andrew McCarthy led the federal prosecution’s investigation of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and others involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. I am picking up a copy of his new book ‘Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad’ (hardcover) as it arrives in book stores today.

He spoke with Kathryn Jean Lopez, the editor of the National Review Online, about it. Here is an excerpt and the link:

Lopez: What’s the most devastating lesson from 15 years ago we still haven’t learned?

McCarthy: That the primary cause of Islamic terrorism is Muslim doctrine, and that we are not fighting a tiny, rag-tag collection of fringe lunatics who have somehow “hijacked” the “true Islam.”

Mark Steyn reminds us of Toynbee’s observation that civilizations die from suicide rather than murder, and our mulish refusal to look at what we’re up against is case in point. It’s really a frightful commentary on the low regard we have for ourselves: that we don’t think we are capable of soberly assessing the Islamic challenge without smearing all Muslims as terrorists — as if, in the scheme of things, it’s more important to shield the tender sensibilities of Muslims than fulfill our duty to protect American lives.

The stubborn fact is: Islamic doctrine is supremacist, chauvinist and rife with calls to violence against non-Muslims. That doesn’t mean that these are the only elements of Islam. Nor does it mean that all Muslims, or even most, have any interest in acting on those elements. But moderate Muslims, no matter how great a majority of the faithful they may be, do not make Islam moderate. Islam is the font from which springs what we call fundamentalist Islam, radical Islam, militant Islam, political Islam, Islamo-fascism, or whatever we are calling it this week to avoid any hint that Islam has anything to do with the problem.

There are many different interpretations of Islam, of course. The one that truly threatens us — let’s call it fundamentalist Islam, since I think that’s closest to accurate — is not a fringe ideology. It is a comprehensive social system, with political, legal and theological prescriptions. It is fourteen centuries old; has in its history won the fealty of rich and poor, educated and illiterate, etc.; cuts across divides like Sunni-versus-Shiite; and today boasts hundreds of millions of adherents — not a majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, but an influential, dynamic minority.

Only a small percentage of fundamentalists cross the line into actual terrorist activity, but even a small percentage of hundreds of millions of people means an awful lot of terrorists, and the equally significant point is that the others — to a greater or lesser extent — share the goals if not the methodology. Moreover, the leading fundamentalist figures, people like Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, exert a powerful influence over even moderates. Their erudition and conviction, their seeming authenticity and command of the scriptures, are very intimidating for the average Muslim who just wants to go about his life.

In any event, the forcible tendencies of fundamentalist Islam may be exacerbated or rationalized by poverty, resentment, lack of democracy, etc. But they are not caused by such pretexts. The violence is commanded by scripture.

READ THE REST.