Flight 93 memorial: blogburst for 9/24/08

In this week’s edition of the Flight 93 blogburst, author Alec Rawls explains some of the finer points of contention in our claims about the blatant Islamic imagery in the monument design, and he calls on heavy hitters Allahpundit and Michelle Malkin to rejoin the fight against the planned memorial.  Alec describes in this post how some of the most damning features of the memorial plan involve symbolic and thematic repetition and restatement, implying conscious intent on the part of the designer:

Murdoch constantly provides proof that his possible Islamic and terrorist memorializing structure is intentional, often by repetition.

As one trained in artistic criticism who can spot thematic restatement on a speeding mosquito’s license plate at a hundred yards, I concur wholeheartedly, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it simply doesn’t matter what the architect’s intention was when he sat down to design the memorial.  The monument is what it is, and it is just a humongous mosque, pure and simple—knowledge of forethought notwithstanding.  And I hate to burst Allahpundit’s bubble, but his quip about needing a protractor is ludicrous in light of the crescent redundancy.  One needs nothing but eyes that see.  How many groves of trees in this world can he point to, inside an enormous crescent, that themselves are laid out as crescents?  While he’s looking, he might want to try to locate a giant tower that forms a perfect crescent in the sky when viewed from the ground.  The Tower of Voices likely will be the only such monstrosity in existence.  

If it is even possible to interpret the redundant structural and landscape images as sympathetic to radical Islam and the 9/11 terrorists, they WILL be so viewed by jihadis. 

Is that what the Memorial Project and its supporters want?

Paul Murdoch channels Allahpundit

Two years ago Allahpundit (who works for Michelle Malkin) made a very strange judgment.  He accepted that the original Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight 93 memorial pointed roughly to Mecca (to be exact, it points within 2 degrees of Mecca) but he said that worrying about the orientation of the crescent reeked of “truther-iness.”

“A good rule of thumb,” said Allah, is:

if you need a protractor to properly express your outrage, you’ve probably gone too far.

Orientation on Mecca may sound esoteric, but it is certainly not esoteric to Muslims, who are supposed to face Mecca five times a day for prayer and often carry special compasses for that purpose.

In particular, a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab, and it is the central feature around which every mosque is built.  (Some mihrabs are pointed-arch shaped, but the typical mihrab is crescent shaped).  This isn’t merely suspicious, like learning to fly airliners without learning how to land.  It is the discovered enemy objective: to stab a terrorist memorial mosque into the heartland of America.

How can anyone be surprised?  As our blogburst logo shows, the original crescent design was a bare naked crescent and star flag.  For Allah to dismiss ADDITIONAL Islamic symbol shapes as coincidence is like seeing the second airplane fly into the Trade Center and saying: “Well, now it HAS to be an accident.”

Allahpundit seems to have forgotten the defining quality of the 9-11 truth morons.  It isn’t that their claims seem esoteric or even outlandish.  It is that their claims are FALSE, and in most cases they are revealed by the simplest fact-checking to be blatantly dishonest as well.  The truthers are self-conscious purveyors of malicious disinformation, a la Michael Moore.

In contrast, everything we are saying about the Flight 93 memorial is TRUE and is easily verified to be true just by examining the official design drawings.

• The plans specify forty-four translucent memorial blocks to be placed along the flight path, matching the number of passengers, crew AND terrorists.  Just open up the design drawings and count. (The flight path symbolically breaks our harmonious circle according to architect Paul Murdoch, turning it into a giant crescent.  Go figure).
• The ninety-three foot Tower of Voices will be topped with yet another Islamic-shaped crescent.  Just look:

The symbolic lives of the forty heroes literally dangle down below the symbolic Islamic heavens, projected against the sky above.  Not a lot of different possible meanings here.

• The 9/11 date is to be inscribed on a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, which is the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag.  The date goes to the terrorists.
• Etcetera ad nauseam, and architect Paul Murdoch proves that all of it is intentional by repeating every Islamic and terrorist memorializing feature in the Tower of Voices part of the memorial. (Two-minute animation showing the repeated Mecca orientations here.)

How many airplanes have to hit the Flight 93 memorial before a few of our heavy hitters can admit that MAYBE it is not just an accident? Can we at least agree that the Park Service should be exposed for lying through their teeth about these facts?

If we could get word out to the public about just the Mecca orientation of the crescent, Murdoch’s plot would probably be kaput, especially given the numerous denials the Memorial Project has issued in the last year and a half.  But getting even the most basic facts out is terribly difficult when it isn’t just the mainstream media that won’t report the facts, but even people like Michelle Malkin are remaining silent, after taking a leading role in raising the initial alarm.

The loss of her powerful voice is hard enough, but there is also the seeming implication.  Even the most Internet-savvy conservatives—the people we most need to reach to have any hope of stopping this—presume that if Michelle is not still objecting to the Flight 93 memorial, it must be okay now.

It is NOT okay.  It is a thorough-going memorial to the terrorists.  As Tom Burnett Sr. (father of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.) keeps urging, we have to “do something,” as his son got up and did something.  We have to stop this re-hijacked Flight 93 before it reaches its destination.

If Michelle is going to hand such an important portfolio to Allah, doesn’t he have an obligation to check a few facts before smearing fellow conservatives as truther-like?  Allah and Michelle are good friends and much beloved for their excellent judgment and hard work.  There is no anger here—just an appeal for both to take another look.  Paul Murdoch has even provided a fitting pretext, if any is needed.

In an interview two weeks ago, Murdoch re-labeled the tips of his crescent structure the same way that Allah proposed two years ago, yielding a more extended crescent that no longer points to Mecca. Murdoch is channeling you Allah, but where you were merely ignorant, he is being deceptive.

Where are the breaks in the circle?

In 2006, Allah posted a graphic from Alec Rawls that used orientation lines to show how the defining points of the Mecca-oriented crescent are unchanged in the Circle of Embrace redesign:

Original Crescent of Embrace design, left, points to Mecca.  The flight path can be seen coming down from the upper left corner of the image, breaking the circle at the upper crescent tip.

Every particle of that original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Circle of Embrace redesign.  The original crescent tips are still there, yielding the same Mecca-oriented crescent.  Allah, however, suggested that the orientation of the crescent HAD been changed:

In blue: Allahpundit’s proposed orientation lines for the Circle of Embrace redesign.

If you don’t know that the theme of the whole design is the flight path breaking the circle at the original upper crescent tip, and you don’t notice that there is still a gap in the circle at the original upper crescent tip, you can get Allah’s altered orientation for the Circle redesign, no longer pointing to Mecca.

Murdoch, of course, knows the theme of his own design (being the first one to articulate it publicly).  Still, pretending that the breaks in the circle have been changed is a useful dodge, and Murdoch employed it in the recent interview.

Asked if the circle in the Circle of Embrace redesign depicts a broken circle, as critics claim, Murdoch said that the circle breaks when it reaches the sacred ground:

The edge of the sacred ground “breaks” the circular perimeter of the bowl to give it the prominence it deserves as the focal point of the entire park and the final resting place of the forty heroes.

The Sacred Ground is the yellow-colored area in the graphics above. By acknowledging only the break at the sacred ground, Murdoch is suggesting that the tips of the crescent come up to yellow area on both sides, just as Allah drew.

The Park Service website, however, goes on to identify another break as well, the original break at the upper tip of the original crescent design, where the flight path crosses the circle:

The trees surrounding this “circle of embrace” are missing in two places: first, where the flight path of the plane went overhead, which is the location of the planned memorial overlook and visitor center; and second, where the plane crashed at the Sacred Ground, depicted by a ceremonial gate and pathway into the Sacred Ground.  In summary, the memorial is shaped in a circular fashion, and the circle is symbolically “broken” or missing trees in two places, depicting the flight path of the plane and the crash site…

In his interview, Murdoch does not just fail to mention the symbolic breaking of the circle at the original upper crescent tip, but he offers an alternative description of the Entry Portal structure:

The entrance moves through the circular edge along the flight path, so as visitors enter they will be aligned with United Flight 93 through their own experience.

Sorry Murdoch, and Allah, but this passage through the original upper crescent tip does not just show the path of Flight 93.  It explicitly symbolizes the flight path smashing our harmonious circle and turning it into the giant (Islamic-shaped) crescent.

Entry Portal walkway follows the flight path through the Entry Portal walls, symbolizing the breaking of the circle, according to the Park Service itself.

Allah’s blue orientation lines are WRONG. The crescent is the unbroken part of the circle, which was not altered in the so-called redesign.  All they did was add an extra arc of trees that explicitly represents a broken-off part of the circle.  Can Allah please post a correction?

It points to Washington

What made Allah throw up his hands was our further claim that the asymmetric crescent of memorial groves at the back of the full Crescent of Embrace points to the White House.  But this too is true, and if you look at Murdoch’s plan, there is very clear reason for it.

Murdoch constantly provides proof that his possible Islamic and terrorist memorializing structure is intentional, often by repetition.  The purpose of the White House orientation is to prove that his drawing of only thirty-eight Memorial Groves, instead of the advertised forty, is not a mistake.

The giant crescent represents the symbolic Islamic heavens.  Since the crescent of Memorial Groves is part of the full crescent, Murdoch cannot actually memorialize the forty infidels there and still have a proper mosque.  Thus Murdoch has to PROVE that the thirty-eight groves are intended to memorialize someone else.

Notice that the thirty-eight groves can be seen as a set of nineteen nested crescents, ranging in length from thirty-eight groves down to two.  That is one for each 9/11 hijacker.  How can this intent be proved?  First, Murdoch proves intent by repetition.  The Tower of Voices is also surrounded by a set of nineteen nested crescents:

Paul Murdoch’s detail view of the Tower of Voices.  Click for larger image.

The nested crescents of memorial groves establish the precedent that arcs of trees as short as two are to be counted as crescents. Using this rule, there are nineteen nested crescents in the Tower array.

That is not enough proof for Murdoch, who provides redundant proof of intent for ALL of his Islamic and terrorist memorializing features.  To provide additional proof that the thirty-eight groves are to be seen as nineteen nested crescents, Murdoch takes advantage of the fact that crescents have orientation, via either the bisector of the crescent, or by a line across the crescent tips.  He positions his crescent of groves so that a line across the tips of any of the nineteen nested crescents points to the White House:

Nineteen nested crescents, all pointing to the target that the Flight 93 terrorists were trying to destroy.

The White House sits at about the “i” in Washington in this Yahoo map.  The other possible target of Flight 93, the Capitol Building, is also nearby, but higher-resolution analysis suggests that the crescent-tip line points closer to the White House.

Repeated symbolic damnation

Does anyone want to think that all this is coincidence, too: the two missing groves, the White House orientation, the second set of nineteen nested crescents in the Tower array?  “Wow.  A dozen airplanes flying into the Trade Towers.  That’s really got to be an accident now.  That many airplanes just couldn’t be on purpose!”

No, what they can’t be is an accident.  Paul Murdoch is dead serious about proving that he has designed a proper terrorist memorial mosque.  THAT is why the Memorial Groves point to the White House.  And it isn’t just the Memorial Groves.  EVERY depiction of the forty heroes has an opposite hidden meaning, proved by repetition.

Those forty wind chimes, one for each of the heroes, all literally dangling down below the symbolic Islamic heavens projected in the sky above?  That’s symbolic damnation.

So too with the forty blocks inscribed with the forty names.  All four of the “extra” translucent blocks on the flight path are located within the symbolic Islamic heavens.  The three inscribed with the 9/11 date are inscribed as placed the star on the Islamic crescent and star flag, while the forty-fourth sits at the upper crescent tip (where the flight path breaks the circle).

In contrast, the forty blocks inscribed with the names of the heroes are all further down the flight path, down below the Islamic star and hence symbolically cast out of the symbolic Islamic heavens, which again implies damnation.

All of this has a very clear purpose.  If the memorial actually honored the forty infidels it could not be a proper mosque. According to the Koran (9.18) mosques are not to be defiled by infidel presence.  Depictions of victory over the infidel are of course allowed.

Allahpundit is not the only one who thinks that TOO MANY suspicious features somehow imply coincidence.  The Memorial Project says the exact same thing.  They know that the Mecca orientation claim is accurate.  They know that ALL of our factual claims are accurate and admit it in private conversation, but they have decided that the very outlandishness of it all somehow implies that it has to be coincidence.

Flight 93 is supposed to be the symbol of our awakened vigilance.  We are supposed to be alert now to the nature of the Islamic terrorists who are waging war against us: that they hide among us, pretending to be trustworthy friends.  Have the truthers actually succeeded in stripping the nation of that lesson, making us loathe to witness evidence of conspiracy?

9/11 was one of the most elaborate conspiracies in history (by al Qaeda, not by the Bush administration).  We can’t just unlearn that lesson and be blind to evidence of conspiracy in hopes of staying as far as possible from those who present phony evidence of conspiracy.

To make sense, one must follow the evidence wherever it leads.  That is what the truthers DON’T do.  The problem isn’t that they are pushing conspiracy theories, it is that they aren’t honest.  Ignoring the facts in an anti-conspiracy direction does not make one opposite to the truthers, but makes one similar, as Allah darned well ought to know.

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