Worldwide Memories of 9/11

From the Wall Street Journal to Deutsche Welle in Germany, the world remembers the Islamic Radical attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  We remember it all.

We remember images and sounds. We remember the first civilian heroes that arose spontaneously to defeat the organized Muslim Death Squad on Flight 93 and the first responding heroes in New York and Washington.  We remember where we were and who we were with that day.  As we remember, we pray; for the families who lost love ones, for all hurt in heart or mind including our enemies who planned and financed the cowardly mass murder of innocent lives.

There will be many events of formal remembrance in New York, Washington, and First Lady Michelle Obama will join Mrs. Laura W. Bush as keynote speaker at the National Memorial for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

International news organizations suggest that this year, America is more divided, but Tulsa Today suggests American Patriots are growing more united.  The war is not over, but the Leftists Marxist Communist Anti-American Administration of President Barack Hussein Obama is daily demonstrating what Americans do not want in Government.  

More Americans in increasing numbers dispute Islamic Radical advances – domestic and foreign.  This is a war of civilization.  The civil world (including Muslims of peace) verses Radical Islamic barbarians that by their own oft declared choice must be killed to end the civilian mass murders they plan and commit.

Two significant analytical stories follow:


From the Wall Street Journal:

A More Divided 9/11 Anniversary

From the beginning, there were disagreements over how to memorialize victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. How to compensate the families. How and where to try the responsible parties.

But always, family members of Sept. 11 victims say, the anniversary of the attacks brought a moment of unity.

Not this year.

The plan to build an Islamic community center with a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero has heightened emotions and created discord. A Florida pastor's threats to burn multiple copies of the Quran Saturday, since rescinded, has further inflamed tensions.

As the city and nation brace to remember the moment when two planes flew into the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and one crashed in a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands of people, those most affected say they feel more isolated and frustrated than ever.

"One of the nice things about 9/11 had always been the sense of unity that you felt with the rest of the country," said Mary-Ellen Salamone, an Essex County, N.J., mother of three who lost her husband on 9/11. "You could look back and see that out of the ashes of all the trauma and the horror there were some good things that were coming out of it. Unfortunately, this year that is not the case."

"This year, the tenor of the day is very volatile and actually almost harder to take because of that," she added.

To read the remainder of the Wall Street Journal story, click here.

From Deutsche Welle in Germany:

Bitter debate over 'ground zero mosque' marks 9/11 anniversary

A plan to build an Islamic cultural center and prayer room in the shadow of "ground zero" has set off a virulent debate between advocates of religious freedom and those who decry the move as incendiary.

The uproar centers around a project known as Park51, named for the address at 51 Park Place in Manhattan where a moderate imam, Faisal Abdul Rauf, plans to erect an Islamic community center and mosque.
 
The plan has been in discussion since 2009, and Muslims have already been using the space for prayer since the fall of that year. But what was originally a local Manhattan zoning question quickly flared into a national controversy after conservative bloggers zeroed in on the cause earlier this year and brought it to the mainstream media's attention.

And the rhetoric has only gotten stronger as the ninth anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center approached.

Rauf has repeatedly billed the center - which would replace one of one of the buildings that was damaged in the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks - as a multi-faith initiative "intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures."

Religious freedom meets cultural sensitivity

But opponents have said that the choice of a site so close to "ground zero" is insensitive, at best - and that at worst it is a ploy by Muslims to exploit US First Amendment freedoms to further their own agenda.

Ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke for many of those who oppose the cultural center when he said that, while the builders should be allowed to erect a mosque wherever they like, the plan was more likely to "create anger and hatred" than mutual understanding.

"The reality is that right now, if you are a healer, you do not go forward with this project," Giuliani told US morning news program "Today" in mid-August. "If you are a warrior, you do."

Anti-Islam activists in Europe - where public debates over the building of mosques and minarets are commonplace - echoed that statement.

"We think it is a calculated provocation," said Anders Gravers, a spokesman for the group Stop the Islamization of Europe. "Often when (Muslims) have conquered something, they put a mosque on that place. This happened in Jerusalem, it happened in Cordoba (Spain), and now it is happening in Manhattan."

To read the remainder of the Deutsche Welle story, click here.