This is the flag memorial put up by a small group of students, funded by a small group of faculty and students, on the campus of Azusa Pacific University, to commemorate the murdered on September 11, 2001, by placing a flag for each murdered person. These few proactive students are to be commended, for bothering to do something public about the memorial.
When you remember these events, and when you talk about them with other people, remember that who did the killing, and why, is an essential part of the memorial.
It makes no sense to remember “the dead” of 9/11, or “the circumstances of 9/11” without also discussing who killed them, and exactly who caused those circumstances to come about. Is it possible to have any kind of reasonable memorial of Pearl Harbor and Dec. 7, 1941, without mentioning Japan, emperor worship, and Japanese imperialism?
About the same number of people died in auto accidents in the USA in that same month. Because the Islamic terrorist attack was an act of war, and not merely because a few thousand people died, we said, “We will never forget.” But, of course, most of us have.
So, in case you haven’t considered it lately, because of all the obfuscation of the major media and our politicians:
1) About 3000 innocent Americans were murdered on Sept. 11, 2001. The American flags are the correct memorial symbol, because the dead were murdered for being Americans.
2) The killers were Muslims who believed that Allah and his designated representatives had given them both permission and instructions to do this murder. In doing it, they quoted the Koran, and the facts of Mohammed’s life that seemed to them to be both justification for and precursors of their acts. They believed that there are no “innocent people” in the West, particularly America, and that all civilians were legitimate targets, regardless of age, gender, or occupation. They didn’t particularly care exactly who they killed, as long as the dead were mostly Americans. The simultaneous destruction of symbols of American power and success was especially sweet to them.
3) Large parts of the Muslim world were thrilled. Some parts of it yawned. Almost none of it was particularly distressed.
4) The Islamic forces in the world who funded the indoctrination of these killers are still in full operation, with no sign of reducing their activities. They are teaching exactly the same brand of hate around the world, including in the USA. Saudi Arabia is the biggest funding source for the teaching of hatred world-wide. The Saudi government denies official complicity with this, but doesn’t take the steps necessary to end it. In the meantime, the Saudis simply own, outright, enormous numbers of American politicians, former politicians (including presidents!), lobbyists, former bureaucrats, academic departments in universities, think tanks, etc., not to mention the majority of American mosques that are funded by the Saudis. If you’re interested, Iran is number two in funding world wide hatred for the West, possibly because it’s spending a lot of its money on developing nuclear weapons. Between the two of them, despite their putative differences over the Sunni/Shia divide, they make a powerful tag team, the Saudis funding mostly propaganda and “soft power,” and Iran distributing weapons to anyone who will kill Americans or their allies.
5) The war with radical Islam is nowhere near over. Make no mistake: it IS a war, though it is of a new type, and harder to fight than some have been in the past. It is not a failure to communicate. Many Americans have largely forgotten that fact. Our enemies have not.
Sadly, the American public will be reminded. It’s only a matter of time. When that reminder comes, huge numbers of Americans are going to forget their own foolishness, and in looking for someone (else) to blame, they are going to zero in on the government and the media for their failures to think farther ahead than the next election or ratings season.
I often suspect that, as time goes by, George Bush is going to be given very mixed reviews for his presidency, in particular for his prosecution of the war with radical Islam.
The reviews will be mixed because, by then, he is likely to be seen as not having gone far enough in defending America from its radical Islamist enemies, and their enablers.
But even when America finally wakes up, the dead will still be dead.
Do I sound too pessimistic, too doom obsessed?
That’s exactly what some people were saying about those who were predicting such things on Sept 10, 2001.
What has changed since then that would make anyone think it won’t happen again?
Too many of us talk about it as if a tornado just happened to come through New York and take the towers down, as if it were an “act of God.”
Of course, some parties to the day’s events saw it that way, too.
