A petition to stop the crescent memorial is now being circulated on the ground in western Pennsylvania. As a complement to this old fashioned canvassing effort, an electronic petition has also been created at ipetitions.com. Please circulate far and wide!
The petitions highlight four cases of apparent Islamic symbolism in the memorial design. Here is the text (electronic):
Call for Congressional investigation of Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial
Many features of the chosen Flight 93 Memorial design are intolerable:
1. THE GIANT CRESCENT. The centerpiece of the original “Crescent of Embrace” design was a giant red Islamic shaped crescent. Every particle of this original crescent design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only added a few irrelevant trees. The giant crescent is still there.
2. IT POINTS TO MECCA. The giant crescent points to Mecca. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a “mihrab,” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The Flight 93 Memorial is on track to become the world’s largest mosque.
3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL. The minaret-like Tower of Voices is a year-round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial (one of many typical mosque features that are realized in the crescent design, all on the same epic scale as the half mile wide central crescent).
4. THE 44 BLOCKS. There are 44 glass blocks on the flight path, equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists.
Intentional or not, these features are entirely unacceptable. This travesty must stop and investigations must begin.
1) We the undersigned call on our state and federal legislators to undertake their own thorough and independent investigations of the Flight 93 Memorial design. The truth must come out.
2) We ask that the crescent design be scraped entirely and that it be replaced with a new design that is not tainted by Islamic or terrorist memorializing symbolism.
3) We demand a fitting and proper memorial that HONORS the brave men and women of Flight 93.
Please take a minute to electronically sign this petition. All signatures collected by the end of April will be printed out and delivered to the May 3rd public meeting of the Memorial Project, along with Xeroxes of the hand-signed petitions.
That is just the start. There will be another public meeting in August, where we hope to present a much larger pile of petitions, and all signatures will eventually be delivered to the Pennsylvania state legislature and to Congress. Keep sending until the crescent design is stopped!
In the short term, we have a number of supporters in the Pennsylvania legislature at this point who are working to gain backing for an investigation. A demonstration of public demand should help that effort.
The paper petition
In order to make the paper petition self-sufficient, there is a second page, to be printed on the back of the petition, that provides explanations and graphical documentation of the four highlighted cases of Islamic symbolism. The idea is to have a petition that can circulate virally. Anyone can print it out and have enough information right on the petition itself to know that the objections are legitimate. (Mailing instructions are also included.)
Here are the back-side explanations of the four intolerable features:
1. THE GIANT CRESCENT
The original Crescent of Embrace design was a giant Islamic shaped crescent with the crash site placed between the crescent tips, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag:
The redesign was supposed to eliminate these Islamic symbol shapes, but as Congressman Tom Tancredo wrote to the Park Service in November 2007, these features remain completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only disguised the crescent with a few additional trees. Architect Paul Murdoch’s refusal to eliminate the Islamic symbol shapes suggests intent, but intentional or not, these symbol shapes are unacceptable. Congressman Tancredo is now calling for the crescent design to be scrapped in its entirety, and we join in that request.
2. IT POINTS TO MECCA
Several credible analysts have found that a person facing directly into the giant crescent (still present in the redesign) will be facing almost exactly at Mecca:
The green “qibla” circle in the graphic above is from the prayer-direction calculator at Islam.com. It shows the direction to Mecca from Somerset PA (ten miles from the crash site). The red arrow shows that a person standing between the crescent tips and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca.
This Mecca orientation claim must be authoritatively investigated and answered. If it is true that the crescent points to Mecca, and hence can serve as an Islamic prayer direction indicator (the central feature around which every mosque is built), then whether this construct was intentional or not, it indelibly taints the design.
3. THE ISLAMIC SUNDIAL
Anyone can see the overt similarity between a traditional Islamic sundial (left-hand image) and Tower of Voices part of the Flight 93 Memorial (right-hand image):
When the shadow of the traditional sundial reaches the outer curved vertical in this photo, it will be time for Islamic afternoon prayers. Shadow calculations confirm that, on any day of the year, when the shadow of the 93 foot tall crescent shaped Tower of Voices reaches the inner arc of trees, it will also be time for Islamic afternoon prayers.
4. THE FORTY-FOUR BLOCKS
Tom Burnett Sr. does not want Tom Junior’s name inscribed on one of the 44 translucent blocks that are to be emplaced along the flight path. Forty-four is the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists:
The left side of this graphic shows the Memorial Wall, which follows the path of Flight 93 down to the point of impact. At eye level are 43 glass blocks. Forty are inscribed with the names of the 40 heroes. Three are inscribed with the 9/11 date.
Right-hand image: the 44th glass block sits at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway, where the flight path crosses the upper crescent tip. It marks the spot where, in architect Paul Murdoch’s description, the terrorists broke our humanitarian circle, turning it into a giant (Islamic shaped) crescent. This circle-breaking, crescent-creating feat is memorialized by the inscription: “A field of honor forever.”
The Park Service dismisses the suspicious block count on the grounds that the 44th glass block is much larger than the others. Mr. Burnett is not comforted by the magnificence of the 44th block, and neither are we. This design must be stopped, and investigations must be launched!
Other petition formats
The same four intolerable features are described in the annotated “Map of Betrayal” that was the subject of one of last month’s blogbursts. Thus the map makes a perfectly serviceable back side for the petition, providing an alternative petition/flyer combination.
The information on the map is denser than the explanations above, but has its own intrigue, showing how the different terrorist memorializing parts fit together like an elaborate puzzle.
The petition being circulated on the ground now in Pennsylvania is still another variation. It has slightly different wording than the electronic petition, and slightly different explanations of the four points than presented above. All the different formats are interchangeable. They all highlight the same four objectionable features, and they will all be delivered together to state and federal legislators.
Until we get a Congressional investigation, the petition will be an ongoing tool for raising awareness and registering opposition. If you participate in any activist fora or email lists, please forward the text and links along. (The electronic and paper-petition links are collected together on this petition Page at CrescentOfBetrayal.com.)
Written by Alec Rawls
Just a funny feeling, but if this comes to a vote in Congress to launch an investigation, I bet Senator Obama will either abstain or oppose it. If it comes to a vote on a re-design, I practically guarantee he’ll choose one of those two paths. Too bad resolving this may take till after the nomination process and the general election are over. Anyone care to second me on this prediction?
I’ll second it, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see a lot of Democrat politicians oppose it.
Pure nuttiness, from beginning to end. The conservative troofer movement?
"Almost exactly!!!!!!"
So Doc, either you deny that the giant crescent faces Mecca, or you deny that there is anything wrong with planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the graves of our Flight 93 heroes. Care to specify which of these equally brain dead positions you embrace?
Quite right, though, to note the challenge that a genuine conspiracy presents to the conservative movement. Can it be that the dishonesty of the Troofers has made conservatives so wary of seeing conspiracy that many will not even look at the facts for fear of the conspiracy taint?
I suspect that is a big part of the explanation for why the biggest conservative voices are ducking this issue (and I think I’ve inundated them with enough emails to say that a bunch of them are at least aware of the issue). This is a pretty ironic place to find such a strong reluctance to consider the possibility of an enemy plot, given that Flight 93 is supposed to be the symbol of our woken vigilance: that we know now that we are at war with an enemy that hides amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends.
It is not even a mystery. We hosted an open design competition in time of war, inviting the whole world to enter. What the hell did we expect? That the enemy would say, "no, we don’t believe in taking such sneaky advantage of the infidels’ blasphemous policies of openness"?
"a giant Mecca-oriented crescent"
Anything essentially eastward-pointing would be generally Mecca-oriented.
Beyond that, however, who cares? Let me rephrase that; obviously you care. I don’t care. As to "braindead"–well, whatever.
And there ya have it…..our liberal brethren.
Has Doc really not noticed that MUSLIMS care very much about the direction to Mecca? That is the issue here. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is THE central religious Islamic religious symbol. It is every prayer rug. It is every mosque. It is five times every day. And we are not talking "essentially eastward-pointing." Damned dude. Take another look at that graphic of the qibla direction from Somerset, superimposed on the crescent site plan.
That’s why I call you brain dead: because instead of trying to understand, you are determined NOT to understand even a simple geometric fact. But brain dead is not quite the right term. You ARE using your brain power. You are using it to come up with excuses NOT to make sense.
Anyone who wants to look further at how this almost exact Mecca orientation is repeated in the Tower of Voices, or at the hidden exact Mecca orientation (corresponding to the "true" crescent as Murdoch describes it thematically, where the upper crescent tip is created by the flight path "breaking the circle") take a good look at the map of betrayal.
Hate to say it, but I would never use the word conspiracy ever again if you want people to take this seriously. They may secretly believe you, but the word itself is toxic and sends people running.
And I doubt most of the resistance you get to changing this comes from anyone who full well knows what this is. At this point, I’m guessing the majority of resistance is from politicians, elected or unelected, that don’t want to tread into something that potentially violates Political Correctness and also don’t want to admit they were duped by a handful people who created and pushed a thinly veiled salute to the terrorists and their mission.
1.8 degrees is a tolerable error from a Mosque Orientation from what I understand, but if that error could be explained, it might help drive home the case. My guess is that the orientation might be exact for a nearby major city or might be an error from an approximation made in a Mosque architectural handbook.
If it came out of some resource that the architect could be shown to have previously used, it would be a grand slam.
Liberals and Muslims…interesting alliance. If Islamist fascists do take over, I wonder which group will survive?
Qute an accomplishment of the Troofers, to make "conspiracy" a toxic word, when the hijackings on 9/11 were one of the most elaborate conspiracies we have seen (and no, not by the Bush administration).
The memorial conspiracy is elaborate as well, but it is certainly not WIDE. My best guess is that it only involves two people: Paul Murdoch and his wife. Everyone else is a dupe, though at this point quite a few of them are knowingly giving false information to the public in a desperate attempt to cover up what they have allowed.
The word ‘conspiracy’ has been toxic across the political spectrum since at least the 70’s if not earlier. 9/11 truthers have very little to do with it.
Yes, there has always been a pejorative connotation to conspiracy, but I think the Troofers have to be credited with stripping the word of anything but pejorative connotations, at a time when it ought to have gained legitimacy from the fact that we have recently on the receiving end of an undeniable conspiracy by our terror war enemies.
It is pretty bizarre, when terror plots are constantly being uncovered, to see how much currency there is to the idea that there is something wrong with recognizing a plot.
Really, the conspiracy nuts and the anti-conspiracy nuts are the same phenomenon. Neither are interested in the truth, only in maintaining their world view.