Seven Years Later: How to Remember September 11

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship Ministries President Mark Earley.

September 11, 2008

Today, seven years after terrorists flew a plane into the Pentagon, killing 184 people, a memorial to that attack will be dedicated. That it has taken seven years to erect this memorial is a testimony to our uncertainty as to how best to memorialize the events of that day.

In contrast to the Pentagon memorial, any memorial to the victims in New York is “years away.” Reinhold Martin of Columbia calls the situation at “Ground Zero” an “incredible mess.” The iconic status of the site, combined with “disagreements and competing priorities among government agencies, family groups, and Wall Street interests,” has made settling on a design near impossible.

While we debate what to do with stone and metal, there are some things we can do with our thoughts and actions right now.

I do know this: The best way to honor those who died has nothing to do with architecture.

One group is calling on Americans to make September 11 a “national day of charitable service.” They urge us to “volunteer, donate to a cause, or perform another good deed of [our] own choosing.”

Charitable service is always a good idea, and any attempt to inspire volunteerism is welcome. So is the decision by the presidential candidates to pull campaign ads on this day. That kind of respectfulness is appropriate. But there is more to memorials than architecture and good deeds, as important as they are. The word memorial comes from the Latin word memor, which means “mindful,” “remembering,” and even “grateful.”

What should we remember? Of course, we remember the victims and their families. And we are grateful for those, such as the New York firefighters and police, who died trying to save others. But we should also be mindful of why they died. We should not let the passage of time dull us to the threat posed by those who perpetrated the attack, their distorted worldview, and their continuing determination to kill us. You can be sure that bin Laden, his followers, and would-be followers will be celebrating the seventh anniversary of these attacks and calling for more just like them.

Events like the Madrid and London bombings testify to the continuing appeal of al Qaeda-like jihadism. The cult of the suicide bomber is, unfortunately, alive and well in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Their resilience should come as no surprise: Their memories go back nearly 1,400 years. They bemoan events that took place before the discovery of America. Their attention span and patience easily accommodate seven years. The real question is: Do ours?

We should also remember that their inability -- for now -- to attack us on our own soil does not mean they cannot threaten our way of life. Recent months have highlighted our dependence on foreign oil -- oil that disproportionately comes from the part of the world where these enemies are most active.

While architecture can honor the past, the only memorial worthy of that name are the lessons we learn that keep the past from ever being repeated again.

TOPIC: Store Video Shows Customers Stepping Over Stabbing Victim

Article from FOXNews.com

WICHITA, Kansas — As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday. The video showed the 27-year-old Calloway struggling to her feet and collapsing three times without anyone helping her. Worse, one woman who stepped over Calloway four times while shopping eventually paused to snap a photo of her with a cell phone.
"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting." It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said. "This is one of the most disgusting examples of disregard for life I've ever seen," Bassham said of the video. "It is a very, very tragic video to watch. It was revolting to see this lack of humanity."
Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital. Two people -- Cherish M. McCullough and George R. Brown -- turned themselves in to police and were arrested in connection with the death. The district attorney's office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said. It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.
Eagle columnist Mark McCormick told The Associated Press he learned about the video when he called Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams to inquire about a phone call he had received from a reader complaining about a Police Department policy that requires emergency medical personnel to wait until police secure a crime scene before rendering aid. McCormick said Williams then unloaded on him about the shoppers in the stabbing case. Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

SopeBocks: This is an example of the LACK of compassion we have for each other in this country. The violence we see no longer bothers us. We don't want to "get involved", so we step over victims and go about our business. As I've said many times before, we will reap what we sow -- and this is a prime example of what has been sewn through TV, movies, video games, music and the violence of the hip-hop culture. If you think I'm wrong, think about this -- even in countries where terrorist bombings are "regular" occurrence, citizens don't step over dying victims to buy a candy bar. They HELP those victims. In those cultures, there are NO Manhunt or GTA video games, Die Hard movies, hip-hop gangstas nor any The Shield style TV shows. If we do not cherish life, it will not have any value.
When is America going to wake up?!? Compassion is a basic tenant of civilized society. IF we lose it (and we're well on the way to that end), anarchy WILL follow.

Poll: 1 in 4 U.S. Young Muslims OK With Homicide Bombings Against Civilians

Article from FOXNews.com

One out of four young U.S. Muslims believe homicide bombings against civilians are OK to "defend Islam," according to a new poll. The poll by the Pew Research Center also finds some Muslim Americans seem to be separating from mainstream America in their attitudes toward the War on Terror and U.S. Mideast policy.
The study found that among the nation's younger Muslims, 26 percent say homicide bombings can at least rarely be justified "in order to defend Islam from its enemies." "It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.
The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets" and then asks, "Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?" Younger U.S. Muslims under the age of 30 are much more willing to accept homicide bombing in the defense of Islam than are their older counterparts, the study found. While 69 percent of Muslims under 30 say homicide bombings are never justified, 2 percent say they're often justified, 13 percent say bombings are sometimes justified and 11 percent say they are rarely justified. Only 9 percent of older U.S. Muslims said homicide attacks are at least rarely justified.
In addition to young Muslims' attitudes towards homicide bombings, the study found that only 40 percent of U.S. Muslims believe that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Another 28 percent said they don't believe it. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 53 percent said it's been more difficult to be Muslim in America. The Pew poll also found that almost half of the nation's Muslims are more likely to identify themselves as Muslims first and then Americans, with 47 percent placing religious affiliation above nationality. Three out of four people surveyed said the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong, and 48 percent said using force in Afghanistan was wrong. Five percent of those surveyed had a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" view of Al Qaeda, while 58 percent had a "very unfavorable" opinion of the terror group. But the study also found that most of the nation's Muslim community is "largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world."
The poll also found that U.S. Muslims reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries. In Pew surveys last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France. "We have crazies just like other faiths have them," said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation's largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.
The survey included more than 1,000 of the nation's estimated 2.35 million Muslims and was conducted in English and several foreign languages. Andrew Kohut, Pew director, said in an interview that support for the attacks represented "one of the few trouble spots" in the survey.

The Sope-Bocks: There is troubling information in the Pew Research poll results. It is estimated that there are upwards of 3 millions so-called U.S. Muslims -- though some groups' estimates are double that figure. If the Pew poll results are truly indicative of the Muslim population in America, that means that nearly 1 MILLION "Muslim-Americans" believe it's acceptable to kill civilians in order to "defend" their religion.
Couple that with the fact that Islam is hellbent on ridding the world of infidels through voluntary or forced conversion -- and the result is America is in a very dangerous predicament.
Why? Well, Islamists consider themselves to be Muslim ahead of being American. Therefore, they would put their religious fervor above the health and well-being of their fellow non-Muslim American neighbor. IOW, they would kill or allow the killing of other Americans because of their Muslim beliefs before they would defend the country they live in.
Americans may be subjected to a new definition of "melting pot" if we aren't careful in how we handle the radicals among us. Political correctness has NO PLACE in defending our nation against the extremes of Islamo-fascist element.