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Have Your Duct Tape Handy Before Reading this Story

By Leon H Wolf Posted in Liberals — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

UPDATE: [09-25-06, 12:31:00 EST by Leon]: This story was first reported here last Wednesday; since then it has been picking up steam. Presented again for your enjoyment.

This is one of those stories that is so outrageous that you almost assume it's fake - but in this case, there are pictures, so I'm going to go ahead and operate on the assumption that it's true. First things first, I came across this story at the indispensible Ace of Spades HQ (be advised: Ace does not have a no-profanity policy), and he's got lots of good links up that you should go check out. The short version of the story is that the State of Arizona, using public funds, decided to build a 9/11 memorial and fill it with moonbat talking points.

Seriously.

The longer version of the story below the fold...

The original pictures of this were found at Espressopundit (apologies in advance: I can't seem to figure out how to permalink to the relevant post in question). They are also here at Flopping Aces. Three of the inscriptions on this memorial have been singled out. They read:

07 01 02
ERRONEOUS US AIR
STRIKE KILLS
46 URUZGAN CIVILIANS

And,

06 03 02
CONGRESS QUESTIONS
WHY CIA & FBI DIDN'T
PREVENT ATTACKS

And,

VIOLENT ACTS LEADING
US TO WAR
05 07 1915, 12 07 1941
08 04 1964 & 09 11 2001

Now, it is one thing entirely to make political hay out of war - this being a time-honored tradition older than the existence of our country. It is quite another to take funds appropriated for something to honor the memories of fallen victims and use them instead to advance leftist talking points.

Let's examine these placards one at a time, then: the first refers to this, in which wedding celebrants were firing into the air, apparently inadvertently in the direction of a warplane, and got a bomb dropped on them. This was a horrible and regrettable incident - I fail to see just what in blazes it is doing on a memorial that is ostensibly to commemorate the victims of 9/11. What's the point? We're just as bad as the terrorists? Maybe flying the planes into those buildings was an accident? The mind boggles.

The second, of course, is designed to create a permanent memorial to Fahrenheit 9/11. Regardless of your personal view of the value of special committees and hearings, I don't think that there should be legitimate dispute that this kind of crap also does not belong on a memorial to honor the 9/11 dead. As Espressopundit notes:

That's right; what did Bush know and when did he know it? Funny, I walked over to the Pearl Harbor memorial and I didn't see any reference to Roosevelt getting advance notice of the bombing. Come to think about it, I didn't see any mention of erroneous attacks on Japanese civilians either. Golly, they just don't build monuments like they used to.

The third is another whopper. The first date refers to the sinking of the Lusitania, which ostensibly stands for the event that led the U.S. into World War I.¹ The second, of course, is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, leading to United States involvement in World War II. 9/11 is what the memorial is supposed to be all about. What's that third one? Why, it's the date of the second Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to our involvement in the lefties' favorite war. What's significant about that, you say? Well, let's examine the received wisdom about the August 4th incident in the Gulf of Tonkin courtesy of Wikipedia:

On August 4, another DESOTO patrol to North Vietnam coast was launched by Maddox and the C. Turner Joy. This time orders indicated that the ship was to be no more than 11 miles from the coast of North Vietnam. [4] The latter received radar and radio signals that they believed to signal another attack by the North Vietnamese. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of foes. It is highly unlikely that any North Vietnamese forces were actually in the area during this gunfight. Captain John J. Herrick even admitted that it was nothing more than an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing his ship's own propeller beat."

Although information obtained well after the fact indicates that there was actually no North Vietnamese attack that night, U.S. authorities and all of the crew at the time said they were convinced at the time that an attack had taken place. As a result, planes from the carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation were sent to hit North Vietnamese torpedo boat bases and fuel facilities (Operation Pierce Arrow).

...

On August 4, 1964, squadron commander James Stockdale was one of the US pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident; unlike the first attack, this one is believed to have been a false alarm. In the early 1990s, he recounted: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there… There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge threw a burden upon him. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal that he knew this terrible secret about the Vietnam War.

In 1995, retired Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, while admitting to the attack on August 2. A taped conversation of a meeting several weeks after passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was released in 2001, revealing that Robert McNamara expressed doubts to President Johnson that the attack had even occurred.

I think you get where this is going; and if you don't, I'm not going to belabor the point.

As if this were all not ridiculous enough, Hot Air found the State -approved educational curriculum for school children visiting the memorial - this will really make your head explode:

Ask students to think about how they would answer these questions: What does the word “tolerance” mean? What do you do and how do you react when a person is different from you? Share that today they will be learning more about tolerance and diversity.
—–
Describe how key political, social, environmental, and economic events of the late 20th century and early 21st century (e.g., Watergate, OPEC/oil crisis, Central American wars/Iran-Contra, End of Cold War, first Gulf War, September 11) affected, and continue to affect, the United States.
—–
Ask students what a world-wide memorial to victims of terrorism might look like. Have students design/draw their idea of a memorial. Have them write a paragraph or two explaining how their design shows a world affected by terrorism in the 21st century.
—–
Inform students that today they will look at any effects 9-11 has had on our civil liberties. Enactment: Discussion: Ask students: What has our government done to prevent a terrorist attack from happening again? (i.e., enacted the Patriot Act, increased security at airports and other locations, monitored some overseas phone conversations, etc.) What are some of the negative and positive aspects of these changes? Do students feel the changes are helping to prevent terrorism? What else do students feel the government could or should do to prevent a similar event from happening?

Who's responsible for this memorial? None other than AZ Governor Janet Napolitano, who happens to be up for re-election this year. Wonder if she has any comment about this? I also wonder if Jim Pederson, who is challenging Jon Kyl for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, has anything to say about whether this is appropriate content for a 9/11 memorial?

¹ Espressopundit did not immediately recognize this as an event linked to World War I for a pretty good reason - it's at best lazy history to say that the sinking of the Lusitania led to United States involvement in World War I. After the Lusitania was sunk, Woodrow Wilson famously proclaimed that America was "too proud to fight" - one of the dumber all-time quotes which has gained notoriety, but which nonetheless shows that the response to the sinking of the Lusitania was not United States entry into World War I. The sinking of the Lusitania provoked anti-German sentiment in America, which was intensified when the Germans eventually resumed their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. The real event leading to the entry of the United States into World War I was of course the Zimmerman Telegram - which was widely believed at the time to have been a fraud. Am I reaching too far with this one? Probably.