Has a second crime been committed at Ground Zero?

Ran across this sad and disappointing story at Junto Boyz (hat-tip Bernard). According to Debra Burlingame (sister of one of the pilots whose plane was flown into the Pentagon), the planned World Trade Center memorial seems to be slated to become more of a general political education center aimed at lecturing visitors on the meaning of "liberty" in a post-9/11 world. This may have already caused some of your noses to twitch - and rightly so. It turns out that the focus of the memorial's educational thrust will be wider than the 9/11 tragedy and as commentary extends to world problems and situations, one can almost see the anti-Americanism coming. Here are some important excerpts from Burlingame's article (from the Wall Street Journal Online). Without a doubt, need to read the whole thing.

The World Trade Center Memorial will break ground this year. When those Marines return in 2010, the year it is scheduled to open, no doubt they will expect to see the artifacts that bring those memories to life. They'll want a vantage point that allows them to take in the sheer scope of the destruction, to see the footage and the photographs and hear the personal stories of unbearable heartbreak and unimaginable courage. They will want the memorial to take them back to who they were on that brutal September morning. Instead, they will get a memorial that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the yearning to return to that day. Rather than a respectful tribute to our individual and collective loss, they will get a slanted history lesson, a didactic lecture on the meaning of liberty in a post-9/11 world. They will be served up a heaping foreign policy discussion over the greater meaning of Abu Ghraib and what it portends for the country and the rest of the world.
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The public will be confused at first, and then feel hoodwinked and betrayed. Where, they will ask, do we go to see the September 11 Memorial? The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation will have erected a building whose only connection to September 11 is a strained, intellectual one. While the IFC is getting 300,000 square feet of space to teach us how to think about liberty, the actual Memorial Center on the opposite corner of the site will get a meager 50,000 square feet to exhibit its 9/11 artifacts, all out of sight and underground. Most of the cherished objects which were salvaged from Ground Zero in those first traumatic months will never return to the site. There is simply no room. But the International Freedom Center will have ample space to present us with exhibits about Chinese dissidents and Chilean refugees. These are important subjects, but for somewhere -- anywhere -- else, not the site of the worst attack on American soil in the history of the republic.
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The so-called lessons of September 11 should not be force-fed by ideologues hoping to use the memorial site as nothing more than a powerful visual aid to promote their agenda. Instead of exhibits and symposiums about Internationalism and Global Policy we should hear the story of the courageous young firefighter whose body, cut in half, was found with his legs entwined around the body of a woman. Recovery personnel concluded that because of their positions, the young firefighter was carrying her. The people who visit Ground Zero in five years will come because they want to pay their respects at the place where heroes died. They will come because they want to remember what they saw that day, because they want a personal connection, to touch the place that touched them, the place that rallied the nation and changed their lives forever. I would wager that, if given a choice, they would rather walk through that dusty hanger at JFK Airport where 1,000 World Trade Center artifacts are stored than be herded through the International Freedom Center's multi-million dollar insult.

Ground Zero has been stolen, right from under our noses. How do we get it back?

The very groups and individuals who are backing this project bring up many more questions about the nature of this memorial and the philosophies behind it. Michelle Malkin digs deeper into Burlingame's article and discusses the questionable backers of this important memorial project. Read her whole post.

It seems that a crime is being committed again at Ground Zero. Hopefully the blogosphere can help get the word out so we can have a say in this matter.

Update: Turns out that the blogosphere is not disappointing. Here are some sites that are already "taking up arms" against the Ground Zero heist. Check them out and support them if you can.
The Grave Robbers at Ground Zero - Sisu
Take Back the Memorial is now up and running. Please visit if you'd like more information on what you can do.