Doc's Talk: That Building IS Ground Zero

Friday, October 01, 2010

That Building IS Ground Zero

Israpundit

New Rochelle Marine Disputes Defenders of ‘Ground Zero’ Mosque in New York City

Submitted by Robert Cox, New Rochelle Talk

(NEW ROCHELLE, NY) — The ongoing debate over the controversial Islamic community center and mosque planned for the site of what was to have been a Burlington Coat Factory retail outlet in lower Manhattan, has left Peter Parente frustrated. Parente, 42, a U.S. Marine honorably discharged in 1993, was part of the small team of construction workers assigned to clear plane wreckage from the building located at 45–47 Park Place in the days after 9/11.

Sitting at the kitchen table in his modest three-bedroom home in the Halcyon Park section of New Rochelle, Parente is uncomfortable talking about the proposed community center and mosque. He said that his service in the United States Marines was dedicated to defending the Constitution and the American way of life, and while he recognizes the First Amendment right of the organizers to build a mosque on the site, he struggles with coming to peace with the plan. But his eyes light up and there is no hesitation when asked about proponents of the mosque who dismiss critics by claiming that the building is not really that close to Ground Zero.
"I was there", said Parente. "I smelled death. I tasted death. It was in the air that we breathed as we worked. Don't tell me that the building is not near Ground Zero. It was all around us."

WTC_DebrisField_150.pngOn September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. A part of the plane's landing gear and fuselage came out the north side of the tower, crashed through the roof of the building at 45–47 Park Place and down through two floors before becoming embedded in the ceiling of the third floor of what was a five-story building.

It was that piece of wreckage that first attracted Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, 61, the man behind building the proposed 13-story Islamic community center and mosque, to the site. The presence of Park51 "where a piece of the wreckage fell sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11", Imam Feisal told the New York Times last December before the controversy began.

Flight175_Strut_2_455.png

For Parente, that wreckage is personal. Several days after the World Trade Center attack Parente was part of a crew from Forthright Development Company of Mamaroneck, NY, the company hired by Burlington Coat Factory to renovate the building as part of a planned retail store in lower Manhattan. When the building was struck on 9/11, Burlington hired Forthright to go back into the building where they had just completed work and remove the wreckage of Flight 175 from the badly damaged building.

Parente tells of arriving on the scene still worried about the fate of Michael Curtin, his close friend and former Gunnery Sergeant who had been in the area of the attack and reported missing. Sergeant Major Michael Sean Curtin's remains were recovered from Ground Zero in March 2002.

The crew of 15 men made their way into the building with great care, cautiously edging their way up the idle escalators to reach the third floor of the severely damaged structure. There was water everywhere recalled Parente. The sprinkler system had been activated when the building was struck and most of the store merchandise had been ruined.

"It was a mess. The landing gear must have weighed about half a ton and when it hit that building it was like one of those "bunker busters", slicing through the roof and straight down into the heart of the structure. It was sticking out of the ceiling on the third floor. All of us on the work detail got real quiet thinking about the people on that plane."

After securing the large chunk of landing gear with ropes, Parente and the rest of the crew pulled and yanked on the strut, rocking it back and forth, until the ceiling gave way. The landing gear came crashing down into the men's clothing section of the never-opened store.

"We had one hell of a time getting it out of there," said Parente pointing to a photo (below) of James Pasqua, a childhood friend who would die five years after 9/11 from unrelated complications related to Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD).

Flight175_Strut_1_455.png

Parente and the other men, pulled the strut away from the merchandise shelves, laid out boards across the escalator steps and set up winches to haul the plane part towards the escalators and then carefully lower it to the level below. To keep it steady while they lowered the strut down the escalators, Parente sat astride the strut to keep it balanced. At each floor they had to drag the strut across the floor, around to the other side and then down the escalator, repeating this process until they reached the ground floor. They then dragged the landing gear out onto Church Street where they had a truck waiting. The crew lifted the 1,000 pound hunk of metal into the back of a Ford Econoline van.

Parente climbed inside and sat with the landing gear in the back as Pasqua drove north to Parente's garage and service station in Mamaroneck. Once there, they wrapped the landing gear in a tarp and stored it in the back of the garage. Worried that someone might try to steal the strut, Parente and Pasqua parked cars all around the wrapped metal to deter access, and secured the garage as best they could.

Parente said "We were proud to have played a small part in recovering a piece of the plane. We damn sure weren't going to let anyone just take it".

Flight175_Strut_3_455.png

The following day, Parente turned over custody of the landing gear to the owner of Forthright Development which had been directed to deliver the plane part to the headquarters of Burlington Coat Factory in New Jersey. Parente said he was told that the company hoped to create a 9/11 Memorial from the wreckage.

"I never heard what happened to the strut. I would like to think they did something with it to honor our heroes killed in the attack," said Parente. "I sure hope it's not collecting dust in some warehouse".

A spokesperson for Burlington Coat Factory stated that the company turned the part over to government investigators. The company said the part was not returned so no 9/11 memorial was ever created.

Asked why he did not keep even a small memento of that day working at Ground Zero, Parente looked away. Pressed on the point, Parente slowly got up from the kitchen table and disappeared for a moment. When he returned he had two small objects in his hand -- what appeared to be a washer and a nut from the landing gear. Parente turned them over and pointed out a barely legible set of numbers etched into the metal.

"Probably the VIN number for the Flight 175 aircraft", said Parente. He sits down and considers the two pieces of metal that came screaming down from the sky on a bright, late summer Tuesday morning 9 years earlier. Lost in thought he shakes his head slightly before carefully wrapping the two objects in a handkerchief and placing them back in a small wooden box.

"They never asked for this", said Parente. "Maybe I should have offered but I wanted something I could hold to remember my friend Michael Curtin and all those heroes who died that day."

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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