Who can forget that video of Osama bin Laden that emerged in
November 2001 and showed the mastermind of the attacks on America
chortling with other conspirators about his surprise that the
Twin Towers fell down? Who can forget their glee at the
unexpected success of their maniacal jihad against our country?
Now some readers have angrily complained that the planners of the
International Freedom Center, which would look out on the
memorial at ground zero, are proposing exhibits on slavery and
the Holocaust and have forgotten what 9/11 is all about.
The other day I called Richard Tofel, president and chief
operating officer of the Freedom Center, who said the rumors are
false. The Freedom Center, he said, is designed to inspire people
to put an end to hatred and intolerance. Hereferred me to its Web
site, http://www.ifcwtc.org, for its mission statement:
"The IFC's highest aims are to inspire people and engage
them in service. It will tell the stories of Nazism - but also of
the Greatest Generation that defeated it; of the Soviet gulag -
but also of the courageous dissidents who helped bring it down;
of Jim Crow segregation - but also Martin Luther King, who helped
stamp it out. Inspiring people through these stories to do
freedom's work today is our best longrun defense against more
9/11s."
When I told Mr. Tofel that some of my correspondents suspect the
center will somehow be an instrument to blame America for the
attacks of September 11, he said: "That's complete
nonsense." He explained that the center plans to show that
"America is the shining light in the global history of
freedom."
While Mr. Tofel may have dispelled my concern about the
International Freedom Center, I've always felt the Twin Towers
should be rebuilt. That bin Laden video - the transcript is
available on the CNN Web site - reveals the enemy we're still
facing.
Said Al Qaeda's leader: "We calculated in advance the number
of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the
position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would
be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic
of them all.... Due to my experience in this field, I was
thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the
iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the
plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we
had hoped for."
So Osama bin Laden wasn't quite the engineering genius that some
of his left-wing admirers have touted him to be. He is merely a
madman consumed with hatred for all those who are not true
believers in his kind of Islam. Make no mistake: He hates all of
us. Here's more of his rant:
"I heard someone on Islamic radio who owns a school in
America say: 'We don't have time to keep up with the demands of
those who are asking about Islamic books to learn about
Islam."
So Islamic schools in America consider 9/11 quite a coup? One of
the sheikhs in the room with Osama bin Laden quoted another
cleric as saying that this is jihad and the victims at the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon "were not innocent
people."
"He swore to Allah. ... Thank Allah America came out of its
caves," the sheikh said. "We hit her the first hit and
the next one will hit her with the hands of the believers, the
good believers, the strong believers."
The next one? For those fanatics, attacks like that on the World
Trade Center are sources of pride. September 11 is a day to
rejoice. In 2002, in a London conference, a Muslim leader, Sheikh
Omar Bakri Mohammed, was quoted as saying: "The people at
this conference look at September 11 like a battle, as a great
achievement by the mujahideen against the evil superpower."
How satisfying it must be to these jihadists to see ground zero
become a memorial shrine to their feat of madness. I say, rebuild
the Twin Towers bigger and stronger. September 11 struck at the
heart of our entire nation. It's taking much too long to repair
that wound.
Every time the Staten Island Ferry approaches Manhattan, our
wounded skyline haunts me. It's nearly four years and I still
cannot look at a jet plane flying near the city without
remembering that day and waiting for the next shoe to drop.