California senate Republican contenders Tom Campbell, Chuck DeVore, and Carly Fiorina debated on the radio on Friday. Much of the discussion centered on Campbell’s voting record on Israel, his ties to Muslim extremists, and the charges and counter-charges that have been flying among the candidates. As the Associated Press noted:
Campbell requested the debate after his opponents began questioning his support for Israel. Their attacks were based on his voting record when he served in the House of Representatives and on campaign money given by a donor who later was revealed to have ties to a U.S.-listed terrorist organization.
(Actually, there is more than one donor, but more on that below.) Campbell accused Fiorina’s campaign manager of calling him anti-Semitic, a charge she denied. But the nub of the matter remains Campbell’s record. DeVore got into the act, as well:
He refused to back away from calling Campbell a “friend to our enemies” for his association with a University of South Florida professor who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group.
Campbell received a $1,300 campaign contribution from Sami Al-Arian in 2000 and later wrote a letter on his behalf asking the university not to fire him.
Campbell said the contribution came as the Republican Party was reaching out to Muslims and years before the criminal charges were filed.
“I certainly wish I had done a better job of finding out who he was at the time,” Campbell said.
The claim that Campbell does not view Israel as a friend is an important one in a primary in which evangelical Christians will help determine who will advance to the general election as the GOP nominee. The winner will face Democrat Barbara Boxer, who is seeking a fourth term.
Many believe strongly in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Campbell said he has never flinched from showing strong military support for Israel.
But alas, Campbell did repeatedly introduce measures to cut aid for Israel, and his association with Al-Arian is not his only troublesome relationship. And contrary to his assertion in the debate, he has supported the concept of a divided Jerusalem as the capital of both Jewish and Palestinian states. He did vote in 1990, one of only 34 lawmakers, against a resolution expressing support for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. As for his donors, this post notes:
Another $1,000 donor to Campbell’s 2000 U.S. Senate campaign was American Muslim Council member Abdurahman Alamoudi. After Alamoudi spoke out in support of terrorist organizations, Campbell refused to return the money, saying that he felt comfortable with Alamoudi’s position. In contrast, George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton returned contributions they had received from Alamoudi and related parties.
In 2003, Alamoudi was caught carrying $340,000 in cash through an airport. When searched, authorities found that his electronic organizer held the names of six people who had been linked to al-Qaida financing. Alamoudi was brought to trial and pled guilty to immigration fraud and illegal business dealings with Libya. He also confessed to playing a part in an unsuccessful assassination plot on Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah. The plotters had hoped to destabilize Saudi Arabia with the prince’s death. And in 2005, authorities discovered that Alamoudi had also helped raise money for al-Qaida in the United States.
The list goes on. On February 13, 2000, Muthanna Al-Hanooti of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) contributed $2,000 to Campbell’s Senate campaign. Eight years later, Al-Hanooti was arrested for spying on the U.S. Congress for Saddam Hussein. Hanooti had even attempted to broker a secret deal with members of Congress to stop the war in Iraq from happening.
Nehad Awad, the current executive director of CAIR, contributed $2,000 dollars to Campbell’s Senate campaign in 2000. Awad and his group have been criticized for supporting both Hamas and other radical violence by Muslim extremists.
And then there is Israel-hater and organ-harvest conspirator Alison Weir, whom Campbell has praised. She’s now taken up defending Campbell. First, of course, she unleashes her best Stephen Walt imitation by, among other things, denouncing the “Israel Lobby.” (Just so we know where she’s coming from.) Then she explains her association with Campbell. This, she says, occurred at a speech in 2001:
When it was my turn to speak, I described what I had seen in the Palestinian Territories, showed my photographs, and read a sort of letter I had written to the American people. To my surprise, I received a standing ovation from, it appeared to me, everyone in the room. One of the first on his feet was Tom Campbell. Afterwards, a friend asked him if he would write an endorsement of my presentation, which he graciously did. Later, when I founded If Americans Knew and we created a website, we placed his comment in the “About Us” section.
She also lets on that Campbell told her, in describing of one of his proposals to cut aid to Israel, that ”many of his fellow Representatives privately told him they thought this was a wonderful plan, complimented him on his courage in proposing it, and said they didn’t’ dare vote for it. In the end, just 12 others cast affirmative votes.” Delighted he was, I suppose, to be so bold and so outside the mainstream on Israel aid.
Given her bile-spitting rendition of the Middle East conflict and desire to end American financial support for Israel, one wonders what in her speech Campbell found so praiseworthy. A Californian active in the Jewish community recounts to me the sort of presentation Weir was making those days. He attended one of her offerings at the Belvedere-Tiburon Library in Marin County:
What I remember most vividly was during her entire talk there was a slide displayed directly over her head of some stone steps with an extensive amount of recent blood visibly staining the steps. As you watched her anti-Israel diatribe being delivered, she said that blood was of martry’s slain by Israelis. The image reflected her barely supressed hatred of Israel.
The issue is not whether Campbell is anti-Semitic but whether his record and his associations of rather recent vintage are consistent with the pro-Israel rhetoric he now adopts. California Republican voters will need to decide what, if any, liability this will pose should he reach the general election. It seems, then, that the debate on Campbell’s record has just begun.
Noting the fact that after seven years, the USA has failed to even put up so much as a memorial, much less a building taller than WTC, says all that needs to be said about why I think America has died. Or at least entered its moribund dotage. We were already rotten wood, eaten from within since the Sixties. The Nineties killed the roots, and it took only those planes to topple the tree. It’s noteworthy that the military managed to rebuild the Pentagon. But liberal Manhattan can’t be bothered to do anything but strip the carrion from the bones of WTC, and then fight over the bones. One almost thinks it surreal, like something out of “Atlas Shrugged.”
I always thought that Robert Moses ruined NYC over the course of his dictatorship, er, chairmanship of nearly a dozen city commission (the only thing I ever liked about him was his line “I love humanity. I hate people.”). But in point of fact, what the WTC needs is someone like a Robert Moses to be the singular czar and build SOMETHING! Special interests be damned.
Incredibly, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s brilliant entry for the replacement tower is being built – in Dubai (Burj Dubai, world’s tallest skyscraper).
By the way – the designer of the PATH station is Santiago Clatrava, although he’s probably glad you butchered his name here!
Jeez, even I butchered his name – Santiago CALATRAVA (knuckle hairs and muffin crumbs in the keyboard).
A semi-serious question: why don’t they just put Rudy Giuliani in charge of memorializing 9/11 and rebuilding the WTC site?
Wasn’t Liebeskind the inspiration for Mike Myers’ “Dieter” character on Saturday Night Live?
Perhaps Obama will appoint him to the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Arts.
J.E. Dyer – The best answer to your question of “Why not Rudy?” is his awful presidential campaign. Whatever the man’s past greatness, he is now nothing more than a banal motivational speaker. Also, my recollection is that Rudy’s position on the question of what to do with Ground Zero has always been to pander to the families of the victims by turning the entire site into a sterile and self-pitying memorial, rather than to rebuild to reestablish the site as a part of the NY economy and skyline.
Yes, that site is emblematic of America’s constipation. But it is less a failure of will as too many willful little power centers and interest groups, each set on having its way.
I confess, I myself am less interested in something going up soon, as that it be terrific, innovative. It is easy enough to put up skyscrapers. They are going up elsewhere in the city. The US has been doing that since the 1890s. All the high-rises since then, everywhere, including in sparkling new Shanghai, are really only repetitions and refinements of the old. That failure to build something truly new is the real mark of our crisis, our stenosis, our inability to do more than repeat ourselves.
It is not a question of new shapes, or building ever taller. It is problem of moving people quickly and easily. Of provisioning buildings without walling them inside rings of trucks, of solving the traffic congestion, garbage removal, mail delivery, gasoline fumes, and parking problem; also, beating those jackhammers eternally tearing up the asphalt, the pedestrian vs vehicles encounter; the abundance of noise and potholes and city chaos, and the scarcity of greenery and calm. And finally, how to evacuate high floors quickly in emergencies?
Where are those solutions? We assume they don’t exist, but they do.
The problem are less the buildings than our streets. Sure, a lot has changed beneath their surface, but our streets remains essential what they have been since the days of Jericho. What worked for donkey wagons and oxcarts is not working for bumper to bumper motor vehicles. We need buildings that use streets in a new way. It has to begin somewhere. Ground Zero would be the right location.
I am shocked, shocked, that government can’t get anything right. Will this finally convince the socialist left that free market is the best.
There’s a mistake in the article.
There are to be two downtown transit hubs. One at WTC and another at Fulton Street, about a block away from Ground Zero. The one at WTC is indeed the one designed by Calavatra, and may or may not be built, but that one did not require any property taking. It was the second hub, the Fulton Street Transit Center which required a taking and property demolition. The Fulton Center was to have a connection to WTC but is otherwise a project designed to add to lower Manhattan infrastructure, not to replace anything lost on 9-11. The Fulton Street hub has essentially been abandoned by the MTA, indeed, after the MTA demolished a couple old, but occupied, commercial buildings on Fulton Street. It’s currently a vacant lot.
Note that neither project adds the slightest amount of increased rail capacity to crowded lower Manhattan, they are both (in the renderings, ’cause that’s all we’ll ever have) just nice stations.
It’s not just the large things that are ridiculously hard to get started and completed. For the past 8 months I’ve been trying to get cluster mailboxes for fifty residents behind our security gate in the the confines of our community. There are a few dissident property owners, each with their own special grievance, who have been fighting us every step of the way.
As a nation, I fear we are losing the ability to govern ourselves.
Brought to you by the same people/ government that propose at various levels to organize and provide healthcare, oversee education, cobble together energy policy (sound of echoes) and (try to) deliver the mail.
What did Larry Silverstein do with the insurance money?
p.s.: Funny to see all the comments about the government’s inability to build the replacement. Who built the original? The Tooth Fairy?
Well it is NYC. What else did you expect but politically correct gridlock? NYC lost 3000 people on Sept 11th and they are still a majority of leftists socialists. It will never be rebuilt. And now after 7 years who cares. Let all the idiots sit in there meetings blabbing about nothing collecting a 100k a year or more. NYC you are pitiful.
All the comments about the socialist left made me laugh. What building anywhere in the USA doesn’t get built without some Republican or Democrat having his hand out looking for a bribe er I mean contribution. There is NO free market in America it’s actually very expensive!!!!
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein
It’s quite simple: terrorists can only inflict small wounds, and anything they damage will be repaired soon, because the West is just stronger than they can imagine.
OBL thought that in destroying the WTC, he would destroy or at least badly damage the US economy. That is because OBL does not understand that the power of the West, and particularly America, lies in its societal organisation and its capacity to adapt quickly to any situation. 9/11 was bad in itself but not very damaging to the United States. No problem, Americans can handle it twice a day.
That’s what I think, but what OBL and his fellows are now seeing is a hole in NYC which nobody has been able to fill yet. I came to New York in 2005 and the place was still in ruins, nearly four years after the attack. They are thinking that they hit you bad.
Not building anything is bad enough, but building somme silly memorial would be much worse. If the place is transformed into some lennonesque peace temple or a museum of tolerance and universal brotherhood, that will mean that the terrorists have half-conquered the place.
Hear this advice from a non-American: rebuild it just as it was, maybe more solid but with the same things going on inside it. You have all the space you need to build bizarre memorials, but ground zero belongs to the Twin Towers, and it would be treason to concede it. Don’t you want your skyline back? I don’t understand you.
Next time I come to New York, I hope I will see the World Trade Center again, just as it was. Then I will start to think this war can be won.
Thank you, Jean. It’s criminal (you’re right treasonous) that the towers haven’t been rebuilt exactly as they stood. You could have multiple memorials associated with the project. The first should be at or near the ground level. The second should be anti-arcraft guns positioned at the top with the names of all of the victims close by so that, while the rest of America falls back asleep, the brave men & women who man those guns will never forget.
The last thing we need is a multi-cultural, multi-religious center or museum of tolerance. We should never forget what those who practice “the religion of peace.”
Rebuild the twin towers and kill or be killed.
Jean
The American writer, Thomas Wolfe, he died in the late 1930s, wrote th novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. It was published posthumously. He was quite right.
Hey Sam,
Last time I checked the WTC site was a private property that was owned and insured by private corporations and individuals. I’m not sure why you are blaming the lack of progress on Government.
I think a park would be nice. A scale model of the towers could built somewhere in the park. People could view it and contemplate what happened on that spot. I don’t think there should be any political exhibits should be set up near the model.
Everyone would have their right to view it from their own perspective, opinion, and political views. Some think the government did it, others don’t think that but they do think the government could have prevented it, and others think the government was completely innocent, some may even think it was a good thing to happen, and some may just want to pay respect to those that died there. Everyone should be allowed to have their own thoughts and feelings while viewing the model of the towers.
There could be another area of the park set up with a soap box surrounded by seating where people can stand on the soap box and pontificate to whoever wants to come to that area to hear what they have to say whether it’s talking about what happened, reciting poems, singing, discussing religion, or politics. Those that don’t want to listen to whoever is on the soap box could chose to avoid that area of the park and not have to view or hear what is going on at the soap box.
Others could visit the park to enjoy the sunshine, rain fall, people watching, or whatever without thinking about what happened there.
Anyway, that is IMHO what should happen to that place. I’m not real thrilled about building buildings there, but then I am not a New Yorker, so whatever the New Yorkers decide to do with that area is their business not mine.
Why is anyone surprised at this? It’s “participatory” democracy run riot where every crank and crook must be anxiously and endlessly consulted before action can begin. I live in the Bay Area and we are still, 19 years after the ’89 quake, awaiting completion of the span to replace the unstable cantilevered section of the Bay Bridge. Years of lawsuits, impact studies and assorted second-guessing have dogged its every step. This is the Left’s ideal: government by librum veto. Which will yield, inevitably, to government by fiat.
I wrote the above before I read the other comments. I can now see the reasons for wanting to rebuild the buildings. Rebuilding would make a powerful statement.
Since it is privately owned property the owners are the ones that should finance and build whatever it is they want to build there. We can give them our suggestions about what we would like to see done, but in the end it is up to them to do whatever it is they want to do with the property that they own.
Americans lost faith in their government because of Vietnam, Watergate, stagflation and the Iranian hostage crisis in the 1970s, the Clinton scandals in the 1990s, and pollitical correctness above all. Why PC? Because it evolved as a perversion of the civil rights movement, and held as a fundamental truth that America was racist, sexist, imperialistic, and therefore evil. As such, no leader could be trusted, which meant that no leader could have real authority.
In the 21st century, the Democrats have greatly aggravated this problem by deciding to destroy the Bush administration, regardless of the damage to America. The fallout has been to exacerbate the bitterness between the two parties, and to paralyze the politic process.
That paralysis is much in evidence in NYC. Because no one trusts anyone (as with Democrats and Republicans), then anyone who seeks real authority to actually do something will be opposed by legions of noisy groups, all with lawyers. The last of these problems, lawyers, stems itself from a massive overproduction of such professionals, whose only purpose is to rearrange existing assets, and never to create new ones.
Eventually, as the decision-making paralysis endures, problems of energy, economic growth, bloated government, crumbling infrastructure, a failing educational system, the threat of Islamic terrorism, and moral collapse all fester and grow. At some point, economic growth ceases, jobs are lost, poverty and crime grow, the stock market crashes, unrest comes to the streets, and people cry out for a savior. Older Germans and Italians are familiar with the problem.
Can the Freedom Tower ever be built? Given present circumstances, I doubt it. The symbolism, for us all, is awful.
How a tragedy has resulted in greater tragedy. Our countrymen and women need a gut check. If we want be a strong leading Nation then we need to quit being selfish and build this country up again without quarrel
The reason why it’s taking so long is that there are just too many stakeholders–interested parties that had to be consulted and satisfied. First, you had the 9-11 Families themselves, who became politically organized and insisted that the “footprints” of the original Twin Towers had to be preserved as a memorial. Meaning you couldn’t just rebuild towers on top of the old ones anymore.
Second, you had the New York City Police and Fire Departments. Initially, they were so stunned by 9-11 as to be opposed to building ANY super-tall skyscrapers in New York anymore. It took a lot of negotiation. The design of the Freedom Tower had to be revised again and again with more and more safety features to satisfy them. Now it has a 10 story base composed of two-foot thick reinforced concrete walls and NO windows whatsoever. From the ground it looks like a military bunker–or the Pentagon.
The New York City Police Department knows a truth that it can’t ever admit publicly: When it comes to terrorism, the Freedom Tower is going to be the most dangerous building in the world. It’s an invitation to EVERY terrorist group out there to knock it down and become as famous as Osama bin Laden for 9-11. EVERY terrorist in the world is going to target the Freedom Tower first–if they can. So it had better be designed to be impregnable–no matter how long that takes.
New York City is “iconic” for America: Its skyline is the city that foreigners think of when they think of America. So it is fated to always get the attention of foreign terrorists too. As long as there are international terrorists out there, they will always target New York City, not Billings Montana or Boise Idaho. And in New York City, the Freedom Tower is going to be the main target. So let’s make sure it can withstand the very worst that any terrorist could ever throw at it! It’s gonna need it!
In 1871, four square miles of Chicago, including the central business and government district, burned to the ground. Scores of citizens died. On the same day the last burning building was extinguished, the first load of lumber for rebuilding arrived. In 10 years time, the city was a thriving metropolis, far larer than before, and it sported a new breed of architecture. About 20 years later Chicago hosted 21 million visitors during the World’s Columbian Exposition. Ten years to rebuild a city – better than it was. It is a disgrace that NYC’s leaders cannot rebuild a 16-acre block in that time.
In a way, this whole mess is symbolic of how 9/11 could happen: bureaucratic infighting, the absence of any clear leadership, the emphasis on process over results, the inability to think about the real world as opposed to the symbolic word of ideas so many people live and work in, the lack of accountability, the evasion of responsibility, the absence of shame over never getting anything done, the view that all ideas are equally valid and must all be accommodated simultaneously. The hole in the ground could just as easily be our fiscal policy, our energy policy, our open border, our dreamworld judicial system … even a catastrophe doesn’t inspire any sense of direction, urgency, or decisiveness. Perhaps leaving it as an open hole is actually the best symbol of how it came to happen.
In the old days, there were a few white males wo ran things and got things done. Today, we have a matriarchal society that can accomplish nothing. This country is toast.
Can someone tell me why we can’t just build the exact same two towers that were knocked down? With the only caveat that they are stronger, safer, and one story higher as F&@k You! to those terrorist A-holes.
Sorry, but this discussion feels more like a bunch of kids using this as an excuse to attack those damned liburls that are responsible for all the worlds’ ills. Just what did those socialists / non-capitalists / hippies / liberals have to do with the buildings not going up? Get some Viagra!
Dyer you are onto something… I spontaneously had the same thought.
Somebody ought to launch a campaign.
Rudy would get the job done. Right.
The planning for “rebuilding” the WTC site has been pathetic. Putting up an uninspired development, such as the current proposals, doesn’t cut it. The best course of action is to re-build the Twin Towers either the same height or build them as the tallest buildings in the world while incorporating an appropriate memorial. It’s part of the spirit of this great country to rebuild bigger and better than ever.
I agree that the Twin Towers should be rebuilt. Here’s a group that agrees. Check out this website.
http://www.twintowersalliance.com/
The problem is with the process. Everyone needs to be consulted, and talked to. Special interest groups, oops, I mean, “stakeholders” must have their say. Environmental impact statements, transportation studies, funding agreements, all of the bureaucratic crap that creates work for…wait for it…bureaucrats must occur. And of course, instead of concentrating on the core items, like the memorial, everyone has decided to do add-ons, and extensions. Which, in itself is fine, but NOT when it delays the entire project.
There’s a saying, “everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die”. All the “stakeholders” want their stuff in, their say, etc, but no one wants to be the one with final responsibility, or the one to have to pay for it, because then they’d be blamed for whatever went wrong.
One person, in one level of gov’t must be held responsible for this project. Strict timelines must be set out and ENFORCED. Finally, the money for the project must be spent–borrow it if you have to, but it must be spent.
Last time I checked the WTC site was a private property that was owned and insured by private corporations and individuals. I’m not sure why you are blaming the lack of progress on Government.
Commentary will never ask what Larry Silverstein did with the insurance money.
I think I can hear crickets chirping. No one wants to talk about Larry Silverstein and his insurance money. I believe it was $2.5 billion. How much does a skyscraper cost? It was quite the chutzpah for Larry to try to get $5 billion by claiming that the first airliner was one event and the second airliner was another event. But still, $2.5 billion (plus seven years worth of interest) ain’t chump change. Where’s the money?
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Uh-oh, I must be onto something! Chirp. Chirp. Chirp …
Wiederaufbau der Twin Towers ist viel besser als dieser widerliche und häßliche Freedom Tower. Der Freedom Tower ist so häßlich dass der nur die wunderschöne Skyline verunstaltet. Der muß gestoppt werden und die Twin Towers wieder wachsen so wie sie waren oder höher. Die Twin Towers sind viel schöner als dieser Beton Bunker von Freedom Tower. Wie kann man so einen Bauschrott nur genehmigen. Am besten den Bauplan stoppen und noch mal von vorne anfangen. Der freedom Tower hat nicht verdient zu wachsen sondern wunderschöne leuchtene Twin Towers. Die anderen Bauten sind genauso häßlich wie der Freedom Tower. So ein richtiger Bauschrott. die ganzen vier Gebäude gehören nicht in die besondere Skyline. Die Skyline bekommt den letzten Platz der schönsten der Welt mit so einem Bauschrott.
The WTC is not and never has been privately owned,it was constructed by the Port Authority,which leases it to Silverstein.Please note that the Libeskind plan finished LAST in the “public voting” part of the outrageous travesty of a planning scheme…”Neither” (of the two plans bad enough to be official finalists) won.The officials had already disqualified any plan that didn’t make major mistakes that they required (such as dramatizing terrorist success by leaving all of both old footprints as empty holes,and slamming streets all the way through the site to nullify any claim of resilience).
At the World Trade Center Restoration Movement (see http://www.put.com/wtc for details) we’ve campaigned against this disaster from the day it began.
I am not too surprised by hearing that there will be more delays on the WTC site. Then again, this is not the first delay nor will it be the last one either. Rather than trying to amend this plan to cost lesser or just place it on hold, it should just be stopped and have the Twin Towers rebuilt instead. It is actually cheaper than what is planned. The idea by Kenneth Gardner and the late Herbert Belton, Jr address many of the safety features that the Freedom Tower did not have. Everytime I think of the name Freedom Tower, I ask to myself what kind of freedom does it really represent? My guess is that then-Governor George E. Pataki had the ‘freedom’ to override a public decision to have it go through when it was practically hated by the people constantly. For the record, I have attended most of the hearings, and I have not heard anyone in the audience if any speak in favor of it. Most would find it better to tell their children and grandchildren that the Twin Towers were rebuilt only better rather than say it something totally different came there, because they will probably say, “If they were so important to the world, then why weren’t they just rebuilt.” I know that the families of the terrorists will be happy for the official plan, because it represents the accomplishments they did on 9/11 in taking it away and making sure we were too scared to have them back.
John Podhoretz stated, “Most egregious was the tale of the design competition for the “Freedom Tower” intended to replace the Twin Towers, a preposterous folly with a public voting scheme that ended up being won by the ludicrous Daniel Liebeskind” WRONG ! WRONG ! WRONG ! Daniel Liebeskind’s plan came in LAST ! The “winning” choice was NONE OF THE ABOVE, second came a plan with two skeleton towers, and last was Liebeskind. It was Gov. Pataki who over-ruled this vote & declared Liebeskind the winner.