View Full Version : Washington DC, Sept 25, Muslim prayer day
If this was a Christian gathering, there would be all hell raised.
Is this what our president has inspired and wrought upon us?
On September 25th there will be a national prayer gathering of Muslims on the west front of the U.S. Capitol Building. They are expecting at least 50,000 to attend from mosques all across America. They will gather to pray from 4:00 AM until 7:00 PM. The gathering will take place by the site where U.S. Presidents have been inaugurated since 1981. The organizers say that it was Obama's inauguration speech in January and his speech broadcast from Egypt in June that gave them the idea for this prayer gathering on Capitol Hill.
They have a website set up for this event. If you never look at another website look at this one, especially the final words: "Our time has come".
www.islamoncapitolhill.com
Someone please tell me, the information on that website is not true...crank up the volume and feel the hair on the back of your neck.
I would agree that some people and organizations would be soiling themselves if we had a Christian Prayer Day in DC.
Change you can believe in.
Meanwhile, the organizers of the event face criticism from their fellow Muslims. Source is here (http://www.newtrendmag.org/ntma1300.htm).Worship of the Amercan Power Structure: Muslims being brought like Sheep to a Prayer at the Capitol. September 25.
Doesn't matter if President Obama, the Congress and the Senate are supporting Israel, bombing Pakistan, occupying Afghanistan, undercutting Somalia, backing the slaughter in Nigeria. On September 25 US Muslims in large numbers will be brought to Washington for a prayer at the Capitol with all the signs of American power and genocide around them.
The pro-government elements have been hard at work to make US Muslims think that they and the power structure are friends. Obama is being presented as the friend of the Muslims. ISNA, W.D. Muhammad, Hamza Yusuf etc have worked hard to do the ground work for the depoliticization and insulation of US Muslims from the Muslim world.
Egypt's rulers are playing an important role. Egypt has its religious establishment which is sometimes more effective than that of Saudi Arabia. Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman [the Blind Shaikh] opposed the tyrants and he is in prison for life while the Egyptian official "islam" does not say a word of protest.
Many US Muslims are so depoliticized that if a good reciter of the Qur'an is sent out by the bloodthirsty Egyptian government, they will flock to hear him without asking a question. Two of them are to be main presenters on September 25. One of them, Ahmed Dewidar, is the son of the Egyptian Mufti Tantawi who frequently pleases the tyrant regime with his "fatwas."
Ahmed Dewidar is so much a government man that he stood next to Bush in the 9.11 services. No real Muslim can be proud of standing next to Bush. Here is how Dewidar is described in the publicity material for September 25:
"he stood shoulder to shoulder with US President George W. Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Anan at Ground Zero as Imam of the Islamic Center in Mid-Manhattan to speak on behalf of the Muslim community to condemn the September 11 attacks."
The other presenter Ahmed Jebril delights the crowds with his recitation. The Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, has taught us that such qaris of the Qur'an who are on the side of taghoot are destined for hell fire. [Unfortunately many US Muslims do not know the Qur'anic term taghoot.]And the following interpretation is offered.This helps explain September 25
Beware Muslims! Understand the Obama Strategy to Undermine Muslim Unity
by Sis. Sofia [The writer teaches English in New York city.]
In the past the attacks of Westerners/Americans against Islam and Muslims (after 9/11 particularly) were being done BY THEM overtly.
Now their strategy is to use their "appointed / official "Muslims." Spokespersons (for the Obama regime) are picked with this in mind, namely, to have these appointed Muslims make statements in their discussions / in media, etc. about Islam, the Taleban/ Al-Quaeda, etc., and in doing so they are likely to make statements that would contradict/violate/ Islam or cause them (in their confused "beliefs") to speak negatively about some Qur'anic ayat or current actions of some Muslims such as the retaliations of Muslims against U.S. and Nato attacks in Afghanistan/Pakistan, etc.
So now Muslims are being "used" to do the non-believers' dirty work to destroy the power of Islam and the Muslim Ummah. And it is done against a background where Prez. Obama has set the stage via speeches stating that "they do not hate Islam" etc.
Example: Choosing a follower of Agha Khan
(who/which, in my opinion, is a "cult" because I have seen at first hand how they say their "salat" if one could call it that--It consists of them sitting in a circle at Maghrib time in the dark and spending 20-30 minutes reciting all the names of the past Agha Khans from the first to the rest chronologically. That is their "prayer")
--a man who has a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Religion(s) as spokesperson for Islam to the non-Muslim American population--and not an Imam, who most likely would have good arguments against current political U.S.policies.
The current Obama regime in league with the rest of Nato/Europe seems to have a master plan to fight Islam and Muslims in order to create a world / global power for a small group of oligarchs (corporations/ zionists/ world "leaders" etc.). If you are familiar with NYC Jewish politics you can see how they are aligning themselves to get a Jewish/zionist in the White House in the next U.S. Presidential election with Mayor Bloomberg as the likely President for a "United States of America and Israel."
Ahmed Dewidar himself is no stranger to controversy. On 18 March 2005, Ms. Asra Q Nomani organized a female-led prayer service in New York. Of that event, Mr. Dewidar offered the following view (source is here (http://pakistantimes.net/2005/03/20/top10.htm)).Imam Ahmed Dewidar of the Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan said Friday of a woman leading a mixed-gender prayer: “It’s New York. Everyone can do whatever she wants, or he wants, but we never heard that the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon Him) allowed, or even his wife (May Allah be pleased with Her) ever allowed or did it.”
He said he told his congregation not to get angry about the service but also said he would have preferred that people would have discussed it as a community. Some Islamic scholars have said they were aware of a few other mixed-gender prayer meetings led by women, mostly in the West, but they are very rare.
FWIW, Emily Roland of the Harvard Pluralism Project has put together a piece on the history of America's national prayer day. It is available here (http://pluralism.org/research/profiles/display.php?profile=74229). The mission statement of that project is available here (http://pluralism.org/about/mission.php). A biographical sketch of Ms. Roland is available here (http://pluralism.org/about/research_associates/2006-2007.php).
You see quite a few of these around here on cars, t-shirts, etc.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Warrior-Mentor
09-21-2009, 07:45
I agree with the concept that "Can't we all get along?"
The problem is - we can't.
Some people and some organizations are in capable of simply acepting others differences.
They demand compliance. Islam is one of them.
This naively assumes that they want to play nice. Their doctrine prohibits it....in fact requires hated in the heart for those who have not joined their ideology.
This revised bumper sticker better reflects their intentions. (see attached)
Digressing, it will be interesting to see how this event plays out.
SIOA (Sto pIslamization of America) is a new organization.
They are well intentioned...yet I'm concerned they'll be demonized by the MSM.
http://sioanetwork.com/?page_id=166
The Reaper
09-21-2009, 07:53
You see quite a few of these around here on cars, t-shirts, etc.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Don't see that much here.
The only group on that sticker that seems to want to eliminate the others through violence is the one with the Crescent symbol.
TR
Warrior-Mentor
09-21-2009, 08:14
It gets much worse. At least this event isn't hypothetically endorsed by a government agency!
Look at this crap! Where's the public out cry???
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/09/state-department-at-work-on-911-islam-what-a-billion-muslims-really-think-movie-screening-and-iftar-dinner-for-state.html
The Reaper
09-21-2009, 08:24
Will the POTUS be there?
TR
TOMAHAWK9521
09-21-2009, 08:41
You see quite a few of these around here on cars, t-shirts, etc.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Yes, I see those damn stickers all over town. Then again I live near CSU so it is to be expected that college kids and professors would have that crap on their cars.
I would like to get the modified one that WM showed. That would get some hackles up. :D
Plutarch
09-21-2009, 08:51
You see quite a few of these around here on cars, t-shirts, etc.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
They must hand those out on college campuses. I am near OSU and see those bumper stickers every day.
I see them ALMOST as often as I do burqas.
Warrior-Mentor
09-21-2009, 09:37
Yes, I see those damn stickers all over town. Then again I live near CSU so it is to be expected that college kids and professors would have that crap on their cars.
I would like to get the modified one that WM showed. That would get some hackles up. :D
Found them here:
http://www.zazzle.com/coexist_not_3_bumper_sticker-128977284459491780
Here's one you might want to pick up too:
http://www.zazzle.com/hypocrites_the_bumper_sticker-128726090762531416
Source is here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092502183_pf.html).At Capitol, a Day of Muslim Prayer and Unity
3,000 Gather to Combat Fear and 'Do the Work of Allah' Amid Christian Protests
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Nearly 3,000 people gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol on Friday for a mass Muslim prayer service that was part religion and part pep rally for the beleaguered U.S. Muslim community.
As faint shouts of "Repent!" from Christian protesters floated across the gathering, dozens of long rows of men in robes and white knit caps and women in head coverings prostrated themselves to God, gave praise and listened to sermons as part of the congregational prayer that occurs about noon Fridays.
"Stop being so scared!" thundered Imam Abdul Malik of New York. "You ain't done nothing wrong. Just do the work of Allah, and believe."
The service comes as the Muslim community has been rocked by verbal attacks from conservative Christians that have grown stronger since the election of President Obama and by the recent arrests in a terrorism investigation involving several Muslim men, including an imam.
"We wanted to bring people out to show you don't need to fear America," said Imam Ali Jaaber of Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth N.J., the service's main organizer. At the same time, he said, he wanted to remind non-Muslims that "we are decent Muslims. We work; we pay taxes. We are Muslims who truly love this country."
Across the street from the service, Christian protesters gathered with banners, crosses and anti-Islamic messages. One group, which stood next to a 10-foot-tall wooden cross and two giant wooden tablets depicting the Ten Commandments, was led by the Rev. Flip Benham of Concord, N.C.
"I would suggest you convert to Christ!" Benham shouted over a megaphone. Islam "forces its dogma down your throat." A few Christian protesters gathered at the rear of the Muslim crowd, holding Bibles and praying.
At one point, organizers asked them to tone it down.
"We would never come to a prayer meeting that you have to make a disturbance," Hamad Chebli, imam of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey, said from the lectern. "Please show us some respect. This is a sacred moment. Just as your Sunday is sacred, our Friday is sacred."
The noise from protesters faded somewhat during the final portion of the service, which lasted nearly two hours.
Organizers said this month that they hoped to draw about 50,000 people from mosques across the country for the gathering, billed as a day of unity for the nation's Muslims. But it failed to attract the support of national Islamic organizations and drew only a fraction of that number. Some people were frightened off by the conservative Christian attacks, said Hassen Abdellah, president of Dar-ul-Islam.
Nonetheless, organizers said they were happy with the turnout.
Abdellah had become the focus of criticism in recent days because he was part of the legal team that represented one of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Kia Campbell, a homemaker from Durham, N.C., who came with several members of her family, said they were concerned about their safety.
"It wasn't going to keep us from coming," she said. "But it wasn't that we didn't feel cautious."
Takoma Park engineer Mohammed-Amin AbaBiya said he was happy to be at a "historical" event.
"This shows that America is one, that religion is one," he said, beaming, after the gathering ended and people began to stream off the lawn. "It shows solidarity and brotherhood. In the future, we are going to come more often, I hope."
Source is here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092502183_pf.html).
"This shows that America is one, that religion is one," he said, beaming, after the gathering ended and people began to stream off the lawn. "It shows solidarity and brotherhood. In the future, we are going to come more often, I hope."
Yeah, this beaming shining shit-ass knows as much about real solidarity as a drop of crisco in a wave pool, IMHO.
Will the POTUS be there?TR
Great question Sir! That is all I can say in polite company...
Holly
Yeah, this beaming shining shit-ass knows as much about real solidarity as a drop of crisco in a wave pool, IMHO.
Since you seem to know Mohammed-Amin AbaBiya personally, I shan't add him as a LinkedIn contact <<LINK (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mohammed-amin-ababiya/8/a48/b02)>> or as a friend on Facebook.<<LINK2 (http://www.facebook.com/mababiya?_fb_noscript=1)>>Masters of Telecommunications with strong management and leadership skills. Successfully completed masters of telecommunications engineering degree in three semesters having no prior engineering background. Represented major opposition party of the Ethiopian government in talks with the heads of foreign diplomatic communities. Made accurate language interpretation and translation for refugee seeking asylum in the US which helped several Oromo get their asylum.
Highlights of Relevant Coursework: Advanced Wireless Communication Networks, Principles of Telecom, Communication Protocols, AWS/PCS Sys Implementation, Decision Support Methods for Managers.
Telecommunications Industrial Committee Member, Black Engineers Member
Highlights of Relevant Projects
Networking & Telecommunications
• Masters Project on “Realistic 2G/3G Deployment in Takoma Park and neighboring suburbs of Maryland”
• Planned the deployment of 3-sectored base stations in downtown Washington D.C. and its suburbs to provide adequate cellular coverage using Max Plan. Interface analysis will also be conducted
Business Administration
• Managed with a team of 5 students a $800,000 Marketing Budget plus some discretion fund. Ranked one of the top in market share increasing our profit over two million dollars. Introduced a new product to the market and gained top market share.
• Conducted an analysis of Verizon Wireless’s management and organizational behavior. Write finding, suggest improvements
Yeah, what has this guy done to be worthy of anything but our contempt?:rolleyes:
Successfully completed masters of telecommunications engineering degree in three semesters having no prior engineering background.
I call shenanigans.
I recently fired a couple people that had their Masters and don't know their ass from a hole in the ground that were hired by my predecessor. Resumes are like movie blurbs, and LinkedIn is just an outlet for shameless self-promotion.
I don't know this guy from Adam, but I have a pretty good BS detector.
Since you seem to know Mohammed-Amin AbaBiya personally, I shan't add him as a LinkedIn contact <<LINK (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mohammed-amin-ababiya/8/a48/b02)>> or as a friend on Facebook?<<LINK2 (http://www.facebook.com/mababiya?_fb_noscript=1)>>
Yeah, what has this guy done to be worthy of anything but our contempt?:rolleyes:
Sigaba,
You are correct, sir. His resume is far more advanced than mine. And you are also correct in implying, "Who" am I to question Him after reading His biography?
I would also respectfully submit that you do not know me, other than by rumor or inuendo.
But please know, I would be happy to take this discussion to pm, per PS.com rules. ? But that is your call, as my opinion is just my opinion...it means nothing.
Holly
I would also respectfully submit that you do not know me, other than by rumor or innuendo.
My understanding of you is formed by another source--your own posts. Am I in error for believing that you mean what you say?
My understanding of you is formed by another source--your own posts. Am I in error for believing that you mean what you say?
Sigaba,
My posts' generally reflect what I think. And since you are going to thow me under the bus now, (so-to-speak,) I would ask why you did not take this to pm, per PS.com rules?
Why is that?
So, Sigaba if you want to belittle me, and my opinion on the subject, go for it! I have nothing to hide sir.
Holly
Warrior-Mentor
09-26-2009, 18:08
Maybe he's a nice guy. Maybe he's not.
That's not the point.
Let's not forget who organized this event:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/21/whos-behind-islam-on-capitol-hill/
My posts' generally reflect what I think. And since you are going to throw me under the bus now, (so-to-speak,) I would ask why you did not take this to pm, per PS.com rules?
Why is that?
So, Sigaba if you want to belittle me, and my opinion on the subject, go for it! I have nothing to hide sir.
HollyI reject your suggestions that I'm throwing you 'under the bus' or that I want to 'belittle' you.
I did not see the need to communicate my dissent via private message. This exchange of views on Mr. AbaBiya's value as a human being and state of knowledge is consistent with other exchanges of differing viewpoints elsewhere in this thread and on this BB in general.
Are you expressing a preference that I only voice my disagreement with your comments via PM?
Maybe he's a nice guy. Maybe he's not.
That's not the point.
Let's not forget who organized this event:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/21/whos-behind-islam-on-capitol-hill/
Wm,
Great link! Very eye-opening as to the true grit behind the blessed, peaceful kum-by-ya event...Wonder why this little tidbit was not flying high on their banners?:rolleyes:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/21/whos-behind-islam-on-capitol-hill/
Who’s behind the event?
Andrew Walden at FrontPageMag.com reports:
"Attorney and “main organizer” of “Islam on Capitol Hill”, Hassen Ibn Abdellah is President of the Elizabeth, New Jersey Dar ul-Islam, Inc. Abdellah was, described October 25, 1993 by the New York Times, as the “most aggressively combative of the lawyers” representing the terrorists who staged the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. His client, the Egyptian-born Mahmud Abouhalima, was convicted of helping to manufacture and transport the bomb detonated in the 1993 attack and is now incarcerated in the Federal “Supermax” prison at Florence, Colorado.
In 2004 Abdellah represented Numan Maflahi, a New Jersey Muslim tied to al-Qaeda fundraising. The New York Times July 10, 2004 reported:
Prosecutors said Mr. Maflahi, a gas station owner who lives in Little Ferry, N.J., had been the driver and personal assistant for Sheik Abdullah Satar, a former member of parliament in Yemen. They have described Sheik Satar as a fund-raiser with ties to Al Qaeda.
Yesterday, Mr. Maflahi’s lawyer, Hassen Ibn Abdellah, told Judge Nina Gershon of Federal District Court in Brooklyn that her sentencing decision was a test of whether “this country could be fair to Arab-Americans."
Five years later, why does the “aggressively combative” Abdellah think his “Time Has Come”? The August 31 Newark Star-Ledger explains: “It was President Obama’s words at his inauguration in January, and then his speech in Egypt in June, that led Abdellah and an area imam, Abdul Malik, to begin discussing the idea….”
Are you expressing a preference that I only voice my disagreement with your comments via PM?
Sigaba,
Well that gave me a chuckle! Disagree away!:munchin
Holly
And who decides when it becomes such an ignominous task for an attorney to provide a vigorous defense for a client as guaranteed in an American court of law? :confused:
FWIW - here's a bit of interesting background on Mr Abdellah:
A Singular Defense Team; Religion and Variety of Styles Help Set Lawyers Apart in Trade Center Bombing Trial
Richard Bernstein, NYT, 25 Oct 1993
There comes a moment in the trial of four men in the bombing of the World Trade Center when worlds mingle and sometimes clash.
The scene is this: A tall Federal agent with the standard-issue mustache and dark blue suit has been led through his testimony by a prosecutor (who, except for the mustache, looks quite a lot like the witness). The prepared testimony finished, the moment for improvisation arrives and Hassen Ibn Abdellah, a slim, agile man with a closely cropped beard, strides to the lawyer's podium and interrupts the smooth and cozy proceeding.
Mr. Abdellah does not fit many people's stereotype of a trial lawyer. He is no Perry Mason, no Arnold Becker, smugly defending his clients all the way to the bank. He is not Christian or Jewish. He is not white. But, in a trial that has been generally more a courteous playing field than an arena for dramatic confrontation, he is by far the most aggressively combative of the lawyers in the case. Not Conforming to an Image
The first three weeks of testimony have shown that when Mr. Abdellah strides to the lawyer's stand to question a Government witness, the temperature in the courtroom is going to rise a degree or two.
In fact, Mr. Abdellah is not the only one of the eight defense lawyers in the World Trade Center case who does not conform to any standard Ivy League image. Five of the lawyers are Muslims. They include a Pakistani-American and a Palestinian-American as well as Mr. Abdellah and the two other black lawyers helping him represent Mahmud Abouhalima, the Egyptian-born former taxi driver accused of helping to manufacture and transport the bomb used in the attack.
One lawyer, Atiq R. Ahmed, who represents Nidal A. Ayyad, is relatively gentle in his cross-examinations, deliberately probing Government witnesses for information that might be useful to the defense. Another lawyer, Robert E. Precht, who represents Mohammed A. Salameh, the lead defendant, seems more traditional in his approach, assuming what might be called a politely oppositional stance toward witnesses. The fourth lawyer in the case, Austin V. Campriello, whose client, Ahmad M. Ajaj, has been in prison in another case since well before the bombing, has been content to remain on the sidelines.
Mr. Abdellah, by contrast, has cross-examined half or more of the Government witnesses, and in doing so he has come on like an avenging wind. He challenges their expertise. He reminds the jury that the witnesses have been coached by the prosecutors beforehand. His machine-gun approach seems aimed at rattling his adversaries, goading them into some inconsistency regarding what they saw and when they saw it.
It remains to be seen how effective Mr. Abdellah's style will be with the jury, which has a mixture of black and white members, though it has no Muslims.
There is an up-from-the-street quality about all three of the attorneys on Mr. Abouhalima's team. All of them are from what one of them, Clarence Faines 3d, calls "the 'Hood" in Elizabeth or Newark, N.J. Like the defendants, all are Muslims. None of them have ever argued a case in Federal court before, much less in a case of this magnitude.
"Not only are we Muslims," Mr. Abdellah said in a lunchtime break from the trial last week. "But this is a case where people can say we represent the American dream. We don't come from affluent homes. We come from urban America."
"The American dream," Mohammed Ibn Bashir joined in, "is that you start from humble origins, you work hard, your parents keep you on the straight and narrow, and eventually you can succeed.
"We are 100 percent that. All the ingredients are there."
Mr. Bashir, at 39 the oldest of the three, grew up in Elizabeth, went to Thomas Jefferson High School there and then to Howard University and Howard University Law School. He was a public defender for five years and has a law practice in New Jersey.
Mr. Faines, 38, was born in North Carolina but grew up in Newark and went to Rutgers and Rutgers Law School. Between 1988 and 1992 he was an assistant corporation counsel to the City of Newark and is now a partner in Faines, Washington & Jones in Montclair.
Mr. Abdellah, 35, was a childhood friend of Mr. Bashir in Elizabeth. He went to Bucknell University and Seton Hall Law School. He and Mr. Bashir remember the day when they were teen-agers and were identified to the police, falsely, by a homeowner in Elizabeth as the two young black men who had broken into her home.
"I said to the cops, 'We don't have anything that the woman said was stolen, and we're wearing clean white pants,' " Mr. Abdellah said. He said the pants were important because the robber had made his escape by sliding down a drainpipe that ended in a coal yard and was seen running through the coal yard.
"That's when I decided I was going to be a lawyer," Mr. Bashir said.
That was by no means the last time Mr. Abdellah and his associates have been forced to confront racial stereotypes. Mr. Faines recalls walking into a courtroom once in Passaic County and a court officer reflexively asking him if he was looking for his lawyer.
"I told him that the last time I saw my lawyer was when I looked at myself in the mirror that morning," Mr. Faines said. "He apologized immediately."
Mr. Bashir also remembers a criminal trial in which a prosecution witness was asked to point out the defendant. She pointed to Mr. Bashir.
But Mr. Faines also remembers the corporation counsel in Newark who scheduled meetings on Fridays to give Mr. Faines time to attend prayers at the mosque on Jumma, the Muslim sabbath. Mr. Abdellah speaks of the state court judge in New Jersey who arranged Friday court sessions so that he could do the same thing.
"That's the beauty of our system," Mr. Abdellah said. "There's no problem with the practice of Islam."
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/25/nyregion/singular-defense-team-religion-variety-styles-help-set-lawyers-apart-trade.html?pagewanted=all
And so it goes...:munchin
And who decides when it becomes such an ignominous task for an attorney to provide a vigorous defense for a client as guaranteed in an American court of law? :confused:
FWIW - here's a bit of interesting background on Mr Abdellah:
And so it goes...:munchin
When remembering the WTC bombing of 1993, and then the attack on 9-11, Rick Rescorla's story comes to mind.
My company (MSDW) lost only a handful of employees that day, due to his bravery, courage and sadly, his ultimate sacrifice.:(
This is a good read on the events of those days, and His military service prior to.:munchin
http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9-11/forewarned/morgan-stanley-warned-and-employees-saved-on-911.txthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A56956-2001Oct26.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56956-2001Oct26
A Tower of Courage
On September 11, Rick Rescorla Died as He Lived: Like a Hero
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 28, 2001; Page F01
"You watching TV?"
Rick Rescorla was calling from the 44th floor of the World Trade Center, icy calm in the crisis. When Rescorla was a platoon leader in Vietnam, his men called him Hard Core, because they had never seen anyone so absurdly unflappable in the face of death. Now he was vice president for corporate security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., and a jumbo jet had just plowed into the north tower. The voices of officialdom were crackling over the loudspeakers in the south tower, urging everyone to stay put: Please do not leave the building. This area is secure. Rescorla was ignoring them.
"The dumb sons of bitches told me not to evacuate," he said during a quick call to his best friend, Dan Hill, who had indeed been watching the disaster unfolding on TV. "They said it's just Building One. I told them I'm getting my people the [expletive] out of here."
Keep moving, Rescorla commanded over his megaphone while Hill listened. Keep moving.
"Typical Rescorla," Hill recalls. "Incredible under fire."
Morgan Stanley lost only six of its 2,700 employees in the south tower on Sept. 11, an isolated miracle amid the carnage. And company officials say Rescorla deserves most of the credit. He drew up the evacuation plan. He hustled his colleagues to safety. And then he apparently went back into the inferno to search for stragglers. He was the last man out of the south tower after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and no one seems to doubt that he would've been again last month if the skyscraper hadn't collapsed on him first. One of the company's secretaries actually snapped a photo of Rescorla with his megaphone that day, a 62-year-old mountain of a man coolly sacrificing his life for others.
It was an epic death, one of those inspirational hero-tales that have sprouted like wildflowers from the Twin Towers rubble. But it turns out that retired Army Col. Cyril Richard Rescorla led an epic life as well. In this time when heroes are being proclaimed all around, when brave actions are understandably hailed as proofs of character, here was a man whose heroism was a matter of public record long before Sept. 11.
At the same time, Rescorla's own fascination with heroism and hero- tales was a matter of private record. He even co-wrote a screenplay about the World War II infantry legend Audie Murphy. Rescorla was a man of introspection as well as action, and some of his final soul- searching e-mails provide an eerie commentary on his final day.
Rescorla, after all, was once an infantryman himself, declared a "battlefield legend" in the 1992 bestseller "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young." Another photo of Rescorla -- gaunt back then, unshaven, carrying his M-16 rifle with bayonet fixed -- graced the book's cover and became an enduring image of the Vietnam War.
The survivors of the 7th Cavalry still tell awestruck stories about Rescorla. Like the time he stumbled into a hooch full of enemy soldiers on a reconnaissance patrol in Bon Song. Oh, pardon me, he said, before firing a few rounds and racing away.
"Oh comma pardon me," repeats Dennis Deal, who followed Rescorla that day in April 1966. "Like he had walked into a ladies' tea party."
Or the time a deranged private pulled a .45-caliber pistol on an officer while Rescorla was nearby, sharpening his bowie knife. "Rick just walked right between them and said: Put. Down. The. Gun," recalls Bill Lund, who served with Rescorla in Vietnam. "And the guy did. Then Rick went back to his knife. He was flat out the bravest man any of us ever knew."
This was Rescorla's last e-mail to his daughter at law school, dated Sept. 10:
"Your mission . . . should you choose to accept it . . . dream, then scheme. . . . This country will be coming out of its slump about two years from now. It's going to be a time for legal eagles of all kinds to leave their rocky promontories, spread their wings, and do what eagles tend to do. . . ."
On Sept. 11, Rick Rescorla's alarm bounced him out of bed at 4:30 a.m.
Susan remembers him emerging from the bathroom, imitating Anthony Hopkins as the weirdo ventriloquist in "Magic," the movie they had rented the night before.
Then he broke into a British ditty, but she can't remember which one. She wishes she could.
He put on a gray shirt and a custom-made pinstripe suit.
She selected his matching red silk tie.
They kissed goodbye, and Rick was gone, off to the commuter train.
He called Susan at 8:15 a.m. from his corner office on the 44th floor.
"He told me he loved me. He said he didn't need the movies -- he had me," she says.
Rescorla wasn't even supposed to be at work that day. Susan's daughter Alexandra was getting married the next week in a 10th- century Tuscan castle, and they had planned to go abroad early. But his deputy, Ihab Dana, wanted to visit Lebanon, so Rescorla delayed his own vacation. "It should've been me in there," Dana says. "Rick was like a father to me."
The first plane struck the north tower at 8:48 a.m. Moments later, Morgan Stanley employees began evacuating the 44th through 74th floors.
Pt. 2
"Really, Rick made that decision in 1993," Dana says. "He saved thousands of lives."
After the truck bombing that year, Rescorla had warned Hill: Next time by air. He expected a cargo plane, possibly loaded with chemical or biological weapons. In any case, he insisted on marching his troops through evacuation drills every few months. The investment bankers and brokers would gripe, but Rescorla would respond with his Seven P's: Proper prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance. He wanted to develop an automatic flight response at Morgan Stanley, to burn it into the company's DNA.
According to Barbara Williams, a security guard who worked for him for 11 years, Rescorla was in his office when the first plane hit. He took a call from the 71st floor reporting the fireball in One World Trade Center, and he immediately ordered an evacuation of all 2,700 employees in Building Two, as well as 1,000 Morgan Stanley workers in Building Five across the plaza. They walked down two stairways, two abreast, just as they had practiced. Williams could see Rescorla on a security camera with his bullhorn, dealing with a bottleneck on the 44th-floor lobby, keeping people off the elevators.
"Calm, as always," she says.
In his cell phone call to Hill, Rescorla said he had just spoken to a Port Authority official, who had told him to keep everyone at their stations. "I said: Everything above where that plane hit is gonna collapse," Rescorla recounted to Hill. "The overweight will take the rest of the building with it. And Building One could take out Building Two."
That, of course, is not exactly what ended up happening. But by the time the second hijacked jet rammed into the south tower at 9:07 a.m., many Morgan Stanley employees were already out of the building, and just about all of them were on their way out.
The rest of Rick Rescorla's morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.
John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. "Rick, you've got to get out, too," Olson told him.
"As soon as I make sure everyone else is out," Rescorla replied.
Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that "today is a day to be proud to be American" and that "tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you." They say he also sang "God Bless America" and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don't sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis.
But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn't evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog's tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.
"He was selfless in that situation, and that's your ultimate character test," Sloss says. "He was not rattled at all. He was putting the lives of his colleagues ahead of his own."
Susan Rescorla watched the United Airlines jet carve through her husband's tower, and she dissolved in tears. After a while, her phone rang. It was Rick.
"I don't want you to cry," he said. "I have to evacuate my people now."
She kept sobbing.
"If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life."
The phone went dead.
Susan watched the south tower implode in that unforgettable plume of smoke. She ran wailing into the street. She doesn't know why she did that. One of her neighbors did the same thing -- her husband had been at a meeting on the 100th floor.
The Rescorlas embarked on the grieving rituals that became so familiar to the world. The trips from hospital to hospital. The posters. The vigils. The desperate hope: If anyone could make it out of there, Rick could.
She kept calling his cell phone and hearing his message and disintegrating all over again.
Rick did not make it out. Neither did two of his security officers who were at his side. But only three other Morgan Stanley employees died when their building was obliterated.
In the end, there was no great mystery to Rescorla's actions on Sept. 11.
It would have been mysterious if he had reacted any differently. And everyone who knew Rescorla agrees that if he had survived the evacuation, he would have said he was just doing his job. That's what Rescorla said after Vietnam, what Audie Murphy said after World War II.
"The man died as he lived," says Galloway, the co-author of "We Were Soldiers," who is now a consultant for Secretary of State Colin Powell. "What makes some people react like this, God only knows. In Rick's case, you always expected it."
The only real mystery is why Rescorla ultimately got his chance to Corvette forward into that dark night, why he never had to get spoon- fed in his nappies. It is not the kind of mystery that could ever be solved.
But to the friends he left behind, his death made a kind of cosmic sense on a day when the universe was out of order: The right man in the right place at the right time. He left in a blaze of glory. With no parade.
Nice story echoes but it has nothing to do with Richard's question.
And who decides when it becomes such an ignominous task for an attorney to provide a vigorous defense for a client as guaranteed in an American court of law? :confused:
Richard, Sir,
In answer to your above question, I have no idea, as my reply was from my gut, and in no way was an attempt to provide a qualified response to the question. And in the future, I will not engage in these type discussion threads, as they are over my head, and way out of my league.
Holly:)
And who decides when it becomes such an ignominous task for an attorney to provide a vigorous defense for a client as guaranteed in an American court of law? :confused:
FWIW - here's a bit of interesting background on Mr Abdellah:
And so it goes...:munchin
How about when the Client is given all the rights guaranteed in the American Court of Law. When he actually committed an act of war. Since he purposely targeted civilians. He should be tried as a War Criminal. In a Military Court. Like I said before. They know they can not beat us Militarily. So they are using propaganda, legal system and the Media. They are winning.
rltipton
10-04-2009, 19:24
How about when the Client is given all the rights guaranteed in the American Court of Law. When he actually committed an act of war. Since he purposely targeted civilians. He should be tried as a War Criminal. In a Military Court. Like I said before. They know they can not beat us Militarily. So they are using propaganda, legal system and the Media. They are winning.
Bingo