EDITORIAL

Does this face look familiar?

There was a time when it belonged to America's "Most Wanted" man. Now he seldom gets a mention.

Seven years ago, after it was learned that he was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he was first and foremost in the news.

Wanted posters seemed to be everywhere and vows were made to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

He was never found—and never silenced. From time to time, he sends out another message of doom to the world, continuing to prove as elusive as the Invisible Man.

But take a look at the record. Seven years later, bin Laden is still in the wind and the World Trade Center remains an empty space in the City of New York.

While the site is referred to as Ground Zero or The Pit, neither suggests the depth of ineptitude that has prevented a rise from the ashes.

The latest Sept. 11 memorial is on the drawing board with a target date of 2012, though it's not as if two towers of 110 floors are being rebuilt. Where the WTC once stood, there will be a waterfall and a museum—complete with a pavilion and an atrium—that will house two trident columns from the original Twin Towers.

It was announced that "the current plans call for the pavilion to be clad largely in metal panels: stainless steel, if the budget permits; aluminum if not."

Whatever happened to the notion that only the best would do to honor the dead?

Once again, the city today will fall silent at 8:46 a.m., the moment when the first hijacked plane hit the North Tower.

Subsequent moments of silence are set for 9:03 a.m., when the second plane struck the South Tower; and at 9:59 a.m. and 10:29 a.m., when each tower collapsed.

It was reported in The New York Times on Tuesday that "there are many Middle Eastern countries that maintain that Osama bin Laden was not totally responsible for the attacks of 9/11 and that the United States and Israel had to have been involved in their planning, if not their execution, too." The article also reports that "the attacks were part of a conspiracy against Muslims."

Enough with this revisionist history. Never forget that the Twin Towers were brought down by fanatical Islamic Muslims, their leader was Osama bin Laden and given the opportunity, more of his followers will attack again.