As The Free Press recently reported, Washington University student Fadel Alkilani yanked out 2,977 small U.S. flags that the College Republicans group at the St. Louis campus had planted in memory of each victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Alkilani said he removed the flags, and marred the memory of the innocent victims of radical Muslim terrorism, as a way to protest “Islamophobia.”
Yet it seems Alkilani was not alone.
The conservative group Young America’s Foundation, which sponsored a “9/11: Never Forget Project” to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, reports that its displays at other schools were also disrupted or destroyed.
At the University of Virginia, for example, thugs stomped on and kicked over many of the 2,977 U.S. flags that YAF put there. They also flipped over a table with the “Never Forget” display.
After UVA President Jim Ryan praised the YAF display, some left-wing students lashed out on social media, according to YAF. They smeared the YAF and Ryan as racists and “neo-Nazi” for honoring the 9/11 victims.
At Michigan State University, vandals spray-painted black the word “Never” on YAF’s 9/11 memorial, so it only said “Forget.” They also painted the word “Israel” over the U.S. painted on the memorial.
Charlie Jones, the YAF chairman on the campus, said, “It’s stunning that someone would vandalize a memorial to the victims of the September 11th attacks, but it also underscores why we do this every year — to ensure that the innocent lives taken that day are never forgotten.”
At Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, the College Republicans had planted the 2,977 flags in a grassy area and wrote in chalk on the walkway, “In loving memory of those who died on 9/11.” A vandal subsequently erased that wording and wrote instead “there is blood on U.S. hands.”
In summing up all these attacks, YAF columnist Julia Johnson observed, “These cruel acts show a disdain for our country, a disrespect for our flag, and an utter disregard for the lives lost on that fateful September day. On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, we have let ourselves forget.”
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