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“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” — President John F. Kennedy We have been sending out op-eds for the past two years that were allowed to whither on the vine. If any one of them had been edited and presented to the public, an immediate national debate would have ensued. There can be no doubt about that, but a politcally correct agenda has deprived the public of the facts they needed to make informed judgments. Just as support for rebuilding has been bipartisan, so has the unwillingness to let this discussion happen. What are they afraid of? “For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “Just Powers – The TTA Memorial Day 2007 Message “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” The Twin Towers were not generic buildings – they were world-famous icons. They stood for something. And if they are lost, so is what they stood for. It can’t be transferred. If we can’t restore one of the signature symbols of our vibrant democracy, then how vibrant can it really be?  This image was created by Robin Heid, a former Army paratrooper and the Executive Coordinator of Team Twin Towers. His visionary take on rebuilding the Twin Towers is an outgrowth of his years in the military and later, in counter-terrorism. In his “Open Letter to the People of New York” he makes it plain that he doesn’t think anyone deserves a pass on bungling the fight on this vital front in the “War on Terror”, where images are powerful weapons for good or ill. It is time for public officials to recognize that rebuilding the Twin Towers would be the most dramatic and eloquent statement we could make to the world of our resilience and resolve – and that we owe the brave men and women who defend us nothing less. Team Twin Towers’ Open Letter to the People of New York Robin Heid is a Founding Member of the Twin Towers Alliance.
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