Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal wagered that the 2 to 1 ruling by a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Al-Marri v. Wright will be overturned on appeal. Their thinking is Judges Motz and Gregory were creative when they ruled Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri cannot be held as an enemy combatant because he had not “set foot in the soil “alongside” the forces of an enemy state, — i.e., Iraq or Afghanistan.” This morning, in the Wall Street Journal’s letter to the editor section, 9/11 family member Mike Burke weighed in with this:

In response to your June 14 editorial “Al Qaeda’s American Harbor”:

It is reassuring to know that, under the ruling by the Fourth Circuit court, if a Mohammid Atta were apprehended today, before he could murder several thousand people, he would be properly freed and, I’m sure, the authorities who seized him appropriately castigated. Thankfully, the Fourth Circuit is there to protect our civil liberties and protect our right to die at the hands of terrorists who are not “enemy combatants.”

Interestingly, the silence from those who for years have lambasted the Bush administration over 9/11 is deafening. It makes one wonder if the demand for accountability was to ensure national security or to put a head on a plate.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, my brother, FDNY Capt. Billy Burke of Engine Co. 21, called from his firehouse to his family and friends in New York, before the second plane hit, to warn them, “We are under terrorist attack!” To refer to them as “terrorists” was highly politically incorrect in regard to those who flew the planes that “hit” the towers (the poor “wretched” and “have nots,” as Bill Clinton’s assistant secretary of state called them at Yale a few days after).

Regrettably, he did not have time to consider their “combatant” status. Well, at least he didn’t call them “enemy combatants.” That sort of designation would be in violation of the spirit of the $500 million, eight-acre 9/11 “memorial” at the WTC site that won’t mention the attacks (or “terrorists”) — so that it will avoid “telling us what to think.” An hour later, when on the 27th floor of WTC 1 and aware of the collapse of WTC 2, my brother ordered the successful evacuation of his men and that of Engine 24 and the civilians they helped save.

Capt. Billy Burke perished with Ed Beya, a quadriplegic and Abe Zelmanowitz, his friend, who would not leave Ed’s side. He had an idea of what duty demanded of him — not nuance, not ambivalence, not legal technicalities. Just like Abe Zelmanowitz, he would follow it or not.

I suppose my brother would not have made a very good judge or “memorialist.” However, like his 407 New York Fire Department brothers and two sisters and the millions who throughout history have given their lives for justice before him, it is people like him whom civilization counts on.

Michael Burke
Bronx, N.Y.

Well said, Mike.

Editor — Mr. Burke has not forgotten. His mentioning “two sisters” is evidence that his draft to the WSJ pointed out that 60 New York City and Port Authority police officers perished among those 407. I suspect a WSJ editor omitted them for the sake of brevity.