Debra Burlingame

9/11, Barack Obama, Congress, Debra Burlingame, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Keep America Safe, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Military Commission

KSM trial non-decision angers 9/11 family members; Obama ‘changes’ stance on Gitmo tribunals

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I participated in yesterday’s White House conference call briefing to 9/11 family members; they provided us nothing new as to when or where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his lieutenant co-conspirators would be tried.

The Washington Times reported this morning:

Debra Burlingame, co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and a board member of Keep America Safe, said she was upset at the White House after participating in a conference call with families of the victims of 9/11. “What we heard today is that despite the fact that Congress has closed every loophole for trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in Article III courts, the White House is persistent in defying the will of the American people and plans to do it anyway,” she said.

The briefers stated to us, “President Obama remains committed to using Article III courts for terrorists,” and added, “The President will work with Congress to lift the restrictions imposed in December 2010.” Last month, the House passed legislation that would extend the bar to all federal agencies imposed against using DOD funding for transferring Gitmo detainees to the U.S.

All of the questions during the call came from 9/11 family members.

The White House could not say how the Justice Department would overcome objections by officials in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania to 9/11 civilian trials in those states and reconcile such a decision with 6th Amendment requirements. They could not provide information as to when the decision would be made. They dodged questions about why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts were not being tried by Military Commission, at Guantanamo, and not being placed at that “top of the list.” They disputed one family member’s assertion that the 9/11 plotters were not being given top priority but provided no evidence to support their counter-argument. One 9/11 family member tersely told White House briefers, “This call is a waste of time.”

Many aging parents of the 2,976 slaughtered on 9/11 will not live to see justice done for the war crimes committed against their loved ones. But President Obama is “taking the issue off the table” for the 2012 election campaign; it will be “all Congress’s fault” if they do not let him bring foreign enemies onto U.S. soil and bestow them with Constitutional rights.

9/11, Debra Burlingame, Ground Zero, Imam Rauf, Mayor Bloomberg, mosque

Mayor Bloomberg and a political ‘fix’ in for the Ground Zero mosque

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The New York Post reports that ‘City Hall ghostwrote GZ mosque’s letter.’ There is more but let’s start there:

Dozens of e-mails between Mayor Bloomberg’s aides and developers of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero reveal a cordial, if not downright cozy, relationship and the length to which a top city staffer went to help the project — even drafting a letter for the group soliciting support from the community board, and providing the fax number to send it.

In one exchange, Community Affairs Commissioner Nazli Parvizi penned the draft of a letter to be sent by Daisy Khan, a key sponsor of the project known alternately as Cordoba House or Park51, to the chairperson of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, as the panel prepared to vote on its recommendation on the project.

The letter drafted by Parvizi thanked Menin for being open-minded about the plan for a mosque and cultural center — which by then had become a flashpoint issue around the nation.
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Opponents of the plan were furious.

“The mayor was touting, ironically, government not being involved in religion, and here you have the mayor’s staffer assisting in a public-relations campaign on behalf of a mosque and Islamic center,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11.

Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf provided Nazli Parvizi a revised draft, In it, the Cordoba Initiative requested the Community Board 1 withdraw its resolution (later voted on and approved) to the Landmarks Preservation Commission that the Burlington Coat Factory be “de-designated” as an historical landmark.

Landmark preservation lawyer Shelly Friedman represents the Cordoba Initiative. Friedman (and Friedman and Gotbaum LLP) financially donates to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Robert B. Tierney chairs New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Friedman emailed Rauf and remindied him of the game plan:

“withdrawing the resolution may affect [Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s and City Council Member Chin’s] thinking about how helpful they can be on June 22 [at the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting]. That in itself may not be fatal to getting 45 PP de-designated, but I do know that Chairman Tierney was looking forward to the “political cover” their support would provide him.”

But Friedman holds a special disdain for the overwhelming majority of 9/11 family members and first responders who oppose a mosque and Islamic “cultural center” that would espouse the “merits” of discriminatory sharia law at Ground Zero.

As you read this next passage by him in that same email to Rauf, recall that in 2005, 9/11 family members and first responders successfully lobbied against the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation placing an ‘International Freedom Center’ touting “political discourse in the public square.” Mayor Bloomberg was all for a ‘hate America first’ cultural center being built at the entrance-way to the 9/11 memorial and museum on Ground Zero. Friedman wrote:

“Your local opponents have chosen their position against Islam as mere convenience. As I said earlier, these are the forces that have already buried two governors and fought to a standstill the current governor, the current mayor, the strongest economic development agency in America (the Port Authority), the NYC Real Estate Industry and at least two investment banks (Morgan and Goldman Sachs) which saw their plans for the WTC either destroyed of significantly reduced. [Bloomberg handed Goldman Sachs $130 million in Liberty bonds as a consolation prize.] They chased away every major NYC cultural institution off the site which interfered with or impinged upon their vision of the site as a memorial.”

Obviously, Mayor Bloomberg and his cronies put the political fix in for a ‘hate America always’ cultural center at Ground Zero.