Husband of WTC survivor Lauren, Greg Manning appeared on Fox News this morning about our rally tomorrow, Saturday December 5, at noon in Foley Square, in lower Manhattan. The rally will be in front of the same federal courthouse — a mere six blocks from al Qaeda’s greatest victory — where AG Eric Holder thinks war criminal Khalid Sheihk Mohammed should be given a stage, Constitutional rights, the right to act as his own attorney, and to see the classified evidence against him during time of war. Greg Manning calls the decision “outrageous.”
Do you believe that Greg and Lauren Manning hold the minority view among 9/11 family members, survivors, first responders, and eye witnesses of that day and those that followed? Here is a sampling (that I will add to today and tonight) from the hundreds of comments and emails from them:
On 9/11/01 I worked on the 40th floor of the Federal Building and witnessed first hand the horrific terrorist attack on the WTC. As a Federal official involved in assisting the survivors’ families, I saw the terrible list of the 343 heroic firefighters and the NYPD and NJNYPA police officers. To permit this show trial to take place here is despicable. And we all know how this will end, with more terrorist attacks on New York, whether in the subways or on buses or train lines, or a Major Hassan style shoot-out in the streets. This trial must be stopped, lives are at stake. — Paul Doersam
I was working the elections that day and at the main center on Houston Street, I saw the attack. This will stay with me forever, and I cannot believe that these people are being given a fair trial as if it was a criminal act. THIS WAS A WAR CRIME. I had three people who could not get to their homes that evening stay at my apartment in New York City Greenwich Village. We went to the Fire Station with new socks (sounds minimal), but the firemen were thrilled to have dry socks … all of New York shared in this horror. No trial in New York City! — Barbara Harkness
As a mother who lost her 23 year old son on September 11th, and recently visited GTMO and saw this animal in action [Ed. — That link is proof of her words], I am grief-stricken that Eric Holder has made a decision to move KSM to Manhattan. My son deserves justice. This terrorist does not deserve the rights he stole from the Americans he murdered. NOR does he deserve the media circus his being in NYC will feed. I only wish that the brave young men and women who found him had just killed him then and there. — Judith Reiss, mother of Joshua Scott Reiss, World Trade Center
I don’t know where to right this letter so I am putting it here. For 4 months I worked at the WTC, I was the night shift supervisor for the clean up of the North Tower and building 6. Not a night went by that I didn’t feel the grief emanating from Ground Zero. I can’t explain to you the pain or the nightmares that I have. I felt the anguish of those left behind by this mass murder. I called my 15 year old son from the site one night and through my tears I told him how much I loved him, realizing how tenuous our lives can be. On Christmas eve a girl of about 5, in a yellow dress and holding a doll, appeared to me and asked “Where’s my daddy?” One night in January I dressed to go back to “The Pit” and when I got to my door I couldn’t open it. I broke down and I knew I could never go back there. To this day I feel that I let you people down by not helping to look through the 10% of debris that still remained for your loved ones. I’m sorry but I did all I could. I want you do know that it was never just a job. It’s hard to explain but it was the hardest job I ever had to go to but in the morning it was also the hardest job to leave. — Christian Heinbockel
Additional entries will appear below, as I add them.