9/11, Barack Obama, Debra Burlingame, Ground Zero, mosque, Shariah

Debra Burlingame: 9/11 Families Stunned by President’s Support of Mosque at Ground Zero

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
Statement of Debra Burlingame, Co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America, in Response to President Obama’s Remarks about the Ground Zero Mosque

9/11 Families Stunned by Presidents Support of Mosque at Ground Zero

New York, NY, Aug. 14 — Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see. Since that dark day, Americans have been asked to bear the burden of defending those values, again and again and again. Now this president declares that the victims of 9/11 and their families must bear another burden. We must stand silent at the last place in America where 9/11 is still remembered with reverence or risk being called religious bigots.

Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a “deeply traumatic event,” it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit.

We are stunned by the president’s willingness to disregard what Americans should be proud of: our enduring generosity to others on 9/11–a day when human decency triumphed over human depravity. On that day, when 3,000 of our fellow human beings were killed in barbaric act of raw religious intolerance unlike this country had ever seen, Americans did not turn outward with hatred or violence, we turned to each other, armed with nothing more than American flags and countless acts of kindness. In a breathtakingly inappropriate setting, the president has chosen to declare our memories of 9/11 obsolete and the sanctity of Ground Zero finished. No one who has lived this history and felt the sting of our country’s loss that day can truly believe that putting our families through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace.

We will honor the memory of our loved ones. We will protect our children, whose lives will never be the same. We will not stand silent.

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9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America
Co-founders Debra Burlingame and Tim Sumner
Contact: media@911familiesforamerica.org

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Editor —

We thank our fellow Americans for standing with us, including Doug Powers at MichelleMalkin.com.

Please, also visit our coalition web site StopThe911Mosque.com.

9/11, Ground Zero, Michael Bloomberg, mosque

Neda Bolourchi: A Muslim victim of 9/11: ‘Build your mosque somewhere else’

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She saw her mother slaughtered on 9/11 and she is a Muslim. If any of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s elitist American friends have hearts that beat for something more than money, power, and ideology, they might not want to read the opinion page of the Washington Post this morning; Neda Bolourchi might get to them:

I have no grave site to visit, no place to bring my mother her favorite yellow flowers, no spot where I can hold my weary heart close to her. All I have is Ground Zero.
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The Sept. 11 attacks were the product of a hateful ideology that the perpetrators were willing to die for. They believed that all non-Muslims are infidels and that the duty of Muslims is to renounce them. I am not a theologian, but I know that the men who killed my mother carried this message in their hearts and minds. Obedient and dutiful soldiers, they marched toward their promised rewards in heaven with utter disregard for the value of the human beings they killed.

I know Ground Zero is not mine alone; I must share this sanctuary with tourists, politicians, anyone who chooses to come, whatever their motivations or intentions. But a mosque nearby — even a proposed one — is already transforming the site from a sacred ground for reflection, so desperately needed by the families who lost loved ones, to a battleground for religious and political ideologies. So many people from different nationalities and religions were killed that day. This site should be a neutral place for all to come in peace and remember. I believe my mother would have thought so as well.

The Iranian revolution compelled my family to flee to America when I was 12 years old. Yet, just over two decades later, the militant version of our faith caught up with us on a September morning. I still identify as a Muslim. When you are born into a Muslim family, there is no way around it, no choices available: You are Muslim. I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name.

On the day I left Ground Zero shortly after the tragedy, I felt that I was abandoning my mother. It was like being forced to leave the bedside of a loved one who is dying, knowing you will never see her again. But I felt the love and respect of all those around me there, and it reassured me that she was being left in good hands. Since I cannot visit New York as often as I would like, I at least want to know that my mother can rest in peace. …

READ THE REST (if you are not a heartless, elitist financial genius and power-hungry politician).

Note from me to Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

As I have written more than once on these pages, 22 of those murdered by Muslims on 9/11 were Muslims and their deaths were no less a loss, no less tragic. Yet the 9/11 first responders did not die to save freedom, they died while saving lives. It seems to me that you are clueless on that score.