9/11, Barack Obama, Debra Burlingame, Eric Holder, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

We must rise up against the trial: It’s time for 9/11 families to fight Holder’s dangerous move

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My commentary appears in the New York Daily News this morning. Here it is; please take a few minutes to read it, join us if you can Saturday 12/5 at noon in Foley Square, and co-sign our letter to President Obama:

My brother was Charles (Chic) Burlingame, captain of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Now I am one of the organizers of a rally being held at noon this Saturday in Foley Square to stop President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and members of Congress from bringing sworn enemies of the United States into this country – from bringing war criminals captured on the battlefield, lawfully held as war detainees, into civilian court.

It doesn’t have to happen. We who are opposed to the decision must make ourselves perfectly clear to the powers that be that we will not tolerate this decision.

Two weeks ago, 300 family members of 9/11 victims sent a letter to the President telling him we adamantly oppose this dangerous and unnecessary act. The letter was never acknowledged. Then, one hour after the attorney general made his stunning announcement that unlawful foreign combatants would be tried as civilians, the number of signers to that letter jumped to 45,000. By the end of the day the number was 100,000. Our Internet server couldn’t handle the volume of Americans who had somehow found out about this letter and wished to stand with us.

The attorney general has suggested that those who oppose prosecuting these men here in New York City are afraid – that we somehow don’t have the courage to face Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in court.

How dare this man, who didn’t have the decency to notify victims’ families of his decision to bring these monsters here, imply that we lack courage. Courage is carrying on after watching your loved ones die, in real time, knowing that they burned to death, were crushed to death, or jumped from 100 flights high. Courage is carrying on, even as we waited, in some cases years, for something of our loved ones to bury. More than 1,100 families still wait.

How dare the attorney general suggest that the firefighters who oppose this trial need to “man up” and let this avowed enemy of America mock their brother firefighters in the country’s most magisterial setting, a federal court.

9/11, Andy McCarthy, Eric Holder, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Andrew McCarthy on federal 9/11 trials: ‘struggle we’re in is a war, not a crime wave’

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Syndicated talk-radio host Mark Levin spoke with former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy this evening about AG Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute 9/11’s conspirators, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four lieutenants, in federal court a mere 6 blocks from Ground Zero.

“The Cole bombing did not prompt a military war against al-Qaeda. It eventually resulted in a civilian indictment that is still pending. The Pentagon is the ultimate military target, and the attack against it spurred both the war we are now fighting and the implementation of military commissions to try jihadist war criminals. Yet, Holder has decided to give KSM & Co. the protections of a civilian trial rather than the rigors of a military hearing. Given that humanitarian law has for decades strived to civilize warfare by protecting civilians, it is perverse to swaddle mass murderers in full Bill of Rights protections while those who strike military assets get second-tier due process. But the point here is that Comey and Goldsmith are purporting to defend “Holder’s reasonable decision.” How reasonable can Holder’s decision be if his defenders must substitute their own suppositions for his, which, as they admit, cannot withstand scrutiny.”

Mark prefaced their discussion with today’s report that three Navy SEALs are being prosecuted for bloodying the lip of a captured terrorist who had murdered four Americans in April 2004 outside of Fallujah, Iraq:

A fuller report and audio from today’s 911NeverForget.Us press conference is here.

Come join us in lower Manhattan, in Foley Square, across the street from the federal courthouse at noon, Saturday, December 5, 2009. Regardless of whether you can be there in person or not, you can be there is spirit by adding your name to the more than 120,000 people who have co-signed our letter to President Obama.