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

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

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.

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

One other thing was so little was known about Obama. He was a man without a history.

Not true. The truth about who and what Obama is, was there for all to see if they only bothered to look. For one thing, he never held any single job for very long. For another, when he got that first book deal, he and Michelle took off for someplace in the South Pacific (place name escapes me at the moment, but think it was Bali). They spent months there while he supposedly wrote the book. His resume is littered with similar examples that pointed the way toward the presidency we see today as the "vacations" pile up one after the other.

Obama was an avowed Marxist very early in his young adulthood, perhaps even earlier.

Reading the timeline of his years in and post college, it is extremely clear someone was funding his rise, pulling strings every step of the way. The rails were greased for him long ago.

But the Right was too busy cutting its own to ribbons while chasing 1990's ghosts. They would not listen to the few voices who tried to warn them of the danger Obama posed.

We know very little about Obama's childhood. We know little of his time at Punahau. There is claim of a scholarship, but no record. There was an interview with two of his basketball teammates, but they apparently were not friends off the court. We know almost nothing of his time at Occidental college. We do not know if he attended Occidental as a foreigner (Indonesian) on a scholarship. The only information we have of his time at Columbia and his years in New York afterwards is only found in Obama's own autobiographies and in one 2007 New York Times article ("Obama’s Account of New York Years Often Differs From What Others Say"). We know Obama's account of his New York years is riddled with falsehoods.

We do not know if Obama went to Pakistan, we do not know what passport he used if he did, we do not know what social security number is actually Obama's, assuming he was born in Hawaii there is conflicting documentation on what hospital he was born in, we do not know if he was granted Indonesian citizenship.

We do not know when Obama met Bill Ayers.

We don't know who paid for Obama to attend Harvard, we don't know how Obama got the job as editor of the Law Review. We don't know why Obama was given a contract for a book simply by being selected as editor of the the Law Review.

The most exhaustive work investigating Obama's past was done by Stanley Kurtz. But Kurtz was repeatedly blocked from access to what should have been public information, leaving huge black holes in Obama's past.

We knew more about Joe the Plumber's life history than Obama's. Trig Palin's origin was investigated more thoroughly than Obama's. McCain's various houses were the story, not Obama's shady deal with Rezko.

Obama was a completely obscure state senator. Think about that. How many state senators do you know in your own state? How much do you know about them? You may not even know much about the one who represents you. Obama got elected to the U.S. Senate essentially unopposed. He was not vetted by a real campaign. Before even being elected to the U.S. Senate he was canonized by the Democrats as their savior, as they put him on display at their 2004 convention. His voting present in the Illinois Senate, many absences in the U.S. Senate, and apparent lack of any friendships in either house is all we know.

Think about the stories of McCain, the fact he graduated low in his Anapolis class, his time in the Navy (and how many jets he crashed), his time in the Hanoi Hilton, his time after his return, his divorce, his new wife's empire, McCain's political career, the Keating Five, his friendship with Lindsey Graham, you name it. Think about G.W. Bush, his childhood, Andover, Yale, Harvard, his grades, the National Guard, his drinking, the Rangers, etc. We knew everything.

Al Gore, and even Bill Clinton were complete open books. We knew Gore because he grew up in the spotlight as a Senator's son. We knew Al Gore's academic record, his Harvard roomates, Love Story, etc. Despite Clinton coming from the impoverished Arkansas backwater, we knew all about Clinton's childhood. The band, his cars, Boy's Nation. Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, and Wesley Clark at Oxford all on Rhodes Scholarships. We knew about all of the bimbos in Little Rock, even before he was elected President.

When Clinton was voted out as Governor in 1980, he could be seen weekly singing in the choir of Immanuel Baptist Church in their televised service. All those videos of Reverend Wright, and nobody has scoured them to see if Obama appears in the audience.

How many times did we hear analysis about Clinton being the child of an alcoholic, or analysis of Bush's personality based on past alcohol abuse?

Obama remains an enigma to this day. If he was not such an enigma, the birthers never would have generated any interest, there would not be those speculating he is actually a Muslim, etc. Obama is still something of a blank slate. To that blank slate, some paint their hopes and dreams, others their fears. Even now, almost four year after he announced his candidacy, there is still more speculation than fact on Obama.

Is Obama a conspiracy, a Manchurian candidate controlled by someone else, like Soros? Is he a Forrest Gump, who just bumbled his way around the world and eventually to the White House? Or is he a political genius, a maneuvering Bill Clinton with similar luck and timing?

Is Obama a conspiracy, a Manchurian candidate controlled by someone else, like Soros?

Yes. There is no other explanation for his rise from obscurity to the presidency in what -- in political terms -- was the speed of light.

Or is he a political genius, a maneuvering Bill Clinton with similar luck and timing?

No, he is no genius, political or otherwise. Somehow, relatively early in his life, he came to the attention of at least one powerful, wealthy Leftist who proceeded to grease the rails for Obama's rise. Again, there is no other explanation.

Throughout his comparatively brief career prior to running for the U.S. senate, Obama behaved in every way like someone who knew the fix was in on his behalf. He never worked hard at any job he had (and he isn't working hard at this presidency). He flitted from academia, to a law firm, to "community organizer," to the state legislature, to U.S. senator, pausing only long enough in each to grab onto the next rung up the ladder.

Along the way, he increasingly accumulated wealth, producing not one, but two scene-setting autobiographies. Amazing for a man few had ever heard of until a mere six years ago.

I don't know that one can call it a conspiracy, per se. I don't know that they did anything illegal, even. Instead, I believe one or more radical Leftists groomed Obama to be a front man so they could control the U.S. presidency for at least four years. Think of all the damage they can do. Not just the obvious damage, either. Think of all the intelligence they can gather, all the national security secrets they are discovering. Think of how easy it is for them to plant their operatives in influential spots in the vast federal bureaucracy. Think of the contracts and leases they can send their own way. Think of the regulations they can put in place to favor their own.

By electing Obama, this country has done the equivalent of electing a Soviet spy during the height of the cold war. Think of what that means.

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