Posted on 10/07/2004 2:29:24 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Earlier this month, five 9/11 widows held an emotional press conference and -- one by one -- stood before a microphone to talk about fear. They invoked the tragic loss of their loved ones three years ago and declared that concern for their children's future has moved them to endorse the candidacy of John F. Kerry. These are the very same women who just six months ago angrily denounced the use of fleeting images of Ground Zero in a Bush campaign ad, saying it was a form of exploitation that was "unconscionable" and "disgusting." They asserted that neither candidate should use 9/11 for personal political gain, calling the use of 9/11 "a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people."
Though these same widows participated in an anti-Bush demonstration sponsored by MoveOn.org demanding that the president pull his television ads off the air, they maintained then, as they do now, that they are nonpartisan, that they are moved solely by their conscience and by a sense of civic duty. At the close of their press conference, Kerry handlers distributed press releases declaring that "9/11 Families Endorse John Kerry for President" and announced that the widows might be used in television ads in swing states.
Sen. Kerry begins every stump speech these days by introducing these 9/11 widows to kind applause. As we enter the final leg of the presidential race, the Kerry campaign appears to have calculated that the war in Vietnam is not the war the American people want to talk about. And so, trading on their status as 9/11 family members associated with the 9/11 Commission, the Kerry campaign is deploying these September 11 widows on a nationwide tour to tell the American people that there is no connection between Iraq and the war on terrorism. This declaration will come as a surprise to the folks who actually wrote the 9/11 Commission Report. These widows may be speaking from the heart, but the Kerry campaign is not telling you the truth.
Anyone who has actually read the report would know that the 9/11 Commission had plenty to say about the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, but because much of its findings were beyond the scope of its charter, important details went unstated in public hearings or were buried in the minutiae of the published narrative. Virtually every reporter I have spoken to has failed to answer this basic question satisfactorily: "Have you actually read the report?" The answer is almost always a sheepish "No." Those who have only given it a cursory scan may have missed the fine-print chapter notes where explosive information about names, dates, places, and conversations concerning the Iraq-al Qaeda connection are outlined in chilling detail.
To cite but one of many examples, it states that Saddam Hussein -- wanting to curry favor with other Arab governments wary of Osama bin Laden -- was not responsive to a 1996 request by bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq when the Sudanese government was poised to give him the boot. After bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in 1998, two al Qaeda operatives went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. Later, a delegation of Iraqi officials traveled to Afghanistan and offered to set bin Laden up. Taliban leaders, concerned with the increasing possibility of retaliatory strikes by the U.S., urged bin Laden to go. During heated discussions with other Clinton administration policy-makers about the effect of launching missile strikes on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, then NSC Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke worried that bin Laden would "boogie to Baghdad" where he would put his network at Saddam's service and be all the harder to root out, given Saddam's formidable security apparatus.
The Commission further reported that terrorist training camps, now eliminated by the coalition forces of Operation Iraqi Freedom, were set up in Northern Iraq with bin Laden's help. Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was given safe haven by Saddam Hussein after he fled Afghanistan. It is Zarqawi, a chemical weapons expert, who is believed to be the leading force behind Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist organization bin Laden assisted in founding several years ago and which is carrying out beheadings and suicide bombings in Iraq today.
As one of 150 9/11 family members who have signed an open letter strongly supporting the president's decision to prosecute the war on terror in Iraq, I would remind Americans who think the presence of WMD are the sine qua non for any pre-emptive war that the 19 terrorists who slaughtered 3,000 innocent men, women and children in a matter of minutes were sponsored by the Taliban, a backward regime that had neither WMD nor the technology to produce them. Saddam may not have had a hand in the plot that killed our loved ones, but American troops found ample evidence that he wishes he had, including the murals he commissioned for public display depicting airplanes exploding into the World Trade Center towers, but with this added conceit: one shows the planes painted in the colors of Iraqi airlines while Saddam's grinning portrait looms in the foreground in yet another.
Anyone who has actually read the report would know that the 9/11 Commission had plenty to say about the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, but because much of its findings were beyond the scope of its charter, important details went unstated in public hearings or were buried in the minutiae of the published narrative. Virtually every reporter I have spoken to has failed to answer this basic question satisfactorily: "Have you actually read the report?" The answer is almost always a sheepish "No." Those who have only given it a cursory scan may have missed the fine-print chapter notes where explosive information about names, dates, places, and conversations concerning the Iraq-al Qaeda connection are outlined in chilling detail.
“Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, told Agence France Presse that the Iraqi regime worked closely with al Qaeda in Iraq before the war. "Saddam Hussein's regime welcomed them with open arms and young al Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," he said in an interview published 8/29/2004. Azzam added that al Qaeda fighters "infiltrated into Iraq with the help of Kurdish mujahideen from Afghanistan, across mountains in Iran" and that once they arrived, Saddam "strictly and directly" controlled their activities.” (SEE MORE)
Ms. Burlingame, a lifelong Democrat, is co-founder of "9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America" [this website]. Her brother, Chic Burlingame, was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Burlingame told Boortz today (10.07.04) they have tried to speak to reporters after viewing repeated interviews with the "Jersey Girls" (Kristen Breitweiser, the most prominent of the "Jersey Girls" -- the group of 9/11 widows who, angered by what they view as the Bush administration's stone-walling of the 9/11 Commission, recently endorsed Kerry), but reporters would only listen and they never they from them again. Thus, with the same frustration as the SwiftBoat vets; they have started this website to show that Kerry speaks for only a handful of 911 familes and is misleading America.
last update: 10/06/2004 An Open Letter to America from 911 Families
Correction in comment text above: "they never heard from them again"
PING
BTTT!!
Kerry sends a terrible message to our troops with his "Wrong
War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time" slogan. I can only assume that to those
who died on September 11, 2001 Kerry would like to say, "Wrong Plane,
Wrong Building, Wrong Time".
FYI............PING
You would think that these leftist reporters, Kerry's Campaign, and those 'BoB' widows (don't they remind you of Kerry's BoB, recently MIA due to the Swift Vets?) would no longer be so quick to rule out Saddam's involvement in 9/11 an terror.
With regard to terror, there is a mountain of proof of Saddam's involvement in supporting terror, going back decades.
With regard to 9/11, there are very credible suggestions coming out of the Oil for Food scandal that Saddam very likely FUNDED 9/11, and ongoing insurgents/terrorist attacks in Iraq right now. I site Fox's recent Breaking Point story about the Oil for Food scandal.
This story paints a picture of a broke Usama in late 2000. Then after a fall 2000 meeting with Iraqi intelligence agents, suddenly Usama has money coming out of his butt - which he then sent on to the 9/11 hijackers.
Hmmmm - might there be some connection? Where in the heck are the leftist reporters who spent 8 months writing Abu Graihb stories?
BTTT
I'm kinda new, what is BTTT? Plus, I forwarded the web site to Major Garrett, hopefully he will listen to these families. If anyone deserves to be heard it is them.
bump!
BTTT means "back to the top".Welcome to FreeRepublic.com.
Glad to have you aboard FR (FreeRepublic.com). Since you're new, I thought I would send you something that might make your stay on FR easier and better. It will give you info about FR and also on HTML picture and link posting, etc.
Here is a link. Go to post #116 first (link should take you right to that post), and look under "Pictures". That will give a walk-thru for picture posting. That article gives a lot of very useful and helpful tips on HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), which you need to post on FR. There are other related links and information there as well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/735087/posts?page=116#116
You might want to bookmark that article. Bookmarking puts an article on your FReeper Profile page for quick and easy referencing. See post #53 & 59 for bookmarking instructions.
If you have any questions or problems, feel free to send me a Freep mail or a note and we’ll work through it.
Bush should explain this at the debate,give these examples and tell the public about the murals,this would help greatly!
WHY ! Why doesn't the Bush team get this information out.What is their problem?
BTTT
Burlingham said today (10.07.04 Boortz) the murals alone show a Iraqi tie, as in Saddam's support of the attack on 9-11. Saddam was proud to be represented in the one mural found.
Yes! The only thing I disagreed with Cheney on Tues. was when he said he doesn't question Kerry's patriotism. I do. When you say things like that, it's UNpatriotic. Period.
the one mural showing the planes painted in the "colors of Iraqi airlines" with Saddam's grinning portrait
The right is being too nice to the left. I don't like it!
When you "BTTT" or "Bump", all you are doing is making a reply to an article (thread). However, what that means is that your new reply has now been placed on top of the "Latest Posts" queue. Here's a direct link to the "Latest Posts" queue: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/browse?ao=0
Most people monitor the "Latest Posts" queue for any new replies to threads.
Depending on the number of new articles being posted, an article that currently appears on the news sidebars, e.g. "News/Activism Breaking News," may scroll off the sidebar fairly fast and folks will miss that article if they log in later. A BTTT or Bump (or Ping) keeps an article current or active, even if its title doesn't appear in the news sidebar.
Another way to use BTTT or Bump is as a place maker in a thread (or as a reminder to yourself to "read later"). When you make any reply in a thread, even if it's simply 'BTTT,' it also appears in your "Pings" (or "My Comments") screen. So it's a way to help you keep up when you don't have time to read the articles at a particular moment (which is often the case for me).
See reply numbers 17 and 18 in the thread "What do PING, BTTT and BUMP mean?
Also of interest: "Revised & Updated! -- THE LEXICON OF FREEREPUBLIC -- (FR dictionary, more help for newcomers!) -- (I think there is a more recent version of the Lexicon - you can use the FR search engine to find it).
Other fun oldie threads:
Vanity post - can anyone explain the moose and cheese thing?
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
And here's a good one on the history of FRee Republic:
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