There are a great many people who do not wish to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in New York City and Attorney General Eric Holder is in the middle of a fight trying to determine the best course of action. Those that oppose an in-city trial are vocal and spirited
Greg Manning, whose wife, Laura, was severely burned in the World Trade Center attacks, stood before the crowd and said, “Thousands are already dead because of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s choices. We do not want to see . . . hundreds of thousands dead because of the Attorney General’s choices.”
Andrew McCarthy, the former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, also gave a speech, declaring that Holder didn’t “understand what rule of law has always been in wartime.” He said, “It’s military commissions. It’s not to wrap our enemies in our Bill of Rights.”
“Traitor!” someone shouted.
Edith Lutnick, who works for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, told the crowd, “My brother, Gary, lost his life that day.” The 9/11 victims, she said, “were murdered by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we do not want him and his fellow-terrorists tried in that building. . . . We need to tell Eric Holder that we will be victims no more.”
“Lynch Holder!” an onlooker cried.
Right. Let's lynch him, because after having done so, the problem of holding terror trials will totally resolve itself.
Anyway, the group gathered in Manhattan's Foley Square are not particularly enamored of the President or his policies
The rally was organized, in part, by Debra Burlingame, the sister of the pilot Charles Burlingame, who was killed on 9/11 when Al Qaeda hijackers crashed the plane he had been flying into the Pentagon. Burlingame is one of the three founders of Keep America Safe, a new political-advocacy group. Her partners in the venture, which is aimed at attacking the Obama Administration’s national-security decisions and vindicating those of the Bush Administration, are William Kristol, the conservative pundit, and Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. The organization’s political strategist is Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for Senator John McCain during his 2008 Presidential campaign; among its funders is Mel Sembler, a conservative donor and a former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Read more of Jane Mayer's article at The New Yorker