Debra Burlingame

Debra Burlingame

Debra Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. She is the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and a director of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation at the World Trade Center. She has published featured articles for the Wall Street Journal and other publications on national security issues, including the Patriot Act, the National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program, al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime, the 9/11 Commission, aviation security and the Guantanamo detainees. She has testified before the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on terrorism-related issues and works with the Center for Security Policy as an advocate for its Divest Terror program aimed at Iran, Syria, Sudan and North Korea.

Ms. Burlingame has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends, Your World with Neil Cavuto and Hannity & Colmes, CNN’s Larry King Live and Paula Zahn Now and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Ms. Burlingame was formerly a producer at Court TV where she covered dozens of civil and criminal legal proceedings ranging from the OJ Simpson trial and the Clinton impeachment hearings to the Microsoft anti-trust case. She wrote pieces for broadcast on Constitutional appellate cases, consumer law, and legal news and helped launch a documentary series involving cold criminal cases. Prior to her career in television, she was an attorney in New York City.

She is a graduate of New York University and the Cardozo School of Law.

Obama Will Live to Regret Sending Gitmo Detainees to Illinois

by Debra Burlingame
Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Aghanistan, would order that the enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States.  We will live to regret this.
Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory.  But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soulmates at the ACLU and Human Rights First.   In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass which will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.   The moment the detainees arrive, their lawyers will drop an avalanche of legal challenges on the federal courts seeking to set them free, destroy what is left of the military commissions, and turn the 9/11 trial into a tragic farce.  Americans should remember this:  it didn’t have to happen.  The Supreme Court said that Gitmo was lawful and that preventative detentions were Constitutional.  Barack Obama–and members of Congress who stood by and did nothing to stop him–will own this national security disaster, but our troops and innocent citizens will be the ones who are forced to pay for it.

Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Afghanistan, would order that enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States.  We will live to regret this.

Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory.  But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soul-mates at the ACLU and Human Rights First.  In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass that will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.   The moment the detainees arrive, their lawyers will drop an avalanche of legal challenges on the federal courts seeking to set them free, destroy what is left of the military commissions, and turn the 9/11 trial into a tragic farce.  Americans should remember this:  it doesn’t have to happen.   The Supreme Court has said that Gitmo is lawful and that preventative detentions are constitutional.  Barack Obama–and members of Congress who stand by and do nothing to stop him–will own this national security disaster.

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Dec 11th 2009 at 7:54 pm in Defense, Justice/Legal, Obama, Politics | 100 Comments »