Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

DEROY MURDOCK: Biden’s 9/11 Snub Insults Victims, Comforts Perpetrators

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Joe Biden, the alleged nice guy who ran for president as Mr. Warmth, just proved how cold he really is.

Americans gathered in New York, Washington, D.C, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to mark the 22nd anniversary of al-Qaeda’s vicious surprise attack on the crystalline morning of September 1, 2001. Nineteen Saudis hijacked four passenger jets and plowed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and an open field. The death toll was staggering. Terrorists slaughtered 2,996 innocents. While some were recovered and buried, thousands of families never interred the remains of their vaporized loved ones.

Where was Biden today? In Alaska!

This earned him a unique distinction: Biden is now the first president not to mark this grim occasion in Gotham, the nation’s Capital, or the Keystone State. Apparently, Biden has “a lot of things going on.” This also his excuse for not visiting the victims of February 3’s toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

At least the Nice-Guy-in-Chief did not offer September 11 survivors the same verbal shrug that he gave on August 13 when asked about the deadly wildfires in Maui: “No comment.”

The families, friends, and loved ones of those killed on September 11 are not amused.

“It’s a complete disgrace that President Biden — or any president — would choose to ignore the anniversary of the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor,” says Debra Burlingame, the sister of Charles “Chic” Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which terrorist hijackers slammed into the Pentagon, 22 years ago this morning.

“These anniversaries matter,” Burlingame tells me. “Not just to remember my brother and the nearly 3,000 men, women, and children whom al-Qaeda brutally murdered, but to educate people about the horrific nature of these attacks. September 11 awoke Americans to our vulnerability to catastrophic terrorist attacks. ‘Never Forget’ became a rallying cry about securing our country against further deadly onslaughts. Joe Biden’s taking a pass on this today insults every single American who spent months at Ground Zero digging out human remains or who suspended their lives to serve in uniform. My God, 7,000 died overseas combatting this threat. Tens of thousands sustained life-changing battle wounds. And yet Biden blew off his solemn obligations today.”

To make matters even worse, the September 11 survivors this year are coping with news that the Biden Administration is considering plea agreements with top al-Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of this mayhem, and four other Islamofascist butchers. They reportedly would plead guilty, avoid trial, and be spared from execution.

This takes the Democrats’ soft-on-crime fetish to its lowest depths, ever.

“The fact that there are now potential plea deals being offered right at the anniversary, it’s just a horrible, terrible feeling of betrayal,” Terry Strada told USA Today. Her husband, Tom, was killed on the 104th floor of Tower One. “I mean, justice has not been served in two decades. How much more do they expect the families to be able to take? People are dying without seeing justice done.”

“It’s a disgrace,” says Burlingame, a former attorney. “The public should know that in 2008, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the mastermind of 9/11 — and four of his co-conspirators submitted a written application to the Military Commission court at Guantanamo stating that they wished to plead guilty and be executed. They called themselves the ‘9/11 Shura Council’ and mocked their victims and our country. They called 9/11 and the indictment against them a ‘badge of honor.’ I believe that Biden’s ignoring this in-your-face admission of guilt will send a devastating message, energizing jihadists all over the world: ‘Allah is on our side.’”

These murderers’ joint confession could not be clearer. A February 24, 2009, legal filing by KSM and four other members of the self-declared “Shura Council” states:

“With regards to these nine accusations that you are putting us on trial for; to us, they are not accusations. To us they are badges of honor, which we carry with pride. Many thanks to God, for…choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims. Therefore, killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion. These actions are our offerings to God.”

Beyond this nostra culpa, KSM and the Killers expressed their willingness to face capital punishment, just 10 weeks earlier. The New York Daily News headlined their relevant December 8, 2008 story: “9/11 mastermind, cronies tell Gitmo judge they want to confess and die.”

“We did it, now kill us,” the Daily News account began. “That was the bombshell message five suspects in the 9/11 attacks sent a tribunal judge Monday, stunning relatives of the victims in the Guantanamo Bay courtroom.

“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, admitted mastermind of the massacre of 2,975 people, and his cadre of co-conspirators requested a hearing ‘to announce our confession.’

The suspects have previously expressed a collective desire to become ‘martyrs.’”

Since KSM and his brethren want to be executed, what’s the problem? Why the 15-year delay? Get on with it!

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.