– Joe Connor co-author of The New Founders, testified at Eric Holder’s AG confirmation hearing, appeared in Citizens United’s Hillary: The Movie, and writes on wewinamerica.com. He works in New York’s financial-services industry.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camps have been attacked by many, including our own president, as contrary to American values, as not “who we are” and “recruitment tools for ISIS.”
Those of us who have been there have observed the terrorists in court at Camp Justice. We have witnessed the great lengths to which our judiciary goes to provide due process to the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the red-bearded, evil, boastful mastermind of the 9/l1 attacks that murdered 2,976 individuals and shattered countless lives. Gitmo is a symbol of American goodness and greatness.
Please, Mr. President: I am honored to be part of a small group of 9/11 family members chosen to observe the pretrial proceedings. Objections to this facility and these proceedings, in my opinion, are unfounded. Gitmo represents the very best of America.
Eight of us arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, on the morning of Saturday, February 13, hopeful but apprehensive about our trip to Guantanamo to face the murderers of our family members. Aside from the deaths of our loved ones, we all brought something in common: the pursuit of justice.
After a most rewarding week, we parted perfectly unified, with the utmost respect for the prosecutors, for our fantastic military, for American justice, and for one another. We took home with us hope, a steelier resolve for justice than ever, spiritual connections, and a renewed sense of pride in America.
Those are the American values that I was raised with but that have been lost on this president.
This is a president who has authorized hundreds of deadly drone strikes resulting in thousands of deaths. Unlike the rights afforded at Gitmo, none of those killed was provided any due process nor were they allowed a seat before a just Military Commission.
This is a president whose trusted attorney general for six years, Eric Holder, engineered the politically driven 1999 Clinton clemencies for the convicted terrorists of the FALN. This Puerto Rican terror group murdered my father, Frank Connor, in the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing (which was among over 115 bombings and five murders they perpetrated). Is releasing unrepentant terrorists now “who we are”?
This president pushes the normalization of relations with terror-supporting Cuba (even planning a state visit) without demanding the return of convicted fugitive FALN bomb-maker William Morales or BLA cop killer Joanne Chesimard, who have received safe harbor for decades in Cuba.
So whose values does this president represent and whose values does he condemn?