Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Villager "Move 'Terror Trials"

To The Editor:
Re “Move terror trials” (editorial, Jan. 27):

I don’t take lightly the potential economic impact of holding the “terror trials” in our hard-hit communities in Lower Manhattan. (I don’t mean the profligate and profiteering Wall St. or real estate industry — though they are aggrieved already!)

But while I keep hearing of the possible loss of income and of the inconvenience for those of us here, I keep not hearing about the civilians and military personnel losing life and limb in wars that are billed as necessary to end terror threats. Civilians in those wars have no choice: Their schools and marketplaces actually are targets.

And our soldiers risk their lives in the belief that they protect us — that they fight those who killed our first responders, workers and financial market employees who were in those towers.

If we are at war, then shouldn’t we too join in the suffering? Lose business, be inconvenienced, “burdened” and frightened along with our soldiers and those civilians? Doesn’t integrity demand that we stand, as best we can, in solidarity with them?

If you don’t want these trials held here, then aren’t you honor bound to work every day to end the wars and bring those soldiers home?
K Webster
Webster is co-chairperson, M’Finda Kalunga Garden, in Sara Delano Roosevelt Park