Debra Burlingame’s brother was the pilot of flight 77 that was hijacked on 9-11 and flown into the Pentagon. She is now lending her voice to a growing movement to get American pension plans to divest from Iran and other terror supporting states. From CNS:
Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III was the pilot in command of American Airlines flight 77 – one of the planes hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001 and crashed into the Pentagon.
Today, his sister, Debra Burlingame, is lending her voice to a national movement that advocates consider the most peaceful means of combating terrorists: calling for states to withdraw their public pension money from companies doing business with Iran.
“One of the things I’ve done for the last six years is read up on who these people are,” she told Cybercast News Service. “I found they are telling us who they are and what they are doing. But a lot of people here and in Western Europe don’t want to listen. For me, the divest terror project is a moral imperative.”
The initiative is growing in popularity, as Missouri, Florida, Illinois, and Louisiana have approved measures to take public pension money out of Iran and Sudan. Meanwhile, California appears poised to do the same with widespread support in the state legislature and support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Burlingame, a co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, has traveled to Ohio, where the state legislature there is considering a divestment initiative.
She is also traveling around Washington meeting with media and other organizations to raise awareness about the issue.
Burlingame’s hope is for a terror free investment index, just as there is an index for people with environmental concerns and those with tobacco concerns.
Such a fund is in the early stages, but Burlingame and others are working to get the word out to people that their retirement savings are going to support companies doing business with terrorist regimes such as Iran.
“I don’t think it can initially succeed if people don’t know about it,” Burlingame said. “People I talked to didn’t know” about the investments in Iran. “It never occurred to them this was happening,” she added.
It’s a worthy goal and one that should be supported by every American. Does your pension plan fund jihadism? If you’re not sure, shouldn’t you find out and make sure your hard earned money isn’t supporting threats to the lives of your children and grandchildren?
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