Here’s a real kick in the shin: Chances are, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will get the COVID vaccine before you do.
Accused terrorist masterminds like KSM and other Guantanamo Bay detainees will begin to receive the coronavirus vaccine, the Pentagon confirmed Friday, even as the United States continues to experience severe deficiencies from the miracle prick.
A Defense Department spokesperson confirmed that officials have signed an order requiring COVID-19 vaccinations to be “offered to all detainees and prisoners.”
The injections can already be given next week.
“It will be managed on a voluntary basis and in accordance with the ministry’s priority distribution plan,” spokesman Michael Howard told The Post.
Forty prisoners remain in the US military prison in Cuba, including the man accused of plotting the worst attack on US soil, who claimed 2,977 innocent lives on September 11, 2001 and has since been linked to thousands of other deaths.
The order was signed on Jan. 27 by Terry Adirim, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, who was sworn in on the inauguration day as appointed by Biden, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed.
The move immediately sparked outrage among New Yorkers who survived and helped bring New York back from its darkest day.
‘You can’t make this up. The ridiculousness of what we get from our government. They will bring the vaccine to those lowlifes in Guantanamo Bay before any resident of the United States understands that it is the theater of the absurd, ”said Tom Von Essen, who was Municipal Fire Commissioner on 9/11 and lost 343 firefighters on 9/11. .
“It’s crazy,” he said that KSM is getting the vaccine before most Americans can.
John Feal, a demolition supervisor at the Ground Zero post in the aftermath of the attacks, who has several 9/11 related illnesses and has not yet received the vaccine, was stunned at the news.
“The fact that the 9/11 community cannot get the vaccine and the terrorists can show how backward our government is,” he told The Post. “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. It is an insult to the people who ran into the towers and were murdered and to those who have spent months on the stake and are sick. ”
The average 9/11 responder was 38 then and is now 58-59 years old, short of the borderline to get the vaccine in New York, said Feal, who leads the Feal Good Foundation, an advocacy group for 9/11 responders who helped Congress to permanently expand the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.
Brian Sullivan, a retired Special Security Officer with the Federal Aviation Administration, said, “I’m furious. It’s utterly outrageous. I am 75. I did not receive my COVID vaccine. Are they going to give it to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? “
Sullivan added that it is a scandal that the terrorists did not face justice as they approach the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. “This news makes it worse. It’s a punch to the families of the 9/11 victims,” Sullivan said.
“This year is the twentieth anniversary and the terrorists are still in Guantanamo. And now we are going to give them the COVID vaccine. It’s just insane. “
Two other men, accused of being complicit in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, are also said to be lining up to get the vaccines under the orders of the Defense Ministry.
The Pentagon’s decision comes as states like New York are complaining that their cabinets are bare, forcing them to cancel a massive vaccination program, and the Biden administration warns that the jab’s shortages will continue well into 2021.
On Tuesday, The Post revealed that thousands of teachers in New York City have canceled their COVID-19 vaccine appointments due to dwindling offerings and snafus scheduling.
“It is unforgivable and un-American that President Biden chooses to give convicted terrorists in Gitmo precedence over vulnerable US seniors or veterans,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
Retired FDNY Lt. Michael O’Connell was working search and rescue when the towers fell. It gave him sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease.
“This is a real kick in the balls. It’s very upsetting. It’s absolutely disgusting, ”he said of the Gitmo vaccination order.
“These terrorists have done damage, but it’s the patriots who have to wait to get vaccinated. We responded within 10 seconds of the first plane crashing into the building. Here we are a year later [since the COVID-19 outbreak] and the politicians can’t quite understand about the coronavirus vaccine. “
– Additional reporting by Steven Nelson