Posted on 01/05/2007 12:19:16 PM PST by SJackson
President George W. Bush, vilified by many, supported by some, is a hero to me.
Why do I say that? It’s not because I agree with the president’s domestic agenda. It’s not because I think he’s done a perfect job in the White House.
George Bush is a hero to me because he has courage. The president does what he believes to be in the best interest of the United States. He sticks with his beliefs, no matter how intense the criticism and invective that are directed against him every day.
The enormous defeat President Bush suffered with the loss of both Houses of Congress has not caused him to retreat from his position that the U.S. alone now stands between a radical Islamic takeover of many of the world’s governments in the next 30 or more years. If that takeover occurs, we will suffer an enslavement that will threaten our personal freedoms and take much of the world back into the Dark Ages. Advertisement
Our major ally in this war against the forces of darkness, Great Britain, is still being led by an outstanding prime minister, Tony Blair. But Blair will soon be set out to pasture, which means Great Britain will leave our side and join France, Germany, Spain and other countries that foolishly believe they can tame the wolf at the door and convert it into a domestic pet that will live in peace with them.
These dreamers naively believe that if we feed the wolves what they demand, they will go away. That won’t happen. Appeasement never works. The wolves always come back for more and more, and when we have nothing left to give, they come for us.
Radical Islamists are very much aware that we have shown fear. For example, we have allowed the people of Darfur – dark-skinned Africans – to be terrorized, killed, raped and taken as slaves by the supporters of the Sudanese government, radical Islamists.
The countries surrounding Iraq – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan – made up of Sunni Arabs, know that for them, the wolves who are the radical Shia are already at their door. The New York Times reported on December 13, 2006, “Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats….The Saudis have argued strenuously against an American pullout from Iraq, citing fears that Iraq’s minority Sunni Arab population would be massacred….”
This Saudi response will occur notwithstanding that until now, according to the Times, “The Saudis have been wary of supporting Sunnis in Iraq because their insurgency there has been led by extremists of Al Qaeda, who are opposed to the kingdom’s monarchy. But if Iraq’s sectarian war worsened, the Saudis would line up with Sunni tribal leaders.”
The Times article went on to state the opinion of an Arab expert, Nawaf Obaid, who was recently fired by the Saudi foreign minister after Obaid wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post asserting that the Saudis were prepared in the event of an American pullout to engage in a “massive intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis.” Obaid went on “suggest[ing] that Saudi Arabia could cut world oil prices in half … a move that would be devastating to Iran.”
The Times reported that “Arab diplomats…said that Mr. Obaid’s column reflected the view of the Saudi government.”
Surely this turn of events in Saudi Arabia will be replicated in other Sunni-dominated countries – Sunnis are 80 percent of the world’s Muslim population. This will give support to my proposal, advanced nearly a year ago, that we tell our allies, regional and NATO, that we are getting out of Iraq unless they come in. That may well work, and they will come in and in large part share the casualties of combat and the financial costs of war.
Doing what I suggest is far better than simply pulling out, which is the direction in which we are headed, notwithstanding the president’s opposition. I think that, at the moment, simply getting out and not making an attempt to bring our allies in is supported by a majority of Americans and would be supported by a majority of Democrats in the Congress.
For me, staying is clearly preferable, provided we are not alone and are joined by our regional and NATO allies in aggressively taking on the difficult but necessary task of destroying radical Islam and its terrorist agenda.
Two other requirements are needed to bring the war in Iraq to a successful conclusion: first, the Iraqi government must allow greater autonomy for the three regions – Kurd, Sunni and Shia; second, the national Iraqi government must enact legislation that will divide all oil and natural gas revenues in a way similar to that of our own state of Alaska.
The Alaskan state government takes from those revenues all it will need to finance government and provide services, and the balance is divided among the population of Alaska in a profit-sharing program. That would settle the major Sunni problem, which has been being cut out of oil revenues because the country’s oil is located only in Kurdish and Shiite areas.
If the Iraqi government refuses our demands, our reply should be, “Goodbye; you’re on your own.” (This idea was suggested to me by Mike Sheppard of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.)
It won’t be easy to implement this proposal. But President Bush has courage. Now is the time to use it.
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Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You're a great American!
We are not at a crossroads because the President is still in charge, but it's a pity that we have added to his burden by allowing the left to take over. I should say, the America hating left.
Koch is one of the few honest Democrats around.
AMEN.
That's pretty much my take on all of this. And Ed Koch is one of my heroes because he's put partisanship aside in order to unite behind the President on the bigger issue of the survival of our civilization. Sadly, I can count other influential Democrats who hold this perspective on one finger. Now that the US government is divided, and the Democrats are opting for civilizational suicide, the American voters have set up a situation that parallels our disasterous endgame in Vietnam. I don't see things as having a loss of will in Iraq, but having a loss of will to defend our civilization. Political correctness has mostly blinded America to the threat, and our apparent moral exhaustion has sapped us of the strength to stand against a radical Islam on the march. It's ironic that we went into Iraq to depose a dangerous threat to the Middle East and to western nations, to set up a free and democratic society in Iraq to stand as a viable alternative to the nihilism of the Islamists, and yet here in America, we don't seem to have the vision or moral strength to make ourselves as a viable alternative to Islamic nihilism.
Ed Koch nails it again. Thanks YerHonor.
Thank you Ed Koch. I can not believe that there have been so few speaking out like this.
Well .. I hope he finds it again. It's been sorely missing - at least for my money.
I liked the cowboy better.
I will stand with him.
This from same Ed Koch who called Dennis Prager "hypocrite" because Prager wanted Keith Ellison to at least have a Bible on hand while he took his (ceremonioal) oath of office to Congress on the quran (lower case intended).
I wish a few more of our Congressional Republicans could say the same thing. As one example, Voinovich comes to mind.
It's roll call time again, and I'm paying attention.
I stand with him too.
But I will say this -- one of the reasons why we're where we are today is because both the administration and the Republicans were unwilling to stand up to the leftist's lies.
They let the left lie with impunity and people started to believe those lies and, in fact, it emboldened the Democrats to tell even more outrageous lies.
I know the president wanted to change politics of personal destruction in DC, but it didn't work, I knew it wouldn't work, and letting the ugly Democrats get away with what they were permitted to get away with just made it worse.
For instance, when the left said that AQ did not have a relationship with Saddam, that was provably untrue. All the president had to say was that Clinton's federal indictment of OBL mentions that relationship. That's it. And he didn't do it and it was a mistake not to do it.
It never, ever works to let an opponent, especially American-hating, military-hating, jihadist-supporting opponents, get away with lying. I've never understood why Republicans didn't have the courage of their convictions and why they thought that letting lie after lie after lie stand as truth was a good tactic, and I'll go to my grave not understanding it.
It is the Republican party that is to blame for not fighting the fight against the left.
They never stood up against leftist lies in support of the War in Iraq, leaving the President to stand alone in support of our troops.
I will have a very hard time forgiving them for their cowardice, and their role in handing the country over to evil.
I completely agree. The President is attacked every single day in every media outlet. It is beyond disgusting.
Not once, before or after the election have I heard His Party members on the Hill come out and defend him. I have lost so much respect for them as men. I believe we would have won the election if some of them had come out and spoke about what a good man the President is. But if a man is more concerned with being elected than showing true courage then it must be hard to look in the mirror now that the Dems are in power.
I haven't heard any Republican stand up for the President either..........not one.
Not only does he have to stand up against an enemy in Congress and in the media, but he has to do it alone.
I'm not sure I will ever regain my respect for the Republican party.
BUMP!!!
Great article! I lived in NYC when Ed Koch was mayor - he did the best he could, but being a Dem, he never made much progresss, so I'm sure he knows very well what it's like to be abandoned by your party. When Giuliani took over, the Dems hated him, but he didn't owe them anything so he could go ahead and do what he did.
I think Koch is right and I think the way the GOP has abandoned Bush is disgraceful. He's not perfect, but nobody is - however, he's about 100% to the tenth power better than any Dem.
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