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March 12, 2007

Ted Koppel On The Shocking Truth About Iraq and War on Terror

Topics: Iraq

As for the "shocking truth," it's shocking only to the liberals and the media that refuse to recognize the facts.

Former "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel was one of Tim Russert's guests on Sunday's "Meet the Press," where he made several of what NewsBusters refers to as "truly shocking and compelling statements about the Iraq war and the war on terror that virtually no Democrat or media member is willing to accept or report":

Unexpected comments from Koppel include:

• First, Koppel made it clear that America's premature departure from Iraq would turn the entire Persian Gulf region into a battlefield between Sunnis and Shia, "something the United States cannot allow to happen"


• Second, he said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of the war on terror that "has been going on for the past 24 years" starting when "the precursors of Hezbollah blew up the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon" in 1983


• Finally, he stated that America's departure from Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of when it occurs, will not represent the end of this battle, but, instead, that it is just "going to be a different war" after that point.

And there's the shocker of Koppel on all the talk about Iraq being a civil war:

It's the one thing nobody talks about. Everyone is concerned about the United States being in the middle of a civil war inside Iraq. But they forget about the fact that if U.S. troops were to pull out of Iraq, that civil war could become a regional war between Sunnis and Shia. And the region, just in case anyone has forgotten, is the Persian Gulf, where we get most of our oil, and, I've talked about this before, natural gas. So, the idea of pulling out of there and letting the region, letting the national civil war expand into a regional civil war, something the United States cannot allow to happen.

As Noel Sheppard notes, it's extraordinary that a major media figure is coming out so strongly and making such a declaration, especially on such a popular Sunday talk show. Almost as shocking is that Tim Russert appears to admit that the war in Iraq is indeed a part of the war on terror.

BTW, although Koppel believes that the War against Terror began in 1983, I and others would argue that it actually began in 1979 with the Iran hostage crisis.

Hat tip - Dan Riehl for the link and the video.

Posted by Abdul at March 12, 2007 12:51 PM

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