Ed Koch has had it with Cindy Sheehan

The former Democrat mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, has had it with Cidy Sheehan's antics. mayor Koch, a staunch Democrat who supported the invasion of Iraq but now thinks we should declare victory and leave, says that Sheehan's rhetoric is outrageous. And he believes that Americans no longer view her with the sympathy reserved for a grieving mother.

As the mother of a son killed in battle in Iraq, she originally struck a sympathetic chord, whether you supported the war in Iraq or opposed it. One cannot help but empathize with the agony of a bereaved mother. But that has changed over the months, and I believe that many Americans who viewed her with sympathy no longer do so.

Many Americans, myself included, now see her as a person who has come to enjoy the celebratory status accorded to her by the radicals on the extreme left who see America as the outlaw of the world. These radicals are not content to be constructive critics. They are bent on destroying this country.


Some of them want to turn America into a radical socialist state. Others hope to create a utopia. But regardless of their agendas, how can Cindy Sheehan's supporters defend her shameful statement, "This country is not worth dying for."

Those who rail against the United States have simply failed to sell their message to the public at large. They keep losing elections, local as well as national. Rather than broadening their appeal, they have narrowed it.

As far as the "Bush lied, people died," screed, Koch says,

I supported and still support the war in Iraq, because our Congress and President had every right to rely on the advice of the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Sunday, September 25, 2005, Tim Russert of Meet The Press, summed up the situation prevailing before the war, saying, "…post September 11th, there was a fear of terrorism, an inability to know whether there were weapons of mass destruction by the public or by the media. George W. Bush said there were. Bill and Hillary Clinton said there were. The Russians, French and Germans, who opposed the war, said there were. Hans Blix of the UN said there were."

We and our allies were right to invade, notwithstanding that other countries, terrified by the prospect of terrorism against them and tempted by corruption at the UN masterminded by Saddam Hussein through the Oil-For-Food program and lucrative vendor contracts with Hussein's regime, did not join us.

Koch then challenges some of the many rediculous statements made by Sheehan.

Sheehan has joined those who rail against Israel, labeling Israel as the culprit with her comment, "You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of Palestine and the terrorism will stop." Is that why Sunni and other terrorists have intentionally killed thousands of Shia civilians, labeling them, according to al-Zarkawi, infidels? Is that why Arab fundamentalists have declared war against all Christians and Jews?

Sheehan said she "would not have responded differently to her son's death had he died in Afghanistan rather than in Iraq." Sheehan argued that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was "almost the same thing as the Iraq war."

Sheehan's personal attacks on President Bush include comments in a speech on April 27, 2005, when she said, "We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We're waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush." Shameful.

"Casey was killed in the Global War of Terrorism waged on the world and its own citizens by the biggest terrorist outfit in the world: George and his destructive neo-con cabal."

In an interview on CBS, Sheehan referred to the foreign insurgents coming into Iraq, who are condemned as terrorists even by other Arab countries, as well as the U.S. and Great Britain, as "freedom fighters." On September 16, 2005, she said, "Pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq." On the one hand, she and her supporters urge that the National Guard be brought back from Iraq to be used in New Orleans, and on the other hand, she condemns their use there now.

In addressing a veterans' group on August 5, 2005, she demeaned herself with the use of truly outrageous remarks hurled at the President, describing him as "a lying bastard," "that jerk," "that filth spewer and war monger," and "that evil maniac."

And then Koch makes this exhortation:

We who disagree with her statements, we who believe this country deserves our thanks, love and willingness to defend it, also have the right to express our views. Speak up, America.

I think that the blogospere has spoken up and continues to speak up. The problem is the coverage being lavished on Sheehan in the MSM, cropped photos and all. When the Washington Post and the New York Times are able to convince people that 300,000 anti-war demonstrators filled the streets of Washington last weekend when the real number was far less than that, it is difficult for the plumber in Peoria, you know, someone who votes, to know what is what.

TAGS: Ed Koch, Cindy Sheehan, Iraq, justified