Posted on 10/11/2004 4:20:37 PM PDT by hipaatwo
Monday, October 11, 2004 Remarks by Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Conference Call Today
ARLINGTON, VA - Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered the following remarks in a Bush-Cheney '04 conference call today:
"For some time, and including when I spoke at the Republican Convention, I’ve wondered exactly what John Kerry’s approach would be to terrorism and I’ve wondered whether he had the conviction, the determination, and the focus, and the correct worldview to conduct a successful war against terrorism. And his quotations in the New York Times yesterday make it clear that he lacks that kind of committed view of the world. In fact, his comments are kind of extraordinary, particularly since he thinks we used to before September 11 live in a relatively safe world. He says we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.
"I’m wondering exactly when Senator Kerry thought they were just a nuisance. Maybe when they attacked the USS Cole? Or when they attacked the World Trade Center in 1993? Or when they slaughtered the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972? Or killed Leon Klinghoffer by throwing him overboard? Or the innumerable number of terrorist acts that they committed in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, leading up to September 11?
"This is so different from the President’s view and my own, which is in those days, when we were fooling ourselves about the danger of terrorism, we were actually in the greatest danger. When you don’t confront correctly and view realistically the danger that you face, that’s when you’re at the greatest risk. When you at least realize the danger and you begin to confront it, then you begin to become safer. And for him to say that in the good old days – I’m assuming he means the 90s and the 80s and the 70s -- they were just a nuisance, this really begins to explain a lot of his inconsistent positions on how to deal with it because he’s not defining it correctly.
"As a former law enforcement person, he says ‘I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it.’ This is not illegal gambling; this isn’t prostitution. Having been a former law enforcement person for a lot longer than John Kerry ever was, I don’t understand his confusion. Even when he says ‘organized crime to a level where it isn’t not on the rise,’ it was not the goal of the Justice Department to just reduce organized crime. It was the goal of the Justice Department to eliminate organized crime. Was there some acceptable level of organized crime: two families, instead of five, or they can control one union but not the other?
The idea that you can have an acceptable level of terrorism is frightening. How do you explain that to the people who are beheaded or the innocent people that are killed, that we’re going to tolerate a certain acceptable [level] of terrorism, and that acceptable level will exist and then we’ll stop thinking about it? This is an extraordinary statement. I think it is not a statement that in any way is ancillary. I think this is the core of John Kerry’s thinking. This does create some consistency in his thinking.
"It is consistent with his views on Vietnam: that we should have left and abandoned Vietnam. It is consistent with his view of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas. It is consistent with his view of opposing Ronald Reagan at every step of the way in the arms buildup that was necessary to destroy communism. It is consistent with his view of not supporting the Persian Gulf War, which was another extraordinary step. Whatever John Kerry’s global test is, the Persian Gulf War certainly would pass anyone’s global test. If it were up to John Kerry, Saddam Hussein would not only still be in power, but he’d still be controlling Kuwait.
"Finally, what he did after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, where I guess at that point terrorism was still just a nuisance. He must have thought that because that’s why he proposed seriously reducing our intelligence budget, when you would think someone who was really sensitive to the problem of terrorism would have done just the opposite. I think that rather than being some aberrational comment, it is the core of the John Kerry philosophy: that terrorism is no different than domestic law enforcement problems, and that the best we’re ever going to be able to do is reduce it, so why not follow the more European approach of compromising with it the way Europeans did in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s?
"This is so totally different than what I think was the major advance that President Bush made – significant advance that he made in the Bush Doctrine on September 20, 2001, when he said we’re going to face up to terrorism and we’re going to do everything we can to defeat it, completely. There’s no reason why we have to tolerate global terrorism, just like there’s no reason to tolerate organized crime.
"So I think this is a seminal issue, this is one that explains or ties together a lot of things that we’ve talked about. Even this notion that the Kerry campaign was so upset that the Vice President and others were saying that he doesn’t understand the threat of terrorism; that he thinks it’s just a law enforcement action. It turns out the Vice President was right. He does and maybe this is a difference, maybe this is an honest difference that we really should debate straight out. He thinks that the threat is not as great as at least the President does, and I do, and the Vice President does."
This needs to turn into an ad... Guliani is one of the most popular people in America and when it comes to the war on terror the most respected.
Rudy is my hero.
Mine too.
That's gonna leave a mark.
Count me in with the President, Vice-President, and Rudy.
Awesome post.
ping
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
PING for great Comments!!!
Whack!
John Kerry: He'll work hard to surrender for YOU!
Rudy who? What is 9/11? I got a call that told me to vote for some guy named kerry, I thought that it was a girly name, but they are paying me, so I will.
What are issues?
I wish Guliani was on the VP ticket this time. It would help alot in 2008 too.
Take the cash and vote for Bush, they wouldn't know ;)
Rudy Giuliani is one of the good guys ~ Bump!
Jeb and Rudy in 2008!
I love to listen to Jeb speak . He is very very smart, eloquent, and interesting.
Rudy and Jeb in 2008 I'm thinking more probably but great either way. Let's vote now!
Bush needs to have Rudy say the above in a speech, film it, then make a commercial of Rudy saying it.
Home Run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dont think Jeb has any chance of ever getting elected. George P Bush on the other hand can certainly begin to be groomed for the Presidency.
Please see that this gets widespread distribution. Write letters to the editor, call talk radio, and send to your local TV affiliates and anyone you know!
Thanks,
PKM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040129-115023-8966r.htm
it got mention on the Hugh Hewitt Show today (www.hughhewitt.com)
Pray for W and Our Troops
We have to accept our Presidents as we find them, as witness Harry Truman and Calvin Coolidge. Neither was much as a public speaker. Both were good Presidents for their times.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "America Fails the 'Global Test' "
If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.
Good for Rudy...laying it out in plain language for all to see what a weenie Kerry would be as prez.
Ditto!!!
bttt
Did I detect an opening Rudy created regarding acts of terrorism which were perhaps explained away as something else? I think so.............
Great! Thanks for the info!
Excellent point that I wanted to highlight by posting again.
Prairie
That's a good catch from his remarks today, prairie!
Excellent point. We don't want to reduce organized crime, not reduce it.
Come to think of it, we don't know what kind of Attorney General Kerry was, either. We all know he is a first class DA.
What is it that you detect?
Yes, I'd like to know too. Now's not the time to go all cryptic, LOL.
God bless Rudy. He sees through kerrys flim flam campaign.
Rudy was a federal prosecuter in the New York federal district. The big cheese in the 80's. As a law enforcement official he was privvy to a lot of stuff and has a lot of inside contacts. What I am getting at is the TWA #800 fiasco as well as other issues during the timeperiod which may have been truth victims of a national policy to deny terrorism events in general. Remember, the administration in the 90's saw terrorism as a law enforcement concern.
Seems like a pretty wide opening in an otherwise specific comminique.
The Kerry folk know that if the Johns win, then we (U.S.) will fight this battle in the ICC, not on the ground in Iraq (or Syria or Iran). And of course, if the U.S. has a Kerry foreign policy, we will not be fighting in Iraq or Afgahnistan, we will be fighting the islamofacists here.
**If you are a Kerry supporter reading this, you know I'm right in your heart and mind. If not, you're very naive, and your vote will put us all in danger.**
5.56mm
sKerry Ratchet says we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, we must get back in line and take our "happy" pill. We must become lethargic and complacent. Numb reality. Say yes to drugs(sarcasm), it's good for the masses.
To the average schmuck American, crime and terrorism is horrifying.
To the rich, pampered, protected elitists, it is but a "nuisance".
And some of the biggest, most well-planned acts of long-term terrorism accomplished through those decades: the infiltration of their spawn past our border guards, where we welcomed them with open, tolerant arms to settle among us while we were content to let our own progeny be conveniently killed in the womb.
HF
I guess I didn't see that opening in Rudy's remarks, though we share similar suspicions about how events have been labeled and tried. I keep thinking, hoping, dreaming, etc. that something is going to break that shows clearer evidence of an Iraq connection to the first WTC attack and OKC. (As an aside, some kind of insider back and forth like you refer to might account for Koch's support of the President.)
Violent domestic crime has always been much more than a mere 'nuisance' to its victims, and of course terror massacres in the '80s and '90s were far worse than a 'nuisance' to those affected and all of us concerned not to have Americans slaughtered by Islamo-fascists.
Only a rich gigolo liberal politician like Kerry could have regarded terrorism as a mere 'nuisance' in the 20 years before 9/11, as Americans were slaughtered in the Marine Barracks in Lebanon and all the subsequent attacks.
John "Hanoi" Kerry's analogy of terrorism to 'nuisance' crimes such as prostitution and gambling is ludicrous. In addition to the fact that terrorism was already a great and growing threat in the '90s when Kerry joined Clinton/algore in viewing it as merely a 'nuisance' (a distraction from their more important concerns), the acts involved in terrorism are so FUNDAMENTALLY different from relatively 'victimless' crimes such as gambling or prostitution.
Yes, one can find victims of the effects of activities such as gambling or prostitution, especially an unwitting spouse who sees their marriage, health, and/or finances wrecked..... and of course the organized crime behind gambling, prostitution, illegal drug trade, etc. is a huge concern and not merely a 'nuisance' either.
But how much worse is terrorism, even a single bombing or murder, which is NEVER a mere 'nuisance' to its victims, only to comfortable billionaire gigolo politicians like John "Vichy" Kerry..... Terrorism was bad enough when it
'merely' killed hundreds per year in brutal assaults and wounded and scarred so many more. But after 9/11, for any potential US president to long for the day when we can treat terrorism as a 'nuisance' crime is to show just how out of touch with reality that candidate is.
sKerry's comments would also explain his charges that President Bush and VP Cheney are exagerating the danger of terrorism. He obviously sees it as "just a problem" we have to solve... sometime... when it's convenient.
Whatever else we believe about Iraq, we absolutely know they had a training camp for Al Qaeda. We also know that attacks like the 9/11 atrocity, or the Breslen atrocity, take training and planning.
Thanks to the leadership of George W. Bush, who like Ronald Reagan put the interests of his people even over being liked abroad, Al Qaeda can no longer train in Iraq.
And, to quote Elrond, their list of allies grows thin.
Shalom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.