I will admit, Giuliani has been one of my favorites for Election time next year to win the Presidency. In my opinion, he has shown great leadership as former mayor of New York City (even before September 11th); and he has shown integrity and genuine feelings by standing up for his viewpoint on several subjects even in the face of adversity.
Giuliani has always seemed a bit more middle-grounded on a lot of issues; and I think a President who is not so rigid in his political standings would be a good President. I mean, is there a rule somewhere that says that all Republicans have to be anti-choice?
So I was more than a little dissapointed when these thoughts came from Giuliani:
"Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped."
Not only do I believe these words are untrue, I believe that these words serve to provide people with a false sense of security; Only I can keep you safe.
Very disappointing.
"'I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,' Giuliani continued. 'We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.'"
I don't believe this is true. The article goes on to say that Democrats do not have a full understanding of the scope of the War on Terror and what that means. This might be true, at least when referring to some Democrats. But I think the same can be said for some Republicans as well.
To his defense, Giuliani was never really run a National Campaign. Perhaps I can take comfort that he's bound to make mistakes.
And overall, I still would like to see Giuliani in office before Obama or Hillary.
But now I am left to wonder if this somewhat ignorant quote is going to hurt his bid to the Presidency? What do you think?
Eh, maybe he just needs to hire a new speech-writer?
i agree 100% with what Giuliana said. it is very true and also dangerous if not listened to. do you want to go thru another 9/11? or maybe not make it thru it but die during it?
there will never be peace ever again. do you want the war on foreign lands or on our land? if we leave iraq it will just bring the war here. get it right.
Okay, so you're saying that only Giuliani can help us? Only Giuliani will keep us safe? Only Giuliani truly understands the scope of this war?
I'm not arguing about whether or not we should pull out of Iraq... But the blatant accusation that anyone other than Giuliani will result in another attack on US soil...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
Wrong is your favroite word isn't it? The chances of 9/11 happening in the first place was 1 in a million considering our status in the world. There will never be peace again? When was there peace the first time? Was it during the start of the Darfur conflict? Or the genocide in Rawanda? Was it when women couldn't vote? Was it when we lost thousands and thousands of soldiers in Vietnam?
It's fine to want your country to be safe and for you to be safe. But YOU get it right, the world doesn't revolve around America's agenda like we all seem to selfishly think.
So we should want peace everywhere not just America, we need cooperate with our allies more or I can guarentee it will come back to bites us in the bum.
I know you are proud to be an American (at least I hope) but the only reason I think he said that is to partly get more votes from people who believe everything they hear on tv, the same goes for Dems.
Now before you go and say "WRONG", answer me this: Why do you agree with him? I really mean why, go into detail, give specific reasons, events that would cause this to happen and then I might believe you, or at least take it into consideration, the same goes for Dems too.
-------------------------------------------------------
See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: http://www.progressiveu.org/194914-i-think-this-is-something-every-american-should-read
Stop parroting rhetoric at us. We can think of these little cliche answers to real questions all on very own. Giuliani has not demonstrated, nor have any other Republicans, that they understand the War on Terorism in the least. "Fight them in Iraq so we aren't fighting them here" demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of what is going on.
Terrosits are not invaders. They are black ops. Sabotage and chaos is their goal, not invasion or war on American soil. Fighting them in Iraq does not make us any less vulnerable to something like 9/11 because something like 9/11 requires two things, determination and a small amount of resources. It is not difficult to bomb buildings. The only reason it doesn't happen more often is because people aren't determined enough to do it.
Look at what happened at VT. That could easily have been a terrorist act. All it lacked was some kind of faux political agenda based on religious extremism. The reason there have been no more terrorist attacks on American soil is because resources and determination are lacking. The terrorist threat is, in reality, tiny. Whether Democrats or Republicans hold power makes little difference. Terrorists care about as much about our political parties as you do about whether a terrorist is a Shi-ite or a Sunni.
Terrorism, as we popularly conceive it, is bred from a culture and religion deeply split by extremism, racism, and fundamentalism. The War in Iraq has made things quite a bit worse for everybody. Iraq has been plunged into a civil war, Iran has been pissed off and the Taliban is gaining support again in Afghanistan. There are no fewer terrorists in the world, we are no less vulnerable to attack and Americans have deftly demonstrated their complete ignorance of problems not framed in balck/white, good/evil terms.
I think Giuliani really showed his ass with this comment. To essentially threaten the country with another major terrorist attack if a Democrat is elected is vitally wrong.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
This is how dictators get power. This is how crazed tyrannical leaders get in power. They say 'Only I can do X, vote for me if you want X to happen/not happen.' It's total crap and every American shoul dknow it by now.
If republicans are the ones that understand security and democrats aren't, why is it that this president, a republican, has created more terrorist in six years than any other president did in in history has done. He's provided terrorist organizations with all the sparks and fuel they need for members.
Terrorists fear democrats, because they aret he ones shouting the claim of reality: Iraq is a cause celebre for terrorists - it proves one thing: That the more aggressive we are, the more we lose, the more they gain. We need to stop with this policy of 'shoot first, be diplomatic later or never.' It has FAILED, and it has ALWAYS FAILED. We need to move towards diplomacy first, foremost, and almost always. Guns and bombs are a last, rare resort.
It's a mistake to think that a republican will solve our problems in 4 years when onee hasn't done it in 6.
And don't just say 'oh, there haven't been any terrorist attacks, that's proof.' It isn't. During Clinton there weren't any either, are you ready to claim he was just as good? Clinton was actually better; He tried to stop Bin Laden before Bush ever came into office. Remember that? And remember what the republican response was? Look up 'Wag the Dog.'
That's all that needs to be said in terms of republicans being better at fighting terrorism.
____
If a society is willing to give freedom for temporary security, they deserve neither.
They need to stop the fear mongering. It's getting really old really fast. Truth be told, they always fail to remember that Republicans were in charge of Congress and had been for years before 9/11.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
I can see why some people who consider themselves progressives might be attracted to people like Giuliani or McCain on occasion. But once those "mavericks" get close enough to really smell power, they revert to the same sort of lame Rambo rhetoric we've come to associate with the Republican Party for the last 40 years.
Wow. So much going on here. First of all, this is turning into a debate about republicans vs. democrats and because of the nature of the article it is turning into an attack on republicans. This is about Giuliani, not all republicans. You can't fight one stereotype with another, that's how we have problems in the first place. Giuliani sterotyped democrats as being uncapable of stopping terrorism and said that he himself could do it. That's wrong. Democrats, Republicans, and Giuliani are all equally capable/incapable of stopping terrorism. It's a battle where there is no "ultimate solution" because no one thing can stop terrorism. Obviously, Iraq isn't stopping terrorism, but pulling out of Iraq can't stop it either. We look at all of these decisions of republicans and democrats in hindsight and sure, it's easy to point out what went wrong. The fact is that none of us could do any better. Ok yeah, so there have definitly been some presidents who were more competant than others but events like 9/11 have nothing to do with the presidency. Competancy is on an individual basis not a party basis. Things like 9/11 happen beyond presidential control. Sure, presidents and congress can take actions to try and prevent things like that but the fact is if nobody can ever imagine something like that happening you can't take measures to prevent it. What determines a good president has nothing to do with what goes wrong during the presidency, it's how they handle the things that go wrong. Presidents should undoubtably take preventative measures but when it hits the fan it's all about controlling the situation. There will be mistakes in every presidency and looking back on them will be easy to say "he should have done this or that" but lets focus on the real issues and the individuals instead of making this a party issue.
Just as a side note to that, there is a lot about Iraq here. I know that you were referring to the opinion that Giuliani said he was the only one that could do it right Fanaile, and I agree that he is completly wrong. But I don't want to be so quick to disregard the comment that we should stay in Iraq, only because it seems to be a large basis of the original statement. My only comment on that is whether or not we stay in Iraq is not going to stop terrorism. There are major problems on both sides and it's a tough thing to do. If we stay in Iraq we are losing way too many American's for a war which doesn't seem to be doing much good. But on the other side, we can't just pull out. If we pull out now there will be a lot of consequences. Iraq will then be completly vulnerable to another dictator. We will have started someting else we don't finish and just like every other time that can't be good. We'll leave the country in shambles and the people will look for anyone who has enough power that they MAY be able to fix things, and by the time they realize that it's only getting worse, it's too late. There is too much power involved and then we feel like we need to do this all over again. I'm not saying I agree with staying in Iraq but at this point we can't pull straight out either. I don't really know a good way to do it but there has to be a more longterm plan for that. Keep in mind that we didn't just get all of our freedoms by some happy negotiation, there was a lot of bloodshed before we got to where we are now.
I don't agree that Giuliani is the only one that can save this country. I don't agree that staying in Iraq will save this country. But the democrats are going to have the same tough decisions to make regarding the whole situation and security as republicans and it's not about which party is better suited, it's about which individual is going to be more competent and better able to handle all of the stress and decisions. Let's stop battling about parties and start considering candidates.
And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13