Iraq Is Local

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

Quite a dustup has erupted over Mayor Bloomberg’s comments on the war. It started Sunday when the mayor was asked what he thought of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. He replied that it’s not a “local issue” and tried to move on. The Democrats responded by insisting it is a local issue, and have been touting their anti-war credentials ever since.


The City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, boasts that he has been consistently anti-war – perhaps a reference to Rep. Anthony Weiner, who voted for the war in Congress but now gives a Kerryesque “knowing what I know now … ” The other candidates – the president of Manhattan, C. Virginia Fields, and Fernando Ferrer – also have been adding their anti-war missives. The Democrats seem more interested in seeking Ms.Sheehan’s endorsement than in discussing what matters to New Yorkers.


It’s a credit to Mr. Bloomberg’s record in office that his opponents seem happiest talking about foreign policy, and not about education, jobs, crime, or any of the other “local” issues. The Democrats are right, however, that Iraq is of relevance to New Yorkers. American troops are in the battle of Iraq because of the broad global war against extremist Islamic terror that was overwhelmingly authorized by Congress in several votes following September 11, 2001.


This war has only begun, and may be longer than most of the wars America has fought, perhaps as long as the struggle against Soviet communism, a Cold War for the most part that lasted from the end of World War II until the capitulation of the communists. It may have lasted longer, if one defines the Cold War as the struggle against communism that began with the Bolshevik Revolution.


As long as the current war lasts, one thing is clear – New York will be a target. It was struck in 1993 and again in 2001, and is being cased constantly by the same forces we are engaging in Iraq. So it’s bizarre that the best the mayor can do is say that he has “mixed emotions” on the war (we thought the New York Post put it quite well yesterday).


We’re glad the mayor recognizes that it’s not his role to question the president or Congress, and insists that he supports the troops and wouldn’t “walk away” from them. By our lights,it’s impossible to support the troops without supporting the mission America has sent them on. As that mission is to make New York, and America, safer, it’s clear as a bell is that this war is not only a national matter but a local one as well.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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