Ted Koppel on the War
Maybe now that he's retired from Nightline, he feels freer to give his real opinion? Or maybe he was giving it all along and no one noticed?
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters.org writes about Koppel's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press:
Former “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel was one of Tim Russert’s guests on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” As amazing as it might seem, he made some 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:
- 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.
...a little later on in the discussion, Russert asked Koppel a very telling question:
Ted Koppel, you are tonight airing on the Discovery Channel a special called “Our Children’s Children’s War,” the “long war” as you call it repeatedly, that this war on terror is much more than just Iraq, and it’s going to go on for a long time.
Amazing. Did Tim Russert just accidentally admit that the war in Iraq is indeed a part of the war on terror? Shocking. Yet, not close to as shocking as Koppel’s answer...
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