Rove raises specter of attacks in U.S. if military pulls back abroad

Jim Carney
Beacon Journal
Apr. 22, 2007

ALLIANCE - Presidential confidant Karl Rove painted a bleak picture Wednesday of what would happen if the United States walked away from the global war on terror.

``We are foolish if we think we can turn away from this threat and draw inward, and they will not come,'' President Bush's chief political strategist told an audience of about 400 at the Mount Union Theater.

``If we lose, they will follow,'' he said.

Rove's appearance brought out about 25 protesters, who walked in front of the theater prior to the speech holding anti-war and anti-Rove signs.

Among them were a Minerva Marine, her daughter and the Marine's mother. Cpl. Amanda McNeeley, 25, completed her active-duty enlistment in 2005 after serving in the initial invasion of Iraq, and she has been in the Inactive Ready Reserve since then.

McNeeley, who works for Estee Lauder, has received orders to go back into the active-duty Marines, she said, and she leaves for a ``recall consideration screening'' in Kansas City, Mo., today.

Her daughter, Jayda Grace Ortiz, 3, held a sign that read ``Don't send my mom to war.''

McNeeley said she is upset about being redeployed and thinks she could be assigned to Iraq again.

``There is no purpose'' in the United States being in Iraq, she said.

Another protester, Devon Thompson, 32, of Alliance, carried a sandwich board proclaiming ``Karl Rove is a National Disgrace.''

Rove supporters Charles and Joan Ritz of Canton watched the protesters for a few minutes as they arrived at the event.

``I'm glad we live in a free country where people can protest,'' Joan Ritz said.

She said she likes Rove because ``he's a friend of the president, and I'm for the president.''

In his speech, Rove said the White House ``is not about easy things. It is about making big, tough decisions.''

On the global war on terror, he said the country faces ``a shadowy enemy that lives within a population that strikes from the dark.''

In a question-and-answer period after his speech, Rove was asked whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war."

``I think it was Osama bin Laden's,'' Rove replied.

Bin Laden was based in Afghanistan when he orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Bush acknowledged last year that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, but the president portrays the Iraq war as the front line of the global war on terror.

Rove told the audience he agrees with the Army's top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, that the war there is either the beginning of the end of the global war on terror if the United States wins, or the beginning of the beginning of the global war on terror if the nation loses.

``I wish the war were over,'' Rove said. ``I wish the war never existed... History has given us a challenge. It is a challenge which we will at our own peril ignore.''












All original InformationLiberation articles CC 4.0



About - Privacy Policy