Ed Koch Commentary: Mea Culpa, White House Meeting BY EDWARD I. KOCH

 Error in Last Commentary;  White HouseMeeting Yesterday Between President Obama and  Prime Minister Netanyahu

I am truly sorry to intrude on your precious time, but I want to bring to your attention an error in my last commentary.  I erroneously stated thatAfghanistan has a majority of  Shia which is not correct.  In fact, Afghanistan is 80 percent Sunni and 19 percent Shia. 

Nevertheless, I believe that when we leave Afghanistan, it will become a satellite of Iran, the most powerful nation in the area with expected access to  nuclear weaponry within the next several years.  As a result of proximity and fear, Iraq and Afghanistan - the two nations where we have fought devastating wars - will end up within the Iranian  sphere of influence, Iran being bent on our ultimate destruction.  Our remaining in Afghanistan indefinitely will only increase our losses in soldier casualties and deaths and increase our monetary expenditures now in the billions, without providing us with security for the U.S.  The money we are investing there, intended to build infrastructures, sewers, and school buildings, is being stolen by Afghan  government officials.  Whatever military responses we believe necessary after we leave should be done from offshore bases using missiles, drones and special forces.

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Comments on the White House Meeting Yesterday Between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu

President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held their kissy-huggy meeting in the Oval Office at the White House this week.  Hopefully, the heretofore warm, supportive, special relationship that existed between the U.S. and Israel has been restored.  However, trust once breached is rarely ever fully restored.  I hope this will be the exception and Humpty-Dumpty will once again be whole.

In Lafayette Park across from the White House, at the time of the meeting, the radical left was demonstrating against Israel.  Why is it, as the Spanish journalist Pilar Rahola said, "…of all the world’s conflicts, only this one interests them? Why a tiny country which struggles to survive is criminalized? Why does the manipulated information triumph so easily? Why are all the people of Israel, reduced to a simple mass of murderous imperialists? Why is there no Palestinian guilt? Why is Arafat a hero and Sharon a monster? Finally, why when it is the only country in the world which is threatened with destruction, it is the only one that nobody considers a victim?"

Let me know your thoughts at [email protected].

The Honorable Edward Irving Koch served New York City as its 105th Mayor from 1978  to  1989.

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