Giuliani’s New Campaign Ad: Fiction Rather than Facts

By Brigitte L. Nacos
It seems that Rudy Giuliani is no longer content to rely solely on his mythical account of his heroic leadership role after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Perhaps Joe Biden’s perceptive remark that the former New York mayor’s presidential campaign message consists of "a noun, a verb and 9/11"got to Rudy. In his latest campaign ad to be aired in New Hampshire, Giuliani celebrates Ronald Reagan’s successful leadership against terrorists and terrorism with the clear implication that he, Rudy, will do the same. On the screen you see the words, “Rudy Resolve” as Giuliani speaks. Problem is that the new ad is another fairy-tale version of reality.

In this new spot, Giuliani recalls the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis and says, “They released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that we're facing, The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as President of the United States. The best way you deal with dictators, the best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You don't back down."

While it is true that the hostages were released minutes after Jimmy Carter’s presidency ended, this was obviously an act to humiliate and punish the outgoing president as the following eight years. While none of the Iranian hostages died during the long ordeal, President Reagan’s record on terrorism was up to 9/11 the worst of any president in that far more Americans died in terrorist incidents than during any other presidency. Moreover, given the multitude of terrorist attacks, many of them against Americans, the 1980s came to be known as the decade of terrorism.

The Iranian Mullahs who according to Rudy’s ad reacted to the strong leader Reagan by returning American hostages immediately after he took his oath of office, were obviously not scared enough to have their Revolutionary Guard Corps establish and train the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon. It was this group that was responsible for the 1983 truck bomb attack on the U.S. Marine barracks outside of Beirut that killed 241 Americans, an earlier attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut that took 63 lives, among them 17 Americans, and the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 with a subsequent hostage crisis. From 1982 through 1991, the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah held continuously several Americans hostage in Lebanese hide-outs—a nightmare that led to the ill-fated arms-for-hostages bargain between the Reagan administration and Tehran. Given Rudy’s resolve to follow Reagan’s model of dealing with “tyrants and terrorists,” he should also recall the sea-jacking of the cruise-ship Achille Lauro with mostly American aboard and a wave of terrorist strikes against Americans in Europe under Reagan’s watch. Before he left office, the downing of PanAm Flight 103 over Scotland killed all 259 persons abroad and 11 on the ground. And the last of the Lebanon hostages returned home after Regan had left the White House.

I do not to blame Ronald Reagan for the wave of anti-American terrorism and the hundreds of American victims during his presidency. The point here is that Rudy Giuliani’s ad is another piece of campaign propaganda that presents voters with an excerpt or episode that belies the whole reality and truth.

Comments

[Richard T.]

And using your calculus, more New Yorkers were killed by terrorists under Giuliani's administration than under any other mayor, so he should be taking blame, not credit, for 9-11.

[Brigitte]

Richard T.--in terms of sheer numbers, yes. But just as I do not blame President Reagan for the wave of anti-American terrorist attacks on his watch, I do not blame Giuliani for 9/11. My point is that Giuliani and the Republicans in general ignore history when they tell the public again and again that they have a better record fighting terrorism than Democrats. They do not and therefore should not foul the public. Strangely, the mainstream media are silent on this points as well.