Former speaker says energy independence is key
By BOB DEANS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Washington — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday the Bush administration is waging a “phony war” on terrorism, warning that the country is losing ground against the kind of Islamic radicals who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001.
A more effective approach, said Gingrich, would begin with a national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support.
“None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war,” the ex-Georgian told a group of about 300 students attending a conference for collegiate conservatives.
Gingrich, who led the so-called Republican Revolution that won the GOP control of both houses of Congress in 1994 midterm elections, said more must be done to marshal national resources to combat Islamic militants at home and abroad and to prepare the country for future attack. He was unstinting in his criticism of his fellow Republicans, in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
“We were in charge for six years,” he said, referring to the period between 2001 and early 2007, when the GOP controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. “I don’t think you can look and say that was a great success.”
Thursday’s National Conservative Student Conference was sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation, a Herndon, Va.-based group founded in the 1960s as a political counterpoint to the left-leaning activists who coalesced around the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.
Gingrich retains strong support among conservatives and ranked fifth among possible Republican nominees behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, with the backing of 7 percent of those queried in a ABC News/Washington Post poll taken last week. The poll surveyed 403 Republicans and Republican-leaning adults nationwide and has a 5 percentage-point margin of error.
“I believe we need to find leaders who are prepared to tell the truth … about the failures of the performance of Republicans … failed bureaucracies … about how dangerous the world is,” he said when asked what kind of Republican he would back for president.
* Sounds better than Giuliani already, what say you?
*
Al Qaeda Trumpet Adam Gadahn Threatens Embassy Jihad
(CNN) — U.S. Embassies and American interests “at home and abroad” are prime targets for terrorist attacks, American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn said in a newly released al Qaeda-produced video.
“We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad … ,” Gadahn — also known as Azzam the American — says in the video provided to CNN by www.LauraMansfield.com, a Web site that analyzes terrorism.
Later in the video, which is about an hour long and takes the form of a documentary, the self-proclaimed American jihadist makes explicit threats against the United States and U.S. interests, singling out embassies and consulates.
“These spy dens and military command and control centers — from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and which still provide vital moral, military, material and logistical support to the crusade — shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims … until and unless you heed our demands: Stop the crusade and leave the Muslims alone,” he said.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Gingrich couldn’t win the nomination, let alone the general. His “negatives” are off the chart.
Azzam, you silly goose, you haven’t cornered the market on deception. Americans could fabricate “proofs” as justification to wipe out the Islamic countries, killing innocents, but taking out the jihadis in the process. Sit down and stop flattering yourself, we’re much stronger than you. And the reason you’re alive is not because your as clever as you’ve convinced yourself, but because we are humane. Reality is like a lamp, it illuminates much better when you plug it in.
OT After reading about the Griffith University ‘Islamic Science Scholarship’ I felt like putting it in perspective. Hope you like…
http://savitchtoons.blogspot.com/
>>”Sounds better than Giuliani already, what say you?”
Gingrich is my favorite. He’s incredibly smart, but he’s also got incredible common sense. If he says the right things under the right circumstances, he just might have a shot.
For those who have yet to actually READ what Newt said:
“…The third thing I want to talk about very briefly is the genuine danger of terrorism, in particular terrorists using weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass murder, nuclear and biological weapons. And I want to suggest to you that right now we should be impaneling people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of if it weren’t for the scale of threat. Let me give you two examples.
When the British this summer arrested people who were planning to blow up ten airliners in one day, they arrested a couple who were going to use their six month old baby in order to hide the bomb as baby milk. Now, if I come to you tonight and say that there are people on the planet who hate you, and they are 15-25 year old males who are willing to die as long as they get to kill you, I’ve simply described the warrior culture which has been true historically for 6 or 7 thousand years But, if I come to you and say that there is a couple that hates you so much that they will kill their six month old baby in order to kill you, I am describing a level of ferocity, and a level of savagery beyond anything we have tried to deal with. And, what is truly frightening about the British experience is they are arresting British citizens, born in Britain, speaking English, who went to British schools, live in British housing, and have good jobs. This is a serious long term war, and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country, that will lead us to learn how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear or biological weapons. And, my prediction to you is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us. This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment, but I think that the national security threat of losing an American city to a nuclear weapon, or losing several million Americans to a biological attack is so real that we need to pro actively, now, develop the appropriate rules of engagement. And, I further think that we should propose a Geneva convention for fighting terrorism which makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruct ion, and those who would target civilians are in fact subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism before it gains so much strength that it is truly horrendous. This is a sober topic, but I think it is a topic we need a national dialogue about , and we need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until actually we lose a city which could literally happen within the next decade if we are unfortunate. This is a very sober description of the Islamic terrorist threat we are faced with. We are NOW at war with a culture that wants, not to take over our land, but to KILL us, all-non Muslims, esp. Americans and Britons, and eventually ELIMINATE WESTERN CIVILIZATION We must not put our heads in the sand and hope this is not true. It is true and we cannot allow it to happen. Please pass this on to everyone on your list. May be this is why Pres. Bush is so bull headed about the the War? Could it be so many people see Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan as the trees but miss seeing the Islamic Movement as the Forest? In a way I hope Bush is wrong but I am afraid he is right.” GINGRICH