Newt Gingrich on the War on Terror: "None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war."

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

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 petrodollars support.

"None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," the Georgia Republican 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."

Said Gingrich, "Look at New Orleans, how can you say New Orleans is succeeding? Look at Baghdad. If you can't look failure in the face how do you improve it?"

...

"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.

...

"What I'm trying to start is a new dialogue that is evidence-based," Gingrich said Thursday. "It doesn't start from the right wing, it doesn't start from the left wing," he said, but is an effort to get politicians and voters to "look honestly at the evidence of what isn't working and tell us how to change it."

...

"We have got to get past this partisan baloney, where I'm not allowed to say anything good about Hillary Clinton because 'I'm not a loyal Republican,' and she's not allowed to say anything good about me, or she's not a 'loyal' Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country."

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...355/1002/NEWS01

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

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 petrodollars support.

"None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," the Georgia Republican 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."

Said Gingrich, "Look at New Orleans, how can you say New Orleans is succeeding? Look at Baghdad. If you can't look failure in the face how do you improve it?"

...

"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.

...

"What I'm trying to start is a new dialogue that is evidence-based," Gingrich said Thursday. "It doesn't start from the right wing, it doesn't start from the left wing," he said, but is an effort to get politicians and voters to "look honestly at the evidence of what isn't working and tell us how to change it."

...

"We have got to get past this partisan baloney, where I'm not allowed to say anything good about Hillary Clinton because 'I'm not a loyal Republican,' and she's not allowed to say anything good about me, or she's not a 'loyal' Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country."

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...355/1002/NEWS01

While the man has some good points here and has them every so often, I continue to say that only no Newt is good Newt.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Where's Gary on this? Didn't he just say the other day he'd love to vote for Gingrich for President??? I'm wondering if Newt is also among Gary's list of RINO's since he obviously is not lock-and-step with the Bush Administration. I'm so confused.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Where's Gary on this? Didn't he just say the other day he'd love to vote for Gingrich for President??? I'm wondering if Newt is also among Gary's list of RINO's since he obviously is not lock-and-step with the Bush Administration. I'm so confused.

I hear him coming. Obviously, Newt just fell off the preferred candidate list since he can't see what's in Gary's plain sight: That we're winning.

[jundp 191]

Seriously can't believe I'm saying this, but Newt has good points.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Where's Gary on this? Didn't he just say the other day he'd love to vote for Gingrich for President??? I'm wondering if Newt is also among Gary's list of RINO's since he obviously is not lock-and-step with the Bush Administration. I'm so confused.

Gingrich broke from the President a while ago. He is on record as saying the occupation of Iraq was a mistake. And his repeated references to New Orleans is no mistake.. he is also on record as saying Bush and FEMA failed the people of that city.

[Jamie76 0]

Seriously can't believe I'm saying this, but Newt has good points.

I agree. I didn't like the guy back in the 90s with the whole "contract with America" which never panned out.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

He doesn't get any credit from me for parroting what others have been saying for years. Hardly new - guess he must have read one of Noam Chomsky's books recently.

[GaryC 7]

Where's Gary on this? Didn't he just say the other day he'd love to vote for Gingrich for President??? I'm wondering if Newt is also among Gary's list of RINO's since he obviously is not lock-and-step with the Bush Administration. I'm so confused.

Sorry, I have been busy all weekend. Let me clear some things up for you. I am not in "lock-step" with Bush. There are plenty of things I disagree with. It's just the dems are so wrong Bush seems right in comparison. I have heard many interviews with Newt. Both Rush and Shawn like him very much if that tells you anything. The reps in congress and Bush have strayed from the real conservative views. You will note that Newt does not say that we should abandon Iraq. If fact I have heard him say that we should win there. He just is saying that winning in Iraq is not winning the war on terror and he disagrees with the way Bush did the first 3 years of the war. That is where he moves away from Bush. The things he says we should do to win the war on terror are good ones. We should get away from oil and therefor we can act without hurting our own interests. (you may remember that I also agree with that)

Here is Newts stance on Iraq:

Gingrich's position on Iraq has been consistent and clear:

1. The decision by Paul Bremer to go from a liberation model to an occupation model in June 2003 was a major mistake (Gingrich first said this publicly in December 2003).

2. The United States needs to train the Iraqis as rapidly as possible and "pull back" from the cities to bases and air fields and serve as reinforcers as opposed to occupiers (this position is outlined in today's WSJ as the official policy).

3. The United States is likely to need to keep some forces in Iraq for a very long time (Gingrich has been saying this as far back in 2003).

Some more thoughts from Newt.

There’s no question that we are, by the standards of the Arab world, a radical way of doing business. As somebody earlier mentioned, if you look at Mubarak, if you look at Assad, if you look at all the various dictatorships, our effort to create democracy is clearly cutting across the pattern of the last hundred years, in which various dictators have dominated, and I think exploited, and I think frankly held back the Arab world. So in that sense, as an external force, we’re radical.

On the other hand, when you go out and you look at the polling data in Iraq, well over eighty percent of the people of Iraq want freedom. The overwhelm … you know, look at the overwhelming number who voted twice now. Here are people, think of the millions of people who knew they were risking death. I talked to somebody in … who had been in Afghanistan, where … and frankly one of the mistakes we made in Iraq was a Burkean mistake. If you look at what we did in Afghanistan … I’ll give you two pieces of this now and I’ll wrap up. I appreciate you letting me be with you tonight.

The first is, if you look in Iraq, the biggest mistake we made was in June of 2003 when we did something mechanical, which was try to impose an American proconsul, named Jerry Bremer, on an Iraqi population. It was totally outside the … you know … antithetical model. We had just proven in Afghanistan in 2002, we invented Karzai in three weeks.

It actually occurred in a meeting in Bonn, Germany. Because we got all the key Afghans in a room and we said to them, somebody who’s an Afghan has to run this place and they ought to be a Pashtun because it’s far and away the biggest tribe, which is a very Burkean, organic model. Well, Karzai, who is a relatively weak, but I think slowly gaining strength, leader – we have had none of the nationalist rebellion in Afghanistan. The Russians have been amazed because none of the things that happened to the Russians have happened to Americans in Afghanistan, because people relaxed and said, oh they’re here as liberators, quit, you know, quit worrying about them.

Okay, we had the same opportunity in May of 2003 in Iraq, and in fact Khalilzad who’s now the ambassador, who did it in Afghanistan, was poised to do it in Iraq, and we did precisely a mechanical thing. We imposed an American, who not only disbanded the Iraqi army, which meant we had to police the streets, which is a stunningly bad idea, but we also ended up with this American giving a speech once a week on television.

I mean, can you imagine, and this is your point, can you imagine anything more outsider than having an American speak on television in English, reporting to the Iraqi people once a week to kind of remind them psychologically, we’re here as your conquerors? It’s utterly un-Burkean, so there I, there I would agree with you and I think it was a terribly painful lesson.

But now look at where we are today. Somebody said to … who had been in Afghanistan, said to me, when they had the first election in Afghanistan that they were in a village where the women the night before went through all the rites for dying, because they were going to vote the next morning and they expected the Taliban to kill them.

Now in a country where it’s hard to get people to turn out to vote, before you assume the people don’t like to be free because they happen to be Muslim, or they don’t like to be free because they happen to be Arab, look at the courage of people who walked literally miles—because remember we closed down all the vehicles—they walked to get to their polling places, they walked past signs that said we will kill you, they walked by soldiers who were trying to guard them from car bombs, and they walked by the millions.

Now it is a mess. Why is it a mess? Cause it’s a mess, it’s a fact. It’s going to be a mess for a while. But it’s a mess of pretty darn brave people who have cast—over 80 percent of them have cast a ballot twice. And they have indicated that if we will have patience and we will have courage that they will have the courage to risk dying.

Remember, most of the people who die everyday now are Iraqis. So this is not about the Iraqis cutting and running. This is about one group of brave Iraqis who want a democracy versus a much smaller group of vicious thugs who hope that they can kill and murder and terrorize to get back to a dictatorship. And that’s what’s at stake. And yes it’s a hard thing to do, but so was the civil war, so was Washington crossing the Delaware, so was winning the cold war. And we may lose this fight, but if we lose it there will be millions of Iraqis who lose it with us. And we have…

I’ll just close with this thought because I find it so sobering. We have 12 thousand hours of tapes of Saddam’s people raping and torturing in their prisons. 12 thousand hours. These were evil, vicious people and the people who are killing innocent people in Iraqi tonight— in Iraq tonight-are evil, vicious people. And I want us to reduce American casualties, I want us to be as smart as possible, but there are no circumstances where I want to see those kind of people win. Not on our watch.

http://www.newt.org/backpage.asp?art=2921

I have my own ideas as to why we should have been in Iraq. Saddam needed to go. I really didn't care what the excuse was. It's done and we can win in Iraq. When it is done the ME will be better for it. But I digress.

Trust me, I have done more research on Newt than most of you do here. He has been very critical of Bush and the Reps and in most cases he is correct. Bush did pizz away the first 3 years in Iraq. But now he is doing the right thing to win there.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Rush and Shawn? Do you listen to any other political commentary that isn't on Fox News?

...

What is the criteria for when a Republican becomes a RINO in your mind?

[GaryC 7]

Rush and Shawn? Do you listen to any other political commentary that isn't on Fox News?

...

What is the criteria for when a Republican becomes a RINO in your mind?

I listen to a great deal of news from a multitude of sources. Do you listen to anything but NPR and moveon.org?

Most of the reps in washington are RINO's. That is why I want a clean sweep and get some real reps in there.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Rush and Shawn? Do you listen to any other political commentary that isn't on Fox News?

...

What is the criteria for when a Republican becomes a RINO in your mind?

I listen to a great deal of news from a multitude of sources. Do you listen to anything but NPR and moveon.org?

Most of the reps in washington are RINO's. That is why I want a clean sweep and get some real reps in there.

Ah, come on Gary...I'm asking a legitimate question. What is the criteria for being a RINO?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

"real conservatives" - that's a myth. There's always been a variance of views in both political parties. I doubt anyone fits some sort of explicit 'cookie cutter' ideal about what a conservative should be.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

He [Gingrich] has been very critical of Bush and the Reps and in most cases he is correct. Bush did pizz away the first 3 years in Iraq. But now he is doing the right thing to win there.

...even though...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said ... "None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war,"

So, in most cases he is correct but on that issue he's wrong, yes? And how do you feel about Newt speaking out about Bush's phony war on terror?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

"real conservatives" - that's a myth. There's always been a variance of views in both political parties. I doubt anyone fits some sort of explicit 'cookie cutter' ideal about what a conservative should be.

I guess Gary sensed a trap and left. The political pundits like Hannity and Limbaugh are the ones that coined that term and they use it often but I have yet to hear a definitive explanation of what makes some Republicans who don't tow the Party's platform RINO's while others are not.

Here's a registered Republican's comment about it...

Now that the opinions of the inferred meaning of a “Real Republican” and RINO have once again been thrown about over the last couple of days, it is appropriate to ask, “What is a true Republican?” A proper follow up is “What is a true RINO?”

As a lifelong Republican who is always willing to listen to someone else, I want to know and understand what constitutes a Republican versus a RINO. I used to think I knew, but I also concluded that there could be a co-existence between conservative and moderate Republicans. I’m not so sure about that last part any longer. I want to figure out where I stand and I also want to figure out if people with varying opinions that used to fall under the same, once-wide umbrella are truly welcomed or not.

http://firststatepolitics.wordpress.com/20...is-a-true-rino/