(Newt Gingrich) – After the Christmas Day near disaster in Detroit, it is time for Americans to demand effective anti-terrorist actions.
Over eight years after 9/11 and 30 years after the Iranian illegal seizure of the United States embassy and the 444 day Iranian hostage crisis, Washington is still avoiding being intellectually honest about the war we are in.
Our Politically Correct Government is Making Life More Miserable For the Innocent
America is long overdue for a serious global strategy that includes targeting threats such as the terrorist killer at Fort Hood, the individuals recently arrested in Detroit, Denver and New York, and the five Americans detained in Pakistan.
The scale, persistence and sophistication of the enemy requires an honesty, a clarity, and a scale appropriate to the response.
Once again, instead of targeting the source of the threats, our politically correct government decides to make life more miserable for the travelling public by imposing hopelessly meaningless rules such as not allowing passengers to leave their seats in the last hour of the flight. Bound by cultural sensitivities, the default reaction of the bureaucracy is to review the procedures and wring its hands ineffectively.
Today, because our elites fear politically incorrect honesty, they believe that it is better to harass the innocent, delay the harmless, and risk the lives of every American than to do the obvious, the effective, and the necessary.
It’s Time to Be Honest About What We Know
Before a lot more Americans are killed we must acquire the courage to tell the truth and to act on that truth.
It is time to be honest about what we know.
We know our opponents are radical extremists of the irreconcilable wing of Islam (Islamists, some would call them).
We know they have an ideology which is anti-female, desires to impose fundamentalist Sharia as a form of law, is hostile to other religions and is prepared to kill the innocent to achieve their goals.
We know how to identify these enemies but our elites have refused to do so.
Protecting the Rights of Terrorists Has Been More Important than Protecting the Lives of Americans
In the Obama Administration, protecting the rights of terrorists has been more important than protecting the lives of Americans.
That must now change decisively.
It is time to know more about would-be terrorists, to profile for terrorists and to actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information.
The United States should track down the owners of every website that promotes terrorism and systematically root them out. It should be as dangerous to a person promoting terrorism as it is to execute an act of terrorism.
The same should apply to the electronic communications of every known radical (and using these communications to track down every unknown radical).
The United States Must Actively Root Out Every Terrorist Website
The people behind these websites should be barred from getting a U.S. visa if not in the United States (concurrently, we should make it easier — not harder — for non-terrorists to get visas because we want to encourage the law abiding while discriminating against the potential terrorist).
An integrated data base for threats should have been expected, we now learn that it does not exist. This must be fixed.
It should be reasonable for the flying public to have expected that when the Nigerian terrorist’s father reported he was going to a terrorist training camp he should automatically have been barred from getting a visa and from flying into the United States.
We Need a “Grand National Strategy” That is Bigger Than the Debate Over Afghanistan
The emergence of Yemen as the new planning, equipping, and training center for terrorism should remind us we need a worldwide “grand national strategy” (to use the World War II term) that is far bigger than our current debate over Afghanistan.
Americans should also note that ABC News is reporting that two of the plotters to blow the Amsterdam to Detroit flight out of the air were released from Guantanamo in 2007, attended an “art rehabilitation program” in Saudi Arabia, were released and took up senior leadership positions in al Qaeda in Yemen. Americans should also know that nearly half of the remaining detainees in Guantanamo are from Yemen.
The recent arrest of five Americans in Pakistan and the report there are 25 British citizens training to be bombers in Yemen should remind us this is a global war.
Moreover, the report that 74 Guantanamo detainees who have been released are back in the war trying to kill Americans should stop any further effort to close Guantanamo or to release terrorists.
The New Honesty Should End Any Thought of a Civilian Trial in New York for KSM
This new honesty about the threat should end any thought of a civilian trial in New York for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad with its dangers for exposing American intelligence information. All terrorists including would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should be tried in military tribunals as part of a serious war strategy.
The Attorney General and every Justice Department appointee whose law firms provided pro bono counsel for terrorists should be fired and replaced with lawyers who believe the lives of Americans are more important than the rights of terrorists.
The United States must have a policy of effective interrogation to understand our enemies and disrupt their planned attacks (read Marc Thiessen’s column from yesterday).
We Need a New Homeland Security Secretary Who Knows We Need a New Strategy
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s claim that the Detroit bomber was allowed to board a plan with explosives hidden in his underwear proved the system worked is proof we need a new Homeland Security Secretary who knows we need a new strategy and a new focus.
These are the first steps toward defeating the extremists.
We should take them before there is a tragic attack that kills a lot of people.
We have been warned. Again.
Will we now act?
(Mr. Gingrich is a former Speaker of the U.S. House of Represenatives)
Homeland security, obama and holder are too busy trying to put legal law abiding citizens on thier terror list to worry about real terrorist. According to janet napolitano every veteran in the country is a white right wing extremist!!!!!! Anybody who criticizes our liar in chief in the white house is a terrorist. Harry ried thinks every republican is a terrorist. Forget it, until this administration is voted out or obama is impeached they will never get it right. It took obama 4-5 days to say anything about the plane in detroit. WTF????? Was his teleprompter broke???? Or was he too busy in Hawaii trying to get a fake birth certificate that he didn’t have time!!!!!!!!!!! This administration will go down as the worst in history!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
VOTE HARRY REID OUT IN 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The American people have been lied to enough. This past year the most, past years also, they ALL need to be removed from office in November and we, the American people, vote new folks to represent us WITH TERM LIMITS. The longer they’re in office the more corrupt they become. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Speaker Gingrich is correct in his assessment, but “will we now act?” The Communists and “Islamist” pacifiers who now lead this once great nation will do nothing…except talk and make it much more difficult for the vast majority of Americans to travel, as they created the “political correctness” to which we all are slaves. Do NOT listen to or act upon what they say, but act upon what they do…or don’t do! Yes, as stated in the above replies, they are ALL liars and need to be removed from office, but with whom are they to be replaced? More Republicans? Since Speaker Gingrich left office and when the Republicans held the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives under Bush II, they were and still are afraid to govern, except for the first few months after 9-11-2001. Of what are they afraid? Those that didn’t vote for them…those that did…losing…and winning their next election…almost everything and everyone, but…mostly the media. So, what DO they do? Act like Democrats and spend, spend, spend! The mainstream media with the sometimes exception of FOX has opposed the Republicans for the last fifty years, while the Communists can do no wrong…especially their latest “Messiah”. Their first “Messiah”, JFK, would be a CONSERVATIVE, were he alive today! That the media now leans heavily to the Left should be of no surprise since the media is made up of mostly elitist multi-millionaires who follow Karl Marx with the rest of the elitist Democrats. The remainder of the Democrats are those that don’t pay any taxes (40% of this country), those that ALLOW themselves to be controlled by their union bosses, and anyone else looking for a “free ride”. The Independents are only now starting to doubt Obama and they will decide elections for the foreseeable future…if there are any. Citizens are tired of voting for the LESSER of two evils (Dems/Reps)! Sorry, but as polls show, the Republican Party is dead and to attempt their resurrection will only keep the Communists in power until this nation is gone forever…and eighteen months or LESS should do it, even IF the Republicans sweep the 2010 elections! Don’t think so? If the Republicans win in November, will they rescind ObamaCare, TaxandTrade, and ALL the other Communist inspired programs to include their own started under Bush II? No way, as fear, greed and power ALWAYS trump logic in the minds of lifelong politicians! Hopefully, Tea Party conservatives, i.e., patriots the Communists dismiss as crazy, racist, lunatic fringe, will organize, have viable candidates in 2010, WIN those elections, rescind ALL the Communist’s programs, AND balance federal annual budgets. Much to the chagrin of China (China wants the US gone much more than it wants its money back), these actions MIGHT keep the US from defaulting on its loans! Very, VERY difficult to do, but here is the ONLY alternative: What do YOU think will happen when China, India and Middle-Eastern nations do NOT loan the US any more money and we default on our loans? It’s not IF that will happen, it’s WHEN, and it’ll be sooner than later the way the Communists have passed legislation in the last year that more than doubles the national debt when that legislation comes to fruition! When we, as a nation, default on our loans, the dollar will be of little or no value! No dollars for the US to purchase foreign oil equals no electricity at some point! How many of us will starve or die of thirst within a month, especially those in cities? Even those who survive the first month and have food/water for, say, three or four months, or longer…what will happen when others come armed to take what we have? What will happen after a few more months and we run out of food and water? The US and most of Europe can not “live off the land” starting tomorrow…without preparation many months or years in advance. Do you think government will give us that time? If so, think again, as that would start mass world panic or worse…and, it would be admitting that it, govenment, has failed! The majority of the populations of China, Russia, India, the Middle East, and the rest of the world, can and do live off the land, as they did a hundred years ago. And, nearly 25% of the Chinese live in mud and straw huts as they did a THOUSAND years ago! If the populations of the US and Europe were gone, the other 90% of the world might never know…or care! China is orchestrating the “Islamists” and most of the world…because it can. Whose idea was it to use fully fueled aircraft as bombs? It was China’s…not the “Islamists”. China is the greatest economic, military, and influential nation in the world today. Sure, the US may have a larger nuclear arsenal, but when was the last time it was used? When was the last time the US used conventional forces when it was NOT a “measured response” and we actually won a war? That would be WWII, no Granada wasn’t a war, and I’m NOT saying the US should EVER get into a conventional forces war with China. If one Chinese person was killed every second, China’s population would still continue to explode! The Chinese will wait for us to die-off and kill each other after they stop their funding, come over, sweep away our bones, and move into our homes and businesses…that they already own…without firing a shot! The “Islamists” already have, and China will probably let them keep, Europe…for awhile! There is solace, however, as the “narcissistic one” and his ilk will NOT fare any better than we do. Even now, while Obama sees himself as the “leader of the world” and not just leader of this nation, China and the world are laughing, not with him, but at him…and us! They’re giving us enough rope (money) to hang ourselves!!
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo (Walt Kelly) 1970