Newt Gingrich : 2014-08-30 : Obama’s Right -- He Has “No Strategy”

.

August 30, 2014

Newt Gingrich : Obama’s Right -- He Has “No Strategy”

=====================================================

Americans might be inclined to roll their eyes at this admission from their president given that he spent weeks on vacation while a terrorist group swept away eleven years of work to stabilize Iraq. As I wrote in this newsletter last week, however, the problem has never been the rounds of golf President Obama is playing. It is what has been happening--or rather, what has not been happening--between them.

If a month’s vacation in Martha’s Vineyard was the price of our Commander-in-Chief realizing at last that we do not have a strategy for fighting radical Islamism, it was well worth the cost. Certainly it would have been better if he’d recognized that fact six years ago, but the first step is admitting you have a problem--or in this case, that you don’t have a strategy.

President Obama is right to say he “doesn’t want to put the cart before the horse.” We need a complete rethinking of our strategy for dealing with radical Islamism. We have needed one for several decades.

The Islamic State--with its brutal killings of innocent men, women and children, its horrific beheadings, its forced conversions, and its stunning seizure of much of Syria and Iraq--has made this fact impossible to ignore. It would be hard to imagine a more dramatic repudiation of the President’s withdrawal of American leadership in the world.

Instead of criticizing the politics of his “we don’t have a strategy” comment, however, Republicans should embrace the substance of it and invite him to examine with them the key facts that must underlie any serious rethinking.

The President’s fellow world leader, British Prime Minister David Cameron, did an admirable job of outlining these facts in his own press conference today. It is clear he is plagued by none of the self-delusion that has characterized the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

"This is not some foreign conflict thousands of miles away that we can hope to ignore," he said. "The ambition to create an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and Syria is a threat to our own security...And that is in addition to the many other Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist groups that exist in that region. The first ISIL terrorist attacks on the continent of Europe have already taken place."

Of our struggle with “Islamist extremism,” the Prime Minister said that “we are in the middle of a generational struggle between a poisonous and extremist ideology that I believe that we'll be fighting for years, and probably decades.”

"We cannot appease this ideology,” he continued. “We have to confront it at home and abroad. To do this we need a tough, intelligent, patient, comprehensive approach to defeat the terrorist threat at its source.”

In other words, while Obama speaks of curtailing the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq, Cameron speaks of fighting the worldwide threat of an ideology.

And it certainly is worldwide: More than 12,000 foreign fighters have travelled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State. A thousand or more are from Great Britain. Hundreds of American passport holders have gone too.

There are undoubtedly tens of thousands more sympathizers in Western countries. If you don’t believe me, listen to the words a London-based Muslim cleric spoke on Sean Hannity’s show yesterday. He is a religious leader living in Britain’s largest city and pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. At the end of the segment he promises Sean that Sharia law is “coming to a place near you.”

The President may want to contain his thinking to Iraq and Syria, but the threat will not be contained there. This fact is fundamental to formulating a strategy and should be at the heart of President Obama’s analysis.

Let’s hope that President Obama understood how right he was when he said that we “don’t have a strategy,” and that he was listening to Prime Minister Cameron’s remarks today. Perhaps then his next press conference will sound a little less academic and a little more like a Commander-in-Chief.

"We have to frankly break the back of the secular-socialist machine, elect people committed to representing the American people, and then methodically rip the system apart."

Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'
Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists]
[Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]

Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"
I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.
[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]

Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance
...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.
[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]

Rand Paul's immigration speech
...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.

Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.

Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...

This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.

Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reform
Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...
[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]

Newt’s an opportunist, and nominating someone as poisonous as he is perceived to be by the great middle and the left would be a bigger disaster than nominating a de facto Democrat like Rand or Ron Paul.

Remember this?

Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi Commercial on Climate Change
THE FREEDOM POST | May 13, 2011 | Matthew Burke
Posted on 5/13/2011 3:56:46 PM by TheFreedomPoster
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2719527/posts

Botox Barbie needs to be tried for corruption and treason, but not for that ad, or even for this:

Nancy Pelosi Says American Women Always Victims: ‘Starved,’ ‘Force-Fed’
Breitbart’s Big Government | August 29, 2014 | Dr. Susan Berry
Posted on 8/30/2014 5:57:35 PM by 2ndDivisionVet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/gop/3198899/posts

Newt *might* make a good VP running mate, because he’d be a great attack dog, which is what one wants in one’s second (worked for Jimmy Carter). And after his boss is sworn in, Newt would be the media’s whipping boy, drawing fire from the POTUS — and have no real power. He might make a decent Sec’y of Education (although he’d probably push for Common Core, just changing the name a little); he’d probably make a good UN ambassador, though not a good Sec’y of State.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.