Newt Gingrich : 2014-09-03 : No Strategy is Better than Bad Strategy

Newt Gingrich ^ | 2014-09-03 | Newt Gingrich

[Patton@Bastogne]

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September 3, 2014

Newt Gingrich : No Strategy is Better than Bad Strategy

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When President Barack Obama said recently that "we don't have a strategy yet" to defeat the Islamic State -- also known as ISIS or ISIL -- many people were scandalized. Columnists attacked him for what they said was his admission of a deep failure. His own staff had to run around defending and explaining what he said. It was seen as a terrible blunder.

Maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn't.

The truth is that 13 years after the September 11 attacks, the United States does not have an effective strategy for dealing with radical Islamists and their deep commitment to waging war against us and against our civilization.

Much like the man who has a hammer and therefore assumes every problem is a nail, our bureaucracies have tried for 13 years to redefine the problem into something they are comfortable dealing with.

Two long, bitter wars -- Afghanistan is now the longest war in American history, four years longer than the American Revolution and almost three times the length of American participation in World War II -- have not made America and its allies safer.

The emergence of the Islamic State, as the terror group calls itself, is a further reminder that the analysis and predictions of the intelligence community, the military and the State Department have often been just plain wrong.

Islamic State controls vast regions in two countries and has substantial military equipment. It is not just a new problem in nation-state relations. Whether to engage it inside Iraq or Syria is not the key question.

Instead, the most important aspect about Islamic State is that it is a vector for attracting, training and preparing foreign terrorists from all over the world.

Islamic State comprises 10,000 potential terrorists from more than 50 countries. Estimates vary widely on how many Americans have gone Syria to join ISIS and other extremist groups. Some officials say dozens have gone; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers says "hundreds." At least one of them, from Minneapolis, was recently killed.

More than 500 potential terrorists are believed to have traveled from Great Britain to join ISIS. It's believed that the two American journalists were beheaded by the same man, and experts believe he is from England.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has begun to recognize the depth and power of the terrorism crisis. He is proposing a series of major legal changes in Britain to eliminate would-be terrorists from British life. There will be even more draconian laws proposed in the near future if this conflict escalates.

We are facing a new kind of crisis in the rise of radical Islamists who spread their ideology worldwide through the Internet and through human networking. It is a global phenomenon and the analytical models and strategic patterns that have worked with nation-states will simply fail when applied to the Islamic State and its fellow terrorists in Hamas, Boko Haram, Libyan militants, Yemeni jihadis or any other group.

We need a new analysis with new language and new strategies that relate to defeating a viral system that spreads across national boundaries.

We're better off with a president who doesn't have a good strategy and knows he doesn't than with a president who has a bad strategy but thinks he has a good one. For most of his administration, the president was firmly in the latter category, so his recent epiphany marks an improvement.

If there is a silver lining in President Obama's disastrous foreign policy, it has been in awakening Americans and perhaps even the President himself to the need for a profound rethinking of our approach to radical Islamism.

Your Friend,

Newt


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"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."

~Newt Gingrich, 2012

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[nickcarraway]

Are we ever going to have to stop listening to this anti-conservative, anti-Christian RINO degenerate. He’s and his Dede Scozzafava-type minions have hurt this country enough. Go worship Toffler somewhere else.

[humblegunner]

Wow, you posted it twice.
Ain’t you special.

[DoughtyOne]

Spoken like a guy that hasn’t had a strategy since 1994.

[texican01]

I agree. Newtie is one lying ever fund raising piece of crap!

[Patton@Bastogne]

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Nick ...


The scriptures teach "From the Mouth of Babes comes Wisdom" ...

However, in this case we'll clearly have to make an exception.


"Consider the source ..."

I (gently) suggest that you return with further comments when you've accomplished 1/100-th as much as Newt Gingrich.



BTW ... Have you received any recent invitations to teach classes at the U.S Army War College ?

I thought so ...


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[TomServo]

Yawn

[nickcarraway]

You are right I don't have the accomplishments Gingrich does : 1. I didn't save Bill Clinton's 's presidency THREE times.
2. I never "melted" and fell in love with Clinton.
3. I never went on a Jeremiad against Ronald Reagan, and used the media to trash him.
4. I don't belong to a neo-left wing futurist cult that thinks abortion is a sacrament.
5. I never purged the GOP leadership of conservatives.
6. I am not a serial philanderer who cheated on 3 wives.
7. I never threw a temper tantrum against conservatives because they rejected my hand-picked leftist candidate, Dede Scozzafava.
8. I never used my back channel connections to help the media smear Sarah Palin.

And yes, I never used my position in Congress to get invited to the U.S. Army War College, to discuss my third grade-level war comics books.

I agree with, I haven't accomplished 1/100-th as much as Newt Gingrich.

[Veggie Todd]

And you probably never made an ad with Nancy Pelousy about how global warming is ruining the earth.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ouch !

[Paladin2]

[Baynative]

We be havin' some strategy!

[CodeToad]

Not to decide is to decide, so, no, no strategy can be a very bad strategy. Doing nothing about beheadings is a bad strategy. Bush would have sent in the troops. Bush would have known what to do.

[nickcarraway]

You are so right. I forgot how Mr. Climate Change did his lovefest with Rep. Pelosi! You know Gingrich has so many hits, they don’t all fit on one CD!

[nickcarraway]

I think it’s hilarious your handle is Patton@Bastogne. Can you imagine what Patton’s reaction would be if the Army ever dared to send someone of Gingrich’s caliber to him in World War II. I would love to hear his rant on that. He probably wouldn’t even consider him qualified to be cannon fodder. I think Patton would have slapped a stamp on his forehead and kicked him all the way back to FDR.

[livius]

Oh, for pete’s sake. He’s not-anti Christian and he’s not a “degenerate” and he’s not anti-conservative.

That said, what he misses is that Obama’s non-strategy is essentially a strategy: that is, don’t do anything, so that ISIS can win by default.

[garjog]

“Oh, for pete’s sake. He’s not-anti Christian and he’s not a “degenerate””

Yeah, listen to his history lectures. Newt is great. He is an idea guy and some of us like what he says.

[Paladin2]

LOL. We have way better compression these daze...