At 50:40, Newt describes his idea of good middle east strategy.
It is quite simply the nation-building idea... review the video at the link for yourself.
Broadly shape the culture.
Compare to U.S. efforts in Japan and South Korea and Europe after WWII.
Fulbright scholarships.
Maximize the liberation of women.
Maximize entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Maximize people who understand modernity.
Translate a lot of books into Arabic.
Maximize the opportunity for scholars [from those countries] to come to the U.S.
So you'd have a generation growing up that understood something other than sharia, etc., etc.
I look for forward to finding out who agrees with this strategy that Newt lays out starting at 50:40 in this video and hopefully to comfort me that...
he is not advocating recommending the same nation-building that we have been doing for a decade and opening our borders every wider - to muslims - and allowing them to move here and become an ever larger segment of the U.S. population.
I think Europe is a little ahead of us in that endeavor and it's getting worse and worse for them instead of better.
I mean, I'm curious if anyone on FR actually thinks that this is a wise strategy.
I'm curious if anyone who says anything remotely like this is a candidate that an American should want to "loan the Presidency".
Rinolicious
Newt’s describing the typical attitude of academics: that we Westerners can change people who do not want to change.
We were successful in helping Germany, Italy, and Japan in their recoveries post-WW2. These nations had all been modern states before becoming dictatorships.
Afghanistan had never been a modern state. To think we could nation build there was arrogant. Bush was poorly advised and it has cost us dearly.
The Middle East is known by historians as the “Graveyard of Empires”. We would be wise to heed that warning.
If the people of that region want change, they will have to initiate it themselves. It cannot and should not be imposed upon them by us.
This is something I disagree with Newt Gringrich completely.
bttt
Was it a kissyfest like the Cain debate?
I guess Huntsman is the new alliance.
Promotion of gay rights worldwide is a US foreign policy priority
I did not hear Gingrich say he would be bringing people over here from Arab countries to immigrate. He said bring them here to our universities so they can then go back home and spread word of Western society from a first-hand perspective.
He describes Westernizing their society through broadcast information, translating our books into Arabic, and paying particular attention to the liberation of women in Muslin countries. This is not nation-building. This is spreading information about the West to those who have little exposure to it now.
We are going to have to reform and modernize the Muslim culture or we’re going to have to go back to war - perhaps both.
Can you give me an example of another candidate who has a better plan?
I predict buyers remorse on Newt, he is not a conservative, he is a progressive.
Huntsman should debate in Chinese.
Newt on immigration
http://www.newt.org/solutions/immigration
He is telling us that he wants to give legal status for a mere $5,000, or if you think you can run a janitor service with 10 people, you can come here free.
”those here outside the law will be granted Temporary Legal Status”
He wants a whole new bureaucracy of citizen judges that will insure Korean’s in Korea Town will protect Koreans, and the same thing for every other minority community.
He wants to make it easier for foreign students to come into our country, get an education and compete with Americans for jobs. With the obvious benefits of helping his corporate allies keep their employment costs down.
Nation building means taking over a country and trying to remake it, that's not what he was advocating. There's no occupying element and occupation is the cornerstone of nation building.
He's talking about evangelizing the positives Western culture as Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II did behind the Iron Curtain. His point is these people generally only know madrasas and Sharia. Not all of them, of course, several Mid-East heads of state have been educated in the United States.
BFL