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Newt Gingrich spoke to our Tuesday Blogger Briefing on Capitol Hill this morning-- a fact which, of course, pleased me immensely. He spoke entirely about the Israel/Lebanon conflict and its impact on the broader war on terror and dictators and fascism and...wow, it's overwhelming when you hear about all of it in one hour.
I'm gonna throw out some quotes from the Speaker before I comment, just so I get them out there:
In reference to a 2002 New Yorker article, for which the author followed Hezbollah around the globe: "They said, 'we're gonna eliminate Israel...anything we say between now and then is a tactical excuse...Our goal is the elimination of Israel.""Hamas has said, 'not a single Jew will remain.' Now, I think that's a pretty clear statement." On the Hezbollah/Iran connection:There's a Hezbollah training camp in Paraguay, there's a group in North Carolina, we caught a cell crossing the border...They're all funded by the Iranians."
"At one point when people are killing you, you start to think, 'Gee, maybe this is a war.'"
"I don't think the administration or the State Department understands with just how much contempt we are viewed in the world right now...I watched North Korea shoot seven rockets on July 4th. This was not a case of inelegant timing...This is Kim Jong Il saying to us, 'you are cowardly and weak and you're not gonna do anything about it.'"
"Why would we think either China or Russia cares if North Korea fires an ICBM at the United States?"
"It is global...this is a real war. The correct answer to Hezbollah today is to destroy them...Israel should stand down when all 13,000 missiles and every Iranian is out of Lebanon, and anything less than that is a defeat." On the U.N. barrier idea:"It's a terrible idea and I hope it collapses under its own implausibility...Can you imagine if someone had said, 'why don't we create a barrier between the Nazis and the Americans?' FDR would have flipped." On applying the Reagan philosophy:"Reagan was asked his philosophy on the Cold War, and he offered four words-- 'We win. They lose.' Reagan didn't win with a radical application of American military power." On the idea that the American military is stretched too far:"We have overwhelming naval power if we decide to blockade Syria."
"Aiding the Lebanese army with air power would defeat Hezbollah.""Only on editorial boards and our own academic classes are we lacking power."
"The question should be, 'how do we strengthen the Lebanese government?'...We want to help the Lebanese people and the democractically elected government defeat Hezbollah. We should plant a flag next to them and say 'we will help you.'"
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