If anyone wants a good reason to reject Newt Gingrich as a Presidential candidate, it’s not the serial hypocrisy:
It’s not him claiming Occupy protestors need to get a job right after they take a bath.
It’s not even his outrageous claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people”.
It’s the fact that he entertains bizarre notions like this:
It’s almost like [The Bush Administration] should every once in a while have allowed a terrorist attack to get through just to remind us.
Civil libertarians understand the threat of terrorism to a free society. The real threat of terrorism to a free society is that governments and societies respond to terrorism by shutting down the institutions of a free society — freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom from monitoring, freedom of speech, freedom of ideology, freedom of economic activity.
Civil libertarians understand that the best way to fight terrorism is to oppose demagogues like Gingrich, who propose the curtailment of liberty as a “solution” to terrorism, and who would consider the idea that societies need occasional successful terrorist attacks in order to remind them of the menace of terrorism.
Civil libertarians know that the best way to prevent terrorism is to stop provoking it through imperialist conquest. Why didn’t 9/11 happen in Sweden, or Switzerland, or Iceland, countries which are often considered “freer” than the United States?
9/11 didn’t happen there because those nations aren’t projecting a foreign policy of imperialism, and aren’t occupying Arab countries to sate their endless thirst for oil and resources. The countries that have been attacked are the countries that are occupying the Arab world, and that support corrupt dictators like Hosni Mubarek, and King Fahd.
The best way to stop terrorism is for the West to develop a true alternative energy infrastructure so that we can get the hell out of the middle east, and end our oil addiction.
azizonomics 
We did however experience our first suicide bombing last Christmas when a man blew himself up in Stockholm. Fortunately, only one of several bombs detonated and he only managed to kill himself. A few minutes earlier a car loaded with liquefied petroleum gas had exploded, leaving two people with minor injuries. In an e-mail sent before the explosions he had listed Swedish presence in Afghanistan and some drawings of prophet Muhammad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_controversy) as the main reasons for his actions.
We are still in Afghanistan and will continue to be there for the foreseeable future. 😦
Perhaps Sweden is not the best example. Switzerland or Iceland might have been a more appropriate couple.
I am sorry to hear about terrorism in your country. Terrorism is awful. I just wish we would understand why it happens, and stop provoking the blowback.
But the action was NOT from a foreigner, and it was NOT related to your foreign policy.
It was a domestic terrorist and it was his “warped” response to domestic issues.
So, I don’t see how it is relevant at all to the discussion at hand.
Well, yeah, on the other hand sometimes terrorists will be terrorists simply because they are mentally deranged. I can’t say what the case was here (maybe a little of both?) but in the scope of the larger argument I think it would be very hard to deny that there are is large contingent of terrorists who hate America because of American foreign policy, and not because they are insane, or evil, etc, etc.
The real issue with al-Qaeda (or at least the veteran fighters) in particular is that after the Afghan-Soviet war, a lot of al-Qaeda fighters believed they would get American passports, houses in Florida and Mercedes-Benz cars, and scholarships to Yale for their kids and the CIA shafted their requests and told them to go back to Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden then switched his enmity from the Soviets to America. Blowback in the most literal sense.
It was clearly related to our foreign policy as stated in my comment and the man was indeed a foreigner from the Middle East. You might be mixing up the bombings in Stockholm with something else.
The State needs terrorism for its own survival, simple. We are ruled by financiers who view the world as hostile and who have a deep need to control resources, their world view is fed to others and we follow. From another point of view if terrorism did not exist the military would be UN-necessary, the revenue which pays for it would be put to other uses and the financiers would lose their need to create conflict and war, how would they profit and increase their share of ownership?
They would get ways of profiting. It is only USA with this kind of military spending to GPD ratio in developed world (I guess North Korea, or Birma might get higher ration) – and State and international financiers get their money in every nation. Though I guess it does help them make more numerous opportunities.
As a connoisseur of debates about military spending, I can tell you the highest level as a percentage of GDP is actually Eritrea with over 20%, followed by Saudi Arabia with 11%, the UAE with 7% and Israel with 6%. The USA sits on 5%.
Per capita, it is the UAE. The USA is second.
As a percentage of global military spending, the USA leads by a fucking mile with 43%.
N Korea doesnt seem to have a GDP wwwwwwwww
After Newt got to top spot in some primary poll I’ve actually downloaded one of his books and browsed through it. It didn’t seem all that bad. Though, what good are such views on paper if he flip-flops AND contradicts himself?
He could possibly get RP better chance of winning the spot. Say if it was Cain vs RP ignorant republican voters (and they have to claim some significant percentage of all republican voters) might see it as black vs weird. But with Newt it might be neocon vs consistitutionalist. Or maybe even more of the same corruption vs clear and honest restart. Much better surface narrative, which could sell those who just don’t go any deeper.
One thing for certain, Ron Paul won’t win. I think he is very balanced, but he is marginalised in the mainstream press.
As the USA is not forced to vote, only the party faithful get out and vote. That means it is a numbers and reach game.
A question of who has the most fanatics.
In fact I think Rebecca black could be the first Female American President!
I think this video is relevant:
You know this strategy was applied in Occupy Melbourne. The blogs were 50/50 in support of Occupy Melbourne, with comments similiar to his.
The Town Mayor Robert Doyle, ordered the Police to go in and arrest. I guess the US Intelligence followed this recipe, and he is obviously using it.
My prediction he will win, because 50% hove voters have well paying jobs, and have this attitude. I mean 40% are within 200 days of getting fired but don’t know it. As a result they will vote for a President that protects their interests.
Yeah, I count Gingrich out. He has too many stains from the past. I expect Romney to win, but I think some aspects of the establishment are coming around to giving the Presidency to Ron Paul. Whether that is because they realise they have screwed up or the want to blame the problems on him is another story….
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