Newt Gingrich: Political Correctness Is Hurting U.S. Security
By CSPANJunkie Thursday Dec 31, 2009 8:00am
December 31, 2009 FOX and Friends
December 31, 2009 FOX and Friends
December 30, 2009 FOX and Friends
Dave N.: Dick Cheney is the biggest hypocrite in America. From Politico:
"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."
In other words, Obama has been too focused on health-care reform to do the necessary work to protect America from attack, according to Cheney.
It's a vicious canard of the kind we've come to expect from Cheney. But even if it were true, it's a better excuse than going on vacation for a month after getting a memo warning, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
More to the point, Cheney is holding Obama to a standard his own administration miserably failed to meet back in 2001, when shoe bomber Richard Reid was apprehended in a nearly identical bombing attempt. Another Politico story points this out:
Eight years ago, a terrorist bomber’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11. But it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.
But then, we've known all along that there is no depth to which these scumbags will not stoop in order to attack Obama.
December 29, 2009 FOX and Friends
December 28, 2009 MSNBC Rachel Maddow
July 23, 2009 CNN
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. Look at this. I mean, there have been nearly 20 drone strikes in Pakistan alone already this year. And the Air Force says this unmanned aircraft program is only where manned aircraft were in the 1920s.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (voice-over): A U.S. counterterrorism official says Osama bin Laden's son is probably dead. There's not enough evidence to be sure, but officials believe Saad bin Laden was killed in a missile strike by an unmanned Predator drone.
On Monday, the Air Force outlined where it wants to go with unmanned aircraft systems -- drones able to switch from refueling missions to long-range assault, or remote operator controlling several planes at once?
LT. GEN. DAVID DEPTULA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR INTELLIGENCE: ... which allows us to project power without projecting as much vulnerability.
LAWRENCE: But that distance can also be a weakness. Bombings by drones have been blamed for civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in those cultures, some see it as cowardly to fight remotely, possibly leading to a loss of respect and support for U.S. forces.
In 2004, unmanned drones were running five combat air patrols, compared to 35 a day now. But in that time, one thing has remained relatively constant.
DEPTULA: We have become accustomed to operating in battle space that we control.
LAWRENCE: Meaning there's no enemy jets trying to shoot them down. The Air Force admits it's got a ways to go before drones can survive on that battlefield.
DEPTULA: Because some of the systems that we have today you put in a high threat environment, and they'll start falling from the sky like rain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: But they are making progress. Right now, each combat air patrol takes about 10 pilots to operate. In a few years, they expect to reduce that to five. And eventually, ,about half the patrols would be fully automated and need no pilots -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Chris Lawrence, thank you.
February 12, 2009 C-SPAN
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified about current and projected national security threats to the United States. In his testimony he said that global economic turmoil and the instability it could ignite had outpaced terrorism as the most urgent threat facing the United States. He also spoke about the threat posed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as nuclear development programs in North Korea and Iran.
See more CSPANJunkie videos here.
January 22, 2009 C-SPAN
January 09, 2009 BBC World
January 09, 2009 BBC World
According to several testimonies, on 4 January Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately the people into a single-residence house in Zeitun, half of whom were children, warning them to stay indoors.
But 24-hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing between 30 and 60 people.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called it "one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations" by Israeli forces in Gaza on December 27.
January 08, 2009 C-SPAN
January 08, 2009 BBC World
January 07, 2009 BBC World
January 05, 2009 News Corp Hannity and Colmes
January 02, 2009 C-SPAN
January 03, 2009 BBC World