Is the global war on terror "phony"? Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said so in a recent speech, arguing that the worldwide campaign against Islamist extremists is headed to anywhere but victory.
Gingrich did not appear to be referring to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - an important distinction.
"None of you should believe we are winning this war," Gingrich told students at a Young Americas Foundation event, specifying the "Global War on Terror" or G-WOT. "There is no evidence that we are winning this war." The Atlanta Constitution carries the story. He isn't blaming the Democrats. He said that the Republicans had control of both chambers of Congress and the White House from 2001 through 2007 - and they blew it.
Does he have a point? I think he does, though the Democrats have no proposals of their own to win the wars, which explains the artwork at left from our friends at the PeoplesCube.com. Gingrich said that few apart from the troops on the ground are really fighting to win.
The former Speaker gives some good reasons why the US is fighting the "global war on terror" in a phony manner. A policy of continuing to pump petrodollars into Saudi Arabia and elsewhere is a big part of the problem - and the administration is doing nothing to stop Saudi subversion around the world and here at home.
The Bush Administration is also fighting a phony war because it has been stifling talk of the nature of the enemy - not just al Qaeda, but all Muslims who support terrorism against the United States. And pro-terrorist non-Muslims, too, but the administration has been stepping all over itself trying to deny the obvious: That every single signficant act of terrorism against the US since 9/11 has been carried out by a professed member of the Islamic religion.
And the White House's hug-a-Muslim operation, long dominated by the Saudi-funded activist Grover Norquist, has done NOTHING to build support support for the war among Muslims in America. (Remember Grover? He was the Jack Abramoff crony who took money from convicted terrorist Abdurahman Alamoudi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and received an award from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's convicted North American cell leader Sami Al-Arian. Among others.) All it's done is whine about being repressed and undermine the nation's counterterrorism capabilities.
The Bush Administration has a can't-do attitude when it comes to fighting ideological warfare. It seems to want to, but it won't. It's manifest at every level of government - from the White House to the lowliest contractor in the field. Policymakers seem to default to the feckless public diplomacy shop at the State Department. The Pentagon won't let its information operations people say anything much about Islam, and its public affairs officers keep illegally invoking a Cold War law that applies only to the State Department, as if to ensure that we don't fight the propaganda war we need to be waging.
A few key people like General David Petraeus get it, as do some folks at the Pentagon who are truly trying to get things done. And maybe one member of the US Senate. And that's really about it.