Back in 2001, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was briefed by the CIA counter-terrorism center. At that time, he says he was told the potential recruiting base for Islamic supremacists was around 3-5 percent of the Islamic population. That would be in the range of 39-65 million people.
Huge numbers!
Fast forward to the end of 2015, and the numbers must be much higher.
Earlier this month, Gingrich was in an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News. Gingrich said the United States is “in a war with international efforts to create Islamic supremacy.” He intimated that ISIS is really only a small part of that. he said “ISIS itself is a term that has very limited meaning.”
We have already seen, and Gingrich reinforced the fact that the Islamic extremists are not all overseas – there are already many within the borders of the United States.
Looking at the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Gingrich noted that one was from overseas, recently admitted to the USA, while the other was born in Indiana. He said “We have, I think, 20 cases now in Minnesota of various Somali-Americans who have been involved with terrorism.”
Quoting FBI Director James Comey, Gingrich said there are about “1,000 people in the U.S. under surveillance right now for involvement with Islamic supremacy.”
“So I think that this is a much more complicated story” – Newt Gingrich.
US security resources are huge, consuming an ever-larger part of the budget, but the terror problem is dwarfing the available resources.
Martha MacCallum was surprised and dismayed when Gingrich suggested that Congress needed to carry out “a series of hearings.”
What is it that Congress does not understand at this stage, that ordinary Americans already understand?
Speaking to MacCallum, Gingrich said “I did a speech two weeks ago, and I outlined the strategic planning problem that we’re faced with.”
Gingrich quoted Jordan’s King Abullah who said back in the spring, “We are in World War III, and it’s between civilization and barbarism.” Abdullah made his comments
After a Jordanian pilot was burned to death by ISIS, Jordan’s King Abullah said, “We are in World War III, and it’s between civilization and barbarism.”
Although Gingrich is obviously on the opposite side of the aisle than Obama, if it wasn’t true, he wouldn’t have been able to say, “There is no possibility that this president has a clue about the real world.”
Gingrich thinks “This administration should be massively helping Jordan which is our most stable ally in the region.”
The chances of that are extremely small, if not non-existent.
