Speaking about Libya, the odious Gingrich opined
This is about as badly run as any foreign operation in our lifetime.
And also
President Obama is going to have to answer questions, because his current policy is so incoherent and so confused that it is literally indefensible," Gingrich said. "This is as badly executed, I think, as any policy we've seen since WWII, and it will become a case study for how not to engage in this type of activity
To which I reply, being about Newt's age:
You must be joking
Do you recall the Mayaguez incident where more soldiers died rescuing the hostages than the number of hostages? Who had, BTW, already been freed?
Do you recall the failed attempt to rescue the hostages from Iran, where Jimmy Carter had Air Force pilots flying Navy choppers carrying Army forces so everyone could get a piece of the credit?
More to the point, you worthless cretin, do you recall
- Lebanon in 1983, where the US Marine barracks were blown up because the guards did not have ammunition in their rifles? And we retreated in disgrace without ever punishing the perpetrators?
- Tora Bora, where Osama bin Laden escaped?
- Iraq, where we went in with 1/3 the number of troops recommended by the generals and we never actually controlled the country? Does the name "Kirkuk" ring a bell?
- Fallujah, where we killed only those enemy forces who chose to stay and seek martyrdom?
- Darfur - where we DIDN'T GO because the US military was tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq and couldn't undertake to rescue people from genocide?
- In fact, every decision made by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfield crowd regarding foreign operations was worse than any decision made by the Obama administration on any topic (OK, I will admit to a slight exaggeration - but only a slight one)
Newt Gingrich is not to be taken seriously as a historian, a pundit, a candidate, or a person. Other than that he's a wonderful man.
Newt tries to wiggle out of it on Facebook.
Instead, he did the opposite. The President wasted weeks trying to get approval from the United Nations instead of Congress, the result of which was a weak mandate from the UN that changed the mission to one of humanitarian intervention.
Yet, by that standard we should also be using US forces in the Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe, Yemen and more countries.
And ...
Now that we have US forces engaged, any result less than the removal of Gadaffi from power will be considered a defeat.
For that reason, I believe we must support the mission and see it through.
Moving the goalposts. It's a terrible thing to do so we need to commit the necessary resources to achieve a goal which the President has NOT set for the military action.
Newt has not gotten better.