reality-based educator

Ratcheting up the partisan rhetoric, Newt Gingrich says the GOP needs to tell voters that world is in the middle of World War III and only Republicans can keep them safe in this global conflict:

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the Administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.

He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans.

He said the reluctance to put those pieces together and see one global conflict is hurting America's interests. He said people, including some in the Bush Administration, who urge a restrained response from Israel are wrong "because they haven't crossed the bridge of realizing this is a war."

"This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:

"Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts."

There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

Gingrich doesn't mention how many of the problems the U.S. is facing in "WWIII" are self-inflicted. Preznit Bush and the ruling Grand Old Party have managed to take the empathy that much of the world felt for the United States after 9/11 and squander it by invading Iraq and pursuing policies of torture and kidnapping in the war on terror, thus radicalizng millions of Muslims against the United States and the Western world in the process. The "terrorists" arrested in Miami and Toronto have said the Iraq war was the main reason they wanted to blow up targets in Canada and the United States. The terrorists responsible for the Madrid and London bombings also claimed the Iraq war as motivation for the horrific attacks that killed innocent civilians in Spain and Britain.

In addition, North Korea and Iran have both been emboldened by the Bush administration's failed Iraq occupation. Knowing that the American military is stretched to the breaking point, neither North Korea nor Iran seem to fear the consequences of their aggressive actions. Iran in particular seems carefree as it arms Shiite militamen in Iraq, encourages Hezbollah and Hamas to act aggressively against Israel, and pursues a nuclear weapons program. And North Korea said yesterday it plans to test more missile in the very near future.

So if Gingrich wants some dots connected, then Democrats should connect the dots of all the foreign policy failures the administration has suffered and note how they have brought the United States to its weakest point since the Vietnam pull-out. The administration is impotent to deal with the problems facing the nation and the world. The administration's vaunted arrogance, simplistic views of the world and belief that it can "make its own reality" have come back to haunt it as the complexities of the real world reveal the limitations of a foreign policy toolbelt containing only a hammer.

If Gingrich wants to scare Americans into voting for the GOP, then Democrats need to remind voters just how incompetent (Iraq, Katrina) dishonest (Iraq, CIA leak case) and corrupt (Halliburton, Abramoff, Delay) the administration and the ruling party are and ask voters if they've "Had enough?" yet.