America At Risk: The War With No Name

Statement

By Newt & Callista Gingrich

Our new movie, America at Risk: The War With No Name, premieres on Saturday, September 11th at the Newseum in Washington, DC. America at Risk vividly demonstrates the dangers facing America, nine years after the attacks on 9/11. You can see the movie trailer here.

Together with Dave Bossie, Kevin Knoblock and the team at Citizens United, we made this movie because we believe America IS at risk. We believe the dangers facing our country ARE real and growing.

In fact, we believe that if our enemies acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons from Iran or North Korea, they will attempt to kill millions of Americans and destroy entire cities.

Our movie, America at Risk, is designed to inform the American people about the real dangers we face and to begin to outline a strategy for victory.

Today, Washington refuses to tell the truth about the war we are fighting. According to experts, we are at war with Radical Islamists -- and it is a war we are losing.

The Global War on Terror has been renamed the "Overseas Contingency Operation" by the Obama Administration. They have removed "Islamic extremism' and "jihad' from national security strategy documents. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has suggested we replace the word "terrorism" with "man-caused disasters."

But how do we win a war with an enemy the Obama Administration refuses to identify and doesn't even understand?

One of the most stunning and unforgettable moments in America at Risk is an exchange between Congressman Lamar Smith and Attorney General Eric Holder in which Holder refuses to use the term "Radical Islam," despite repeated questioning and prodding by Congressman Smith.

When you see that exchange you will understand why our movie's subtitle is The War With No Name.

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If we can't understand and accurately describe our enemies, how can we develop a strategy to defeat them? Furthermore, how can we mobilize the American people and our allies around the world to implement a strategy of victory?

Yet the facts are amazingly clear. In America at Risk we interview several experts including Bernard Lewis, Michael Chertoff, John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, and Michael Ledeen to outline the facts about Radical Islamist ideology that threaten America.

Radical Islamists are people who want to impose Sharia (or Islamic law) on the entire world. In America at Risk, expert after expert describes the Radical Islamists' determination to impose an extraordinarily different system on us. These Radical Islamists are profoundly different from moderate Muslims who want to live under the rule of Constitutional Law and have the same freedoms the rest of us cherish. In America at Risk, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a courageous moderate Muslim, draws a sharp distinction between Muslims who want to live in America as a free country, and Radical Islamists who seek to destroy America.

Radical Islamists view their struggle as a religiously inspired and approved jihad. Radical Islamists practice jihad in two forms -- violent jihad and stealth jihad. They both have the same goal, which is to replace American freedom with Sharia.

In addition to the violent Radical Islamists who would use force to destroy America, there are stealth, Radical Islamists who use our political system and our commitment to free speech and liberty to undermine our democracy through infiltration, intimidation, and propaganda.

Both the violent Radical Islamists and the stealth Radical Islamists represent a mortal threat to the American system of Constitutional Law and political freedom.

The dangers start here at home:

* Fourteen young Americans arrested last month for plotting terrorist activity.

* Five Americans from Northern Virginia arrested in Pakistan trying to attend a terrorist training camp.

* An American born imam condemned for advocating the killing of Americans from a website in Yemen.

The evidence of violent Radical Islamist activity is in the news media on a regular basis -- recall the Detroit Christmas Day bomber, the Fort Hood massacre, and the Times Square car bomber.

In Detroit the national security system, including Homeland Security, failed totally, even though the would be bomber's father had gone to the American Embassy in Nigeria and briefed Obama Administration officials on his son's conversion to radicalism. The first anyone knew of a bomb, was when the bomb failed to go off on the airplane and the Radical Islamist's pants began to smoke.

At Fort Hood, the Army failed to recognize the warning signs from an Army psychiatrist who carried a card identifying himself as a "Soldier of Allah," who attended a mosque that preached violence, and who routinely corresponded with a violent American religious leader in Yemen who preached the killing of Americans. The first we knew he was a violent Radical Islamist was when he yelled "Allahu Akbar" and killed 13 American soldiers and wounded many more.

In Times Square the first notice of a car bomb came when a street vendor reported to the police that there was smoke coming out of a car. In this case, a Pakistani had acquired American citizenship, moved his family back to Pakistan and had gone to a terrorist training camp for two weeks before moving back to New York to build a car bomb. No one in the Obama Administration knew anything about it until a street vendor alerted the New York City Police.

The desire to hide from reality among our leftwing elites is so great that Mayor Bloomberg's first reaction to the report of a car bomb was that it might be the work of someone opposed to President Obama's health reform bill. Given the unwillingness to face the truth about who wants to kill us, is it any wonder our national security systems find it difficult to develop a strategy for victory?

These three examples of attempts by violent Radical Islamists should alarm all Americans and force a national debate about what we need to do to defend America and defeat our enemies.

Yet the Obama Administration consistently refuses to face the facts and tell the truth. If we can't use the right words to describe who oppose us and openly analyze what they are saying, how can we possibly design a strategy to defeat them?

This is not a new problem. 
 
The Iranian dictatorship has seen itself at war with the United States since October 1979 when it illegally seized the American Embassy and kept 52 American hostages for 444 days. 

Iranians have financed and at times led efforts to kill Americans. The Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996 were two clear examples of Iranian funded and directed attacks that killed many Americans. 

Today, Iranian leaders openly express their desire to destroy Israel and defeat America. We have to take them seriously and implement a strategy to defeat them before they develop and use nuclear weapons.

Our second great threat comes from the petro dollars invested by Saudis to finance the spread of Radical Islamism through mosques and madrassas (Muslim schools) around the world. Most al Qaeda and other terrorist activities can be traced to Radical Islamist teaching, preaching and propaganda.

America at Risk: The War With No Name is designed to start a national dialogue about the threats we face today and the strategy for victory.

We are long overdue for a serious global strategy in fighting terrorism and the ideology behind it. We must have the courage to tell the truth and to act on that truth. It's time to be honest about what we know.

Your friends,

Newt and Callista Gingrich

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