World War 3?
GINGRICH: We’re in the early stages of what I would describe as the third World War and, frankly, our bureaucracy’s not responding fast enough and we don’t have the right attitude. And this is the 58th year of the war to destroy Israel and, frankly, the Israelis have every right to insist that every single missile leave south Lebanon, and the United States ought to be helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force — not as a political force in the parliament — but as a military force in south Lebanon.
RUSSERT: This is World War III?
GINGRICH: I believe if you take all the countries I just listed that you’ve been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you have to say to yourself: this is, in fact, World War III.
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“I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein
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But Newt Gingrich gave himself away as a political tactician. “Gingrich said he is “very worried” about Republicans facing fall elections and says the party must have the “nerve” to nationalize the elections and make the 2006 campaigns about a liberal Democratic agenda rather than about President Bush’s record.”
James Woolsey already called the Cold War “World War III” and the — um — “Global War on Terrorism” “World War IV”. In this sense, Einstein was wrong. War War III turned out to be fought with proxies and covert operations, the one moment where nuclear weapons were pointed at each other on the tip of Cuba coming to bluster. To anyone who sneers at the idea of the Cold War being “World War III”, because — you know — where is the wanton bloodshed? — tell that to anyone who felt the might of the Soviet or American military, or fell under right-wing dictators or Communist puppets… Death Squads here, there, everywhere.
But nay. I’ll go ahead and have the definition of “World War” as being, you know, something completely like World War I and World War II — the War to End All Wars — as Wilson called the former because, you know, it’s the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy and, you know, Democracies don’t fight each other… World War Two being the “Great Patriotic War” by the Soviet Union because, well, the Russians mid-stream opted out of the first one to tend toward their own Revolution…
World War 3 is this, or this shall be World War 3, you say? Notwithstanding the sort of insularity therein (it’s only a World War if America involves itself — and the Cold War as World War 3 is decidedly America-centric), Look deep in your heart. Is that really you want? A replay of World War 1? A replay of World War 2? Of that sort of “World War”, with all the implications? (World War 1, incidentally, ended with an entire world unsure of what the heck they just spilt an entire generation’s worth of blood over.)
“Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so. In an interview in Bellevue this morning Gingrich said Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.
As though Bush hasn’t been speaking “in stark terms” throughout his presidency.
Really? Are you sure?