Here's Newt beating the war drums for Iran and pretending we don't send mercenaries such as Blackwater, now called Xe to go fight our wars for us and that we're somehow the only country on earth that heaven forbid has family members dying in wars during this Saturday's debate.
November 19, 2011

In case anyone missed it, there was actually another Republican debate this Saturday, this time sponsored by Citizen Link (formerly Focus on the Family Action) and moderated by Republican pollster Frank Luntz. C-SPAN was initially scheduled to air the debate and apparently reversed its decision due to budgetary reasons.

Here's Newt beating the war drums for Iran and pretending we don't send mercenaries such as Blackwater, now called Xe to go fight our wars for us and that we're somehow the only country on earth that heaven forbid has family members dying in wars during this Saturday's debate.

h/t Dave for the video

LUNTZ: Is there a moral justification? What is the moral justification for war?

GINGRICH: First of all, as Congressman Paul pointed out, in Christian theology, there's a clear development in the concept of the just war, which people like Augustine had developed, because they were seeing the rise of pagans who were actually threatening the very survival of the country. In fact, Augustine is buried in Italy because his body was taken out of North Africa when Christians lost North Africa. So this thing has become very real.

My dad served twenty seven years in the Army. I watched my mother through that whole period, WWII, Korea, Vietnam. I think what makes us different and what makes us in some ways when we have good leadership, much more ruthless and much tougher than any other country in the world, is we don't send soldiers and sailors and Marines and airmen to war.

We send our children. We send our fathers. We send our brothers and sisters. We send our mothers, and therefore there's a preciousness to this decision, unlike any other country I know of. I think our position has been historic.

Remember, the Declaration of Independence was signed by a group of people who were going to fight an eight year war. It is a declaration of war in Great Britain in effect. Washington is in the field eight years with one week at Mount Vernon.

These people who wrote these documents understood the grim reality. I believe we should not go to war if we can avoid it and when we have to go to war we should do so decisively, with overwhelming power to seek the quickest possible victory, and we should in fact be quite prepared to do whatever it takes to win, once we begin an engagement.

But I think that there's no question, I would like to plan it, and this is one of the only places I disagree with some of my friends, you come into our country and you kill 3100 people, and we will do whatever it takes to eliminate your capacity to threaten us ever again, and I would be tougher and more decisive, and I agree entirely with Sen. Santorum, I would say to the governor of Iran today, you have a very short time to solve this on your own, and if you don't, we will solve it for you, and we frankly couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks. We're going to get it done.

Nothing like having a good group of Christians applauding talking tough on military action to round up a debate on conservatives' values don't you know.

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