Gingrich: Assange an ‘enemy combatant’ but fault is Obama’s

[avaistheone1]

Source: Raw Story

The founder of the whistleblower website responsible for releasing thousands of secret documents should be treated as an enemy of the US, according to a former Republican Speaker of the House.

Newt Gingrich became the latest conservative Sunday to suggest that WikiLeak's Julian Assange deserves to be hunted and executed by calling him an "enemy combatant."

"I approach this very seriously," Gingrich told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "Information warfare is warfare. Julian Assange is engaged in warfare."

"Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed is terrorism. And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism," he continued.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/gingrich-assange-enemy-combatant/

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Wisdom from the snow-capped turd.

Bite me, Newt.

[MineralMan]

3. No, no...you don't want a Newt bite.

You'd have to take a series of very painful shots. :rofl:

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Troo dat.

A dose of his venom would be incurable.

[Joe Bacon]

30. Newt considers his ex-wives "enemy combatants", too!

:rofl: what a fucking hypocrite!

[beachmom]

2. Spoken by someone who has never been in a war.

Geez.

The conservatives are nauseating.

[RKP5637]

5. The dinosaur speaks. n/t

[bemildred]

6. The hot-air balloon speaks. nt

[Matariki]

7. This is going to a very scary place. "Information terrorism"? Seriously?

We should all be very concerned.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. Yes. Next Republican presidency

look for American citizens to be arbitrarily arrested, waterboarded, and summarily executed for engaging in dissent.

I don't think it's very far off, and the RW rhetoric has been conditioning people for it for decades.

[crazylikafox]

8. i.e. "The Thought Police"????

Yikes!!!

[hedgehog]

9. "information terrorism" ? Maybe we should suspend his library card?

Personally, I find all the half truths spouted by the Right to be the real information terrorism!

[activa8tr]

10. I think Newt is trying to be as intelligent as Sarah Palin, nowadays! Because..

he sees her making more money than him, by being stupid and saying stupid things with unchallenged authority on Fox News.

[pinboy3niner]

12. He's succeeding

At the stupid, at least. It's blatantly, brazenly dishonest--and stupid--to blame the Obama Administration for the deficiencies of a homeland security system that was set up by the Bush Administration. What he said (from the OP link):

The former House Speaker added that the Obama administration deserved much of the blame for the leaked documents.

"This is a system so stupid that it ought to be a scandal of the first order," he said. "This administration is so shallow and so amateurish about national security that it is painful and dangerous."

:crazy:

[ClutchCargo1957]

11. What about Cheney Outting Valarie Plame?

I bet ol Newt that stunt was just fine and dandy!

[bhikkhu]

13. If someone telling the truth constitutes a war against the US...

something is very wrong, or something is very wrong in the head of Gingrich.

[buckrogers1965]

14. Seems like a first amendment issue.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Seems like someone publishing government documents that they have received falls under both freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The federal and state and local governments cannot pass any law that violates anyone publishing information they know about. Freedom of the press means that the press is absolutely free to publish all information they know about.

Some would say the press is required to publish any information they receive as soon as they can. Otherwise they are not doing their job.

[sulphurdunn]

15. Calling Assange an enemy combat

may be true symbolically but certainly not literally or legally. What is certain symbolically if not literally or legally is that Gingrich is a traitor. However, the likelihood that he is also a narcissistic sociopath might explain that without mitigating his guilt. What is breathtakingly indicting is that the corporate media resurrects him as endlessly as old reruns of Seinfeld.

[SoapBox]

16. Newty...our own home grown version of a Terrorist Against America

...go away Newty...before they arrest YOU for Domestic Terrorist Acts.

And those acts are, your mouth moving.

[Violet_Crumble]

17. Those American conservatives are an incredibly stupid breed...

Hell, I thought ours were bad, but sit them beside someone like Gingrich and ours turn into rational and intelligent individuals....

[zalinda]

18. If Obama was truely behind Assange

I would applaud him.

Assange is trying to bring down the war machines and unethical corporations. If you have nothing to hide, there would be nothing to fear.

Those who think he is a traitor should look at the Thom Hartman video about him.

zalinda

[Crunchy Frog]

19. What does that make Karl Rove in the Plame outing?

[BlueMTexpat]

21. "Information terrorism" - WTF is THAT?

If anyone practices "information terrorism" by any definition, it is Fox News.
So, Newt, just how many people have gotten killed by Assange's leaks? And are you ready to call at least certain people regularly on Fox "enemy combatants" for the hatred that they preach?
What a colossal A**hole!

[NYMdaveNYI]

22. Every revolutionary

was once considered an enemy.

[bongbong]

23. No Assange

Assange isn't an "enemy combatant".

repigs are.

[petronius]

24. Must be nice to be a Republican. You get to invent your own version of US history, your own version

of the Constitution, your own version of science, and now apparently your own version of the English language...

[struggle4progress]

25. Not everything a conservative gas bag says on Fox is LBN

[politicalmajority]

26. Today's Republicans Act Like Economic Terrorists Against America

Among others, cutting the unemployment benefit to millions of Americans and damaging America's economic interest is al Qaeda's wet dream.

It is something that al Qaeda only can wish to do.

The GOP is hellbent on destroying America with their terrorist-like economic and tax policies and beating al Qaeda in the "Who Is America's Worst Enemy" competition.

You don't have to be a suicide bomber to be a terrorist. Cutting unemployment benefits and giving tax cuts to the millionaires in this difficult time amount to economic terrorism with much more widely spread impact than suicide bombing.

[glinda]

27. Faux & Newt appear to be the ones advocating killing. They are the terrorists.

[Blue_Tires]

28. Doesn't Assange have to actually fire a weapon against U.S. forces to be a 'combatant'?

[sarcasmo]

29. I think the Republicans are going to push the Internet kill switch option and use Wikileaks

As the reason the President needs a Internet panic button.

[killbotfactory]

31. "Information warfare" makes you an enemy combatant? Reporting news = Terrorism.

The reaction to wikileaks kind of exposes our politicians to be a bunch of petty authoritarian assholes, and shatters whatever previous illusion of freedom They want absolute secrecy to allow them to engage in all sorts of hideous criminal behavior while they snoop and needlessly interefere in all of our lives.

It's infuriating how much grandstanding is being done on this, and how no one is willing to call them on it because these asshole are hiding behind our troops and the flag.

[Phlem]

32. Why is this shit stain

getting any face time!!??

-p

[JDPriestly]

33. So are The Guardian and the New York Times also enemy combatants.

Was Judith Miller an enemy combatant when she published the report that Plame was a CIA agent?

Obviously Assange is reporting news that is supplied to him. As a member of the press who receives all kinds of information about all kinds of governments from who knows where, how can he be accused of being an enemy combatant.

Are reporters who publish things we don't like now enemy combatants?

What if Assange publishes the secrets of Al Qaeda or of N. Korea or Iran?

Would he still be classified as an enemy combatant?

Isn't Newt Gingrich applying a test to the right of free speech that is based on the content of the speech? Isn't denying the right of free speech based on its content, especially its political content, a denial of First Amendment rights?

Besides, Assange is not publishing this stuff in the US as far as we know. The New York Times and other newspapers are publishing it, but not Assange.

Is the "enemy combatant" label to be pasted on every person that Newt Gingrich does not like?

Newt Gingrich needs to go to law school and learn to understand the law. Until he is qualified to speak out about the law, he should shut up. At the very least, he could discuss his opinions with a good lawyer. There are lots of them around. True, these secrets were protected by American law regarding secrets. But Assange is not an American citizen and is no more subject to the jurisdiction of our courts or our law than any other Australian citizen.

The "enemy combatant" argument about why we should get Assange may go over with the ignorant viewers of Fox News, but the fact is that Assange has not threatened the US with anything but exposure of statements by officials in the US government. If Assange's publishing the Wikileaks documents is a crime against the US or even a threat against the US, isn't it the employees and representatives of the US who wrote the documents in the Wikileaks who are the real threat?

I'd like to know what Newt Gingrich's IQ score is. Can't be very high. That's for sure.