“Treason” and the Danger of Dishonesty

by Newt Gingrich: In my speech to the Republican National Convention in July, I recited a list of terror attacks that had occurred in the previous 37 days. It went on for two whole minutes
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This week, German special forces arrested a Syrian refugee who authorities said was on the verge of committing an attack similar to those we saw in Paris and Brussels. The foiled attack was one positive outcome, but it is again worth remembering the cascade of recent attacks in which our enemies have succeeded.

Consider the list of attacks just since my speech to the Republican National Convention in July.

Only a few days after that speech, an attacker pledging allegiance to ISIS blew himself up outside of a concert venue in Germany, wounding 12.

Two days later, in Normandy, France, ISIS attackers slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest and took nuns and parishioners hostage.

In August, we saw the first ISIS attack in Russia when men armed with axes and guns attacked traffic police in Moscow.

In Strasbourg, France, a Jewish man was stabbed by an attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

In Toulouse, France, an Algerian attacker entered a police station and stabbed an officer in the neck.

In Germany, an attacker at a music festival screamed “Allahu Akbar” while stabbing and critically wounding an older married couple.

In Australia, a man screamed “Allahu Akbar” while stabbing a 21-year-old British backpacker to death, and fatally wounded a man who intervened to try to save her.

In Roanoke, Virginia, a Muslim man attacked and critically wounded a couple as they entered their apartment building, and authorities said they believed the attack was ISIS-inspired.

In September, an Afghan immigrant perpetrated multiple bombings in New York and New Jersey, wounding 29 people.

The same week, an immigrant from Turkey shot and killed 5 people in a mall near Seattle, Washington.

And finally, just last week, a man stabbed two police offices in Brussels, Belgium in an attack authorities described as terror-related.

Consider it honestly: How many of these incidents had you heard about? How many of those you’d heard about would you have remembered?

Our amnesia about these horrific attacks is a symptom of our failure to be honest about the nature of the threat we face. Our officials and our media elites behave as though they are isolated incidents, when in fact they are part of a clear and totalitarian ideology that is spreading across the planet.

The deceit and self-deception about this very real threat is the topic of my new book, Treason, with my extraordinary coauthor Pete Earley. Treason is a novel, so it is fictional, but for anyone who has been keeping up with the news, it bears a striking resemblance to the real world.

For example, Treason features a president who refuses to use the term “radical Islamic terror”.

It features an FBI and a Department of Homeland Security which, because of political correctness, won’t monitor mosques even when they are frequented by radical imams.

It features radical Islamist front-groups in the United States that lie about their intentions and try to intimidate those who speak out about the threat.

The fact that these details sound so familiar is a sign of why we are witnessing these accumulating atrocities–and why we remember so few of them just months later.

Treason deals with a traitor from within the U.S. government. But in fact, the real treachery is the willful blindness that prevents us from dealing with radical Islamic terrorism for what it is.

Without being honest about the threat and a major shift in strategy, the danger will only get worse.

Indeed, FBI Director James Comey recently warned of a surge of terrorists out of the Islamic State who seek to carry out attacks in Europe and the U.S. “At some point there’s going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before,” Comey said. “We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and Paris.” He added that future attacks will be on “an order of magnitude greater.”

You’ve just read the list of terror attacks in the last 3 months. An “order of magnitude greater” would be ten times that many, and ten times as deadly. Such is the danger of continued dishonesty. That is the danger that led us to write Treason.
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Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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