Cleveland: A top aide of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has clarified that the United States has nothing to fear from majority of Muslims because the radical Islamists constitute a small minority of the global Muslim community.
"We are at war with radical Islamists, we are losing the war, and we must change course to win the war," said Newt Gingrich, a close confidant of Donald Trump.
"We have nothing to fear from the vast majority of Muslims in the United States, or around the world. The vast majority are peaceful. They are often the victims of the violence themselves," he said while addressing Republican delegates at the ongoing Republican National Convention in this Ohio City.
"They are people we would be happy to have as our friends and neighbours. The challenge is, when even a small percentage of a billion, six hundred million people support violence against those who disagree with them, that is still a giant recruiting base," he said.
For example, Pew Research finds that just 9 per cent of Muslims in Pakistan support ISIS. Unfortunately, that 9 per cent is 16 million people. And that's just one country, he said.
One of the first few leaders to endorse Trump during the primaries, Gingrich argued that the real estate tycoon has the courage to tell some important truths about our national security.
"In contrast to Donald Trump, our national security and foreign policy elites, led by Hillary Clinton, are incapable of speaking with such honesty. While they lie about the threat, we need to tell the truth about the danger. If our enemies had their way, not a single woman in this room could define her future," he said.
"If our enemies had their way, not a single Jew or Christian in this room would be alive unless they agreed to submit. If our enemies had their way, gays, lesbians and transgender citizens would be put to death as they are today in the Islamic State and Iran," he added.
"If our enemies had their way, every person on earth would be subject to conversion by the sword and to a cruel and violent system of laws. There would be no individual liberty. There would be no equality," he said.
Gingrich alleged that if Clinton is elected it would be terrifying for the country.
"Every American should be terrified at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. If Hillary is elected, she will keep in place the people and the systems that lie to us every single day about this threat," he said.
"In a world where Pakistan has nuclear weapons where North Korea has nuclear weapons and where Iran--the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism--is close to having nuclear weapons this, a catastrophic attack on innocent Americans, is a very real threat," Gingrich said.
(With PTI inputs)
