Late last February, North Korea announced that it was preparing a rocket launch in order to — allegedly — put a communications satellite into space. While U.S. and allied officials widely believe “the launching is a cover for testing technology for a long-range missile that could carry a nuclear warhead,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last Sunday that the U.S. has no plans to militarily disrupt the launch.

But Newt Gingrich believes military action is necessary. Last night on Fox News, Gingrich said “we should be very worried,” referencing a “novel” he read about a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack which “could eliminate all electricity production” in the U.S. “[W]e would go back to a pre-industrial era overnight, in seconds,” Gingrich warned. “It’s a very serious threat”:

GINGRICH: I don’t think North Korea should be allowed to launch missiles. I think we should take whatever preemptive actions are necessary. The idea that we’re going to suddenly be shocked one morning as one of these missiles has a nuclear weapon and does something that dramatically changes America I think is a very dangerous idea.

Continuing his fantasy, Gingrich then likened a lack of action on North Korea (and Iran and Hamas) to what “we did in the 1930′s about Adolf Hitler and Nazism.” He argued that “changing the regime is the only way to change the behavior,” but if all else fails, the U.S. should use lasers to wipe out the missile. Watch it:

As the Washington Post noted, “North Korea’s missiles are inaccurate and decades out of date,” and experts “agree that North Korea is probably years away from putting nuclear warheads on long-range missiles that could hit the United States.”

Moreover, the International Crisis Group has warned against overreactions of the type Gingrich displayed:

“[A]n overblown response would likely jeopardise the Six-Party Talks to end North Korea’s nuclear program. What is needed is a calm, coordinated response from the key actors to raise pressure on Pyongyang to return to the talks rather than a divided reaction that only fulfils the North’s desire to widen splits among its neighbours. [...] An overreaction to the test that prompts the North to abandon the Six-Party Talks would strengthen hardliners in Pyongyang.”

Gingrich appears to enjoy engaging in hyperbole as of late. Just last week, he warned that President Obama’s policies are taking the U.S. toward “dictatorship.”

Via Attackerman, James Besser reports that “groups on the Jewish and Christian right say they’re ready to run interference for [Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu] in Congress, especially if the Barack Obama administration decides to move aggressively on Palestinian statehood, or even presses on sensitive issues such as Israeli settlements.”

“There’s a kindred spirit between Christian Zionists and Netanyahu,” said the Rev. James Hutchens, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian group. “He has demonstrated his willingness to reach out to us in the past and he shares our views. He is much more resistant to giving up land for peace — he’s referred to it as land for terror. I’m looking forward to working with him in any way we can.” [...]

[Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America] admitted, “We have been in contact with a number of Bibi’s confidants, and the impression they give is that this will be a very tough government — that there will be no concessions without a transformation in the [Palestinian] culture. And they said they were very appreciative of our efforts to bring that message to Congress.”

It seems to me that if you had groups of, for example, Arab-American lobbyists openly talking about how they were going to work in concert with a foreign government to frustrate U.S. foreign policy aims, it would be a pretty big deal. I’m almost certain that conservatives would be up in arms. Andy McCarthy would attack the media for not reporting it correctly. Frank Gaffney would quickly churn out a dubiously-sourced report. And Daniel Pipes and the gang at Middle East Forum would be flooding my inbox with splenetic warnings of the Islamist/Sharia/Wahabbi conspiracy to steal America’s vital essence — not that they don’t do that anyway.

As it is, Pipes is already helping to run interference for the new right-wing Israeli government, praising foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s speech yesterday — in which the racist extremist Lieberman declared that Israel’s commitments at the 2007 Annapolis peace conference had “no validity” — as a “brilliant debut.”

According to Besser’s article, one of the right-wing Christian groups involved in lobbying for Netanyahu’s agenda is Christians United For Israel (CUFI), led by Rev. John Hagee. Last May, Sen. John McCain was forced to reject Hagee’s presidential endorsement after ThinkProgress and other organizations publicized various offensive positions Hagee holds, such as that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for teh gay, and that “God allowed [the Holocaust] to happen” in order to help re-establish the state of Israel and bring about the End Times.

Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Unlike many journalists, Maddow asked him about — and pressed him repeatedly on — his role in approving torture against detainees. Specifically, she asked him about reports that he was among nine White House “principals” who approved torture techniques so specifically that “interrogation sessions were almost choreographed.”

Powell refused to acknowledge his role in these meetings, and claimed ignorance about long-released legal memos that specifically authorized torture. Choosing his words carefully, he would say only that, “at least from the State Department standpoint,” it was important to stand by the Geneva Conventions. Powell also questioned whether tactics like sleep deprivation, stress positions, or waterboarding were “criminal” — despite specific U.S. statutes and international law forbidding torture:

MADDOW: If there was a meeting though at which senior officials were saying, were discussing and giving the approval for sleep deprivation, stress positions, waterboarding. Were those officials committing crimes when they were giving their authorization?

POWELL: You’re asking me a legal question. I mean, I don’t know that any of these items would be considered criminal. And I will wait for whatever investigations that the government or the Congress intends to pursue with this.

Throughout the interview, Powell shirked any responsibility to account for his actions by deferring to hypothetical “investigations” or pointing to the unreleased — and possibly non-existent — “written record” of these meetings as providing the ultimate final word. As Maddow pointed, it’s unclear whether any such investigations will ever take place. Watch it:

Powell has gotten credit in the past for supposedly “breaking” with the Bush administration on the issue of torture. However, his refusal to even acknowledge centuries-long definitions of torture is a discouraging indication that he is more concerned with protecting himself legally than getting to the truth of America’s national disgrace.

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