Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit drew widespread applause as he declared that the battle against radical Islam is about "American survival."
The speech delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 24 has gotten some 30,000 views on C-SPAN and interest in the address continues to surge.
Gingrich said he had come to the summit to talk about a subject that is "enormously serious and not political in any normal sense. It's about American survival.
"Nearly 14 years after 9/11, the United States is losing the war against radical Islamists. And we have to have the courage to confront how badly we are doing in this war."
Noting that the struggle against radical Islam is a "global war," Gingrich told the gathering: "There is one common pattern occurring everywhere across the planet, and this is radical Islamists who hate our civilization are prepared to cut off our heads and are determined to impose their religion by force."
Gingrich got a standing ovation when he said to those Islamists: "I have a desire to kill you before you cut off my head."
He went on: "This is a campaign that should be fought with the largest possible number of allies. This is a campaign that should be fought wherever possible by surgically and methodically hunting down these people."
The Georgia Republican likened the battle against radical Islamists to the struggle against communism and the Soviet Union.
One strategy to use in the battle is to drive the radical jihadists off the Internet, he said. He also demanded that Americans who leave the country to wage jihad should lose their passports and be barred from returning to America.
Gingrich again drew enthusiastic applause when he said: "I believe our government lies to us every day about this. We demand the right to defend our civilization."
And looking ahead to the early caucus in Iowa in next year's presidential election, he told Iowans they should demand that "every candidate who comes through here has to answer what they are prepared to do to help defeat radical Islamists."