Yesterday was the big day…….Mitt gave his much anticipated (by whom is your guess) foreign policy speech…..I was tweeting live for awhile but it got to be too much for me to listen to…..I was gonna let it pass and allow the chattering class to have their day……I just could not let it go…….
CBS synopsis:
We know some things about Mitt Romney’s foreign policy positions: He believes President Obama has not been a strong enough ally of Israel or a strong enough opponent of Iran. He thinks the U.S. government should get involved in arming Syrian rebels. He believes that U.S. aid to Egypt should be tied to promises from that nation’s leaders, including to protect Coptic Christians and respect a peace treaty with Israel. He wants to increasePentagon funding by spending at least four percent of gross domestic product on defense. He wants to build more naval ships and submarines. And he thinks Mr. Obama has been too willing to apologize for America on the world stage.
Early in his speech he tried to inject a bit of Reaganism when he said , General Marshall once said, “The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.” Those words were true in his time—and they still echo in ours.
It was lame! It is tired neo-con rhetoric…..I saw nothing in it of substance….just a reiteration of stands from decades ago….nothing new….nothing at all!
“The attacks against us in Libya were not an isolated incident. They were accompanied by anti-American riots in nearly two dozen other countries,mostly in the Middle East, but also in Africa and Asia. Our embassies have been attacked. Our flag has been burned. Many of our citizens have been threatened and driven from their overseas homes by vicious mobs, shouting “Death to America.” These mobs hoisted the black banner of Islamic extremism over American embassies on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.”
Chest thumping…but one minor piece of crap….the Black Flag does not symbolize terrorism…..it is one of the basic colors of Islam to include red, green and white…..it is minor thing but still if he wants to be prez he should be more accurate.
“Americans are asking how this happened, how the threats we face have grown so much worse, and what this calls on America to do. These are the right questions. And I have come here today to offer a larger perspective on these tragic recent events—and to share with you, and all Americans, my vision for a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world”.
Nothing he said there is accurate……being a heavy handed enforcer…,will do NOTHING to make the world freer.
“This is what makes America exceptional: It is not just the character of our country—it is the record of our accomplishments. America has a proud history of strong, confident, principled global leadership—a history that has been written by patriots of both parties. That is America at its best. And it is the standard by which we measure every President, as well as anyone who wishes to be President. Unfortunately, this President’s policies have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.”
The Arab Spring was NOT a US plan…it was people doing what they felt was best for them and their country.
I wondered when he would get to Israel and I did not have to wait long…..
“Iran today has never been closer to a nuclear weapons capability. It has never posed a greater danger to our friends, our allies, and to us. And it has never acted less deterred by America, as was made clear last year when Iranian agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in our nation’s capital. And yet, when millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, “Are you with us, or are you with them?”—the American President was silent.”
This was a part written by some similar to one of his advisers, the hawk Dan Senor.
“In Iraq, the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent Al-Qaeda, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad, and the rising influence of Iran. And yet, America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence. The President tried—and failed—to secure a responsible and gradual draw down that would have better secured our gains.
The President has failed to lead in Syria, where more than 30,000 men, women, and children have been massacred by the Assad regime over the past 20 months. Violent extremists are flowing into the fight. Our ally Turkey has been attacked. And the conflict threatens stability in the region.”
Okay Iraq first, the draw down that he so concerned with was a Bush plan….and to me he sounds like he wants to re-invade Iraq. Now Syria….this is a great political prop…but first, the Syrians do not want our direct help and the cross border thing with Turkey has been resolved with the use of the military…but I guess Mitt wants to keep his options open.
The greater tragedy of it all is that we are missing an historic opportunity to win new friends who share our values in the Middle East—friends who are fighting for their own futures against the very same violent extremists, and evil tyrants, and angry mobs who seek to harm us. Unfortunately, so many of these people who could be our friends feel that our President is indifferent to their quest for freedom and dignity. As one Syrian woman put it, “We will not forget that you forgot about us.”
It is time to change course in the Middle East. That course should be organized around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might. No friend of America will question our commitment to support them… no enemy that attacks America will question our resolve to defeat them… and no one anywhere, friend or foe, will doubt America’s capability to back up our words.”
Okay you tell me what he was REALLY saying……my opinion is a military action wherever he wants and for whatever lame excuse he can find to use it.
After all his chest thumping he said this…….”I will deepen our critical cooperation with our partners in the Gulf.”
Would these be the same “friends” that crap on women or the same ones that keep all the freedoms that Mitt so loves, from their people?
If there is any doubt what Mitt’s foreign policy would look like then this paragraph should help you understand…….
“And I will roll back President Obama’s deep and arbitrary cuts to our national defense that would devastate our military. I will make the critical defense investments that we need to remain secure. The decisions we make today will determine our ability to protect America tomorrow. The first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war.”
Mitt is using a decades old myth…….the use of the word “strength”……let’s look at a real test of US strength….Cuban Missile Crisis……
What people came to understand about the Cuban missile crisis — that JFK succeeded without giving an inch — implanted itself in policy deliberations and political debate, spoken or unspoken. It’s there now, all these decades later, in worries over making any concessions to Iran over nuclear weapons or to the Taliban over their role in Afghanistan. American leaders don’t like to compromise, and a lingering misunderstanding of those 13 days in October 1962 has a lot to do with it.
In fact, the crisis concluded not with Moscow’s unconditional diplomatic whimper, but with mutual concessions. The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba in return for U.S. pledges not to invade Fidel Castro’s island and to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey. For reasons that seem clear, the Kennedy clan kept the Jupiter part of the deal secret for nearly two decades and, even then, portrayed it as a trifle. For reasons that remain baffling, the Soviets also kept mum. Scholars like Harvard University’s Graham Allison set forth the truth over the years, but their efforts rarely suffused either public debates or White House meetings on how to stare down America’s foes.
Mitt , as usual, contradicted a lot of his previous positions and sounds like a Bushite on foreign policy……..I guess that is to be expected when the campaign is top heavy with Bush bobbleheads………..when talking to a military school….tell them you will spend unlimited funds….all you numbers wonks……run the numbers and tell us just how he will save the budget with all this spending that Mitt know thinks are good ideas.
This was NOT a foreign policy speech……it was a warning to the world, friends and foes, of what they will get if Mitt is elected……and oh Yeah…..Obama Sucks!
