Sunday, July 29, 2012

Want to hear an electrifyingly fantastic foreign-policy speech?

Mitt Romney today in Jerusalem.

18 comments:

  1. Treason most foul to spout what he's spouting now. Obama is our freely elected Commander in Chief and our State Department is charged with the delicate task of statecraft in concert with other countries through the UN. Sanctions are working. Netanyahu is noone to coddle to or to curry the favor of and certainly not one to take marching orders from. A mushroom cloud commercial like the one that worked against Goldwater would be more than appropriate here.

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  2. You proof that Romney is somehow "taking orders" from Netanyahu?

    This man may well be our president in a few months. He has positions that he wants to clearly convey to America and the world, one of which is that he will no longer pursue the policy of shameful neglect and subversion of the only Western state in the middle east.

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  3. The ties between Mr. Romney and Mr. Netanyahu stand out because there is little precedent for two politicians of their stature to have such a history together that predates their entry into government. And that history could well influence decision-making at a time when the United States may face crucial questions about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or support Israel in such an action.

    Mr. Romney has suggested that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Mr. Netanyahu — a level of deference that could raise eyebrows given Mr. Netanyahu’s polarizing reputation, even as it appeals to the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians who are fiercely protective of Israel.

    In a telling exchange during a debate in December, Mr. Romney criticized Mr. Gingrich for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: “Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: ‘Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?’ “

    Martin S. Indyk, a United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not, Mr. Romney’s statement implied that he would “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.”

    “That, of course, would be inappropriate,” he added.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/us/politics/mitt-romney-and-benjamin-netanyahu-are-old-friends.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

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  4. Suit up and show up for the Mitt Romney fireworks to defend a commie universal health care plan. He likes those unprecedented

    Mitt Romney had kind words for Israel’s health care system Monday, even though, as ThinkProgress reports, it resembles the recently passed Affordable Health Care Act, which his party has been trying to repeal.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/30/romney-praises-israels-health-care-system-with-individual-mandate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

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  5. likes those unprecedented fundraisers in a foreign land.

    Sadly, I think most po folks here are not paying attention and will vote their pocketbooks which have been emptying since the last Republican administration, well the tail end of it anyhow, with chief architect of recovery Ben Bernancke holding over and over and over calling the shots from the macro side.

    Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is doing something Monday morning that no candidate before him, from either party, has ever done -- hold a fundraiser in Israel. About 20 to 30 people are expected to attend, pay $50,000 a couple, and bring in about $1 million for the candidate.

    Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/07/29/romney-holds-unprecedented-fundraiser-israel?test=latestnews#ixzz227wdxUIy

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  6. and today there are considerable arguments in favor of staying the current diplomatic course, so Romney best just keep his pie hole shut, for now, his brand of Messianism is every bit as frightening as Obama's and more!

    Sanctions against Iran stymied efforts to produce ballistic missiles: report

    Monday, 30 July 2012

    http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/30/229308.html

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  7. Keep it up big culture, keep it up, you know the Mormons are big on a culture of wealth--their god wants them to have it, just like Juden.

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=A4865FBFA8DC4E85FCEABC68AE2F4424?a=954031&f=19

    "As you come here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," he said.

    In an interview with the Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called Mr. Romney's remarks "racist."

    "It is a racist statement and this man doesn't realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," Mr. Erekat said. "It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people."

    So, you are likely to conjecture, the truth hurts. The truth is that there's a far worse gap and, well, actually the truth here, spoken way out of his current "place" is not something we should rub in others' face.

    As this article concludes" "American credibility and influence in that arena depend on "us being seen as an honest broker," said Colin Kahl, an Obama campaign foreign policy adviser who served as the top Middle East policy official in the Pentagon from 2009 to 2011. "But in this case, Romney fell off the tightrope pretty dramatically."

    "It was a really strange comment," Mr. Kahl added, noting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict encompasses "extraordinarily complicated and delicate issues and is not something you can just wing it on and expect not to make some mistakes, and Governor Romney made a big one."

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  8. Ah, the "extraordinarily complicated and delicate issues" angle.

    And that's the ultimate in lameness to call his pointing out of the GDP gap "racist." The reason it exists is because of an entirely different set of fundamental values in the one society and the other.

    Would it be so hard for the MEC and his staff to just forthrightly acknowledge that Israel is one of the US's top-tier allies and that it has been in constant danger since 1948 from an array of neighbors that want to destroy it, and that our loyalty to it is essential to Western values having any kind of foothold at all in that region? Would it be too much for this regime to point out the number of peace initiatives taht have been tried without success?

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  9. What do you mean without success? We have thus far avoided a major conflagration Presidents since Ike have worked tirelessly and often delicately to avoid. Any old nutso can push a button. Of course you want to keep the world safe for a significant aspect of their current culture: universal health care. Look, say you're a negotiator for a living and I am. I would be incensed at another employee bucking for mgmt. to come in and subterfuge my deals. That's bad. What Romney did was cowardly and wrong, amongst many more descriptives. Go on, Mitt, take the $$$ and keep on running...

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  10. In case you don't know what you're doing in your last post, I do and that is tossing out a red herring of sorts and calling the racist charge lame. OK, it's lame, but you really have no answer for the rest of it. this is big, this is real big, what Twit Romney did. I hope the electorate is watching and paying attention, because we will be in the greatest and gravest war our generation has ever seen by the end of 2013 if he is elected. Not to say we won't be anyhow, but you know as i do, it's late in the day.
    Why sprint to midnight in a black night?

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  11. Polls out a month or so ago which I cited here show voters trust Obama on foreign affairs and Romney on the economy. Anyhow, hawkie, you better look somewhere else for your more immediate preemptivity;

    Romney's stance is "almost identical" to Obama's position, which seeks increased international pressure on Iran while keeping a military option "on the table," noted Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration who now is foreign policy director at the Brookings Institution.

    "It's hard to see what the difference is, since Gov. Romney and his spokesman make it clear that sanctions and negotiations would be tried and force should be kept on the table as a last resort," Indyk told


    http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/politics/romney-iran/index.html

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  12. I say "without success" because southern Israel towns are still subjected nearly daily to rocket attacks from Gaza and because neither Hamas nor Fatah have removed statements calling for Israel's end from their charters.

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  13. Truman's advisors all advised against it. What a continuing mess that must be continually contained. Scuse me for not wanting the world to blow.

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  14. Just because the middle east is in a state of heightened precariousness does not mean you abandon Western civilization. The US has to make sure Israel understands that it is our ally, that we are not some neutral broker in a "peace process" that has always been a joke since there has never been a good-faith negotiating partner on the non-Western side.
    The MEC has done pretty much the opposite, leaving Israel to feel that it has been cast adrift.

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  15. We are Americans in and for America. Not Israelis. Why should we care what Israel understands or doesn't understand? Israel is certainly free to bomb the piss out of anybody and any country it wants. If it feels it cannot do that successfully without US backing, then, guess what, it better hold the uneasy peace. If we disagree, well, we are Americans in and for America and if Netanyahu does not understand that, well, tough. Of course we are Israel's ally, but that doesn't mean we take our marching orders from them. If we have to expend blood and treasure, then what? Will we just have to wait for peace on Israel's terms alone? Don't you think Americans are a bit fed up with being policeman for the Middle East, nay the entire damned globe?

    Bad statecraft out of Romney. He left there with a Mil in his coffers though. He isn't going to do anything Obama has not promised to do. And from the praise he gave them for their universal health coverage once certainly wonders what he plans to present as a replacement for the Patient Protection Act he has sworn to repeal.

    The guy is as phony as Obama, can't you see? Talk about a Messianic complex. An old college roomie can vouch for Mitt's seeing himself as some great saviour for America from way back. I see a giant kiss ass promising to be all things to all people. Sure that is what presidential candidates do, but Mitt is Mormon to the core and there are as many unknowns about that aspect of his ideology as there were about Obama's beliefs and affiliations.

    We are working in coordination with an international coalition in trying to end this thing peacefully. If that fails, then let the bombs burst, in air and on Iranian soil. But we call the shots if we are going to back them militarily. Makes sense to me. A decade spent fighting over in the Middle East hasn't exactly cost just chump change you know.

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  16. And what countries comprise this "international coalition"?

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  17. And how much has it slowed down Iran's nuclear program?

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  18. You know what countries comprise this international coalition. Plus we have to not please, not placate, but work with all the players in this thing.

    See posting above for how much it has slowed down Iran's nuclear program. War is still on the table, but on our time, not Netanyahu's.

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