Foreign Policy: Is Romney the New JFK?
So what happened to liberalism and the Democratic Party?
Well, I am at fault — I have to admit it — I and my generational cohorts who sought to turn the Democratic Party in our direction from 1968 onwards. We managed to turn the Kennedys with us. A family that was staunchly anti-communist went wishy-washy, first Bobby and then, of course, Teddy.
They played to our rabble of hippies and New Leftists, wanting to be of us and like us, to smoke pot with us and drop acid, to boogie until they dropped, and to sleep with as many women as they could. It went on and on with only temporary restraints and interregnums.
And then came the rise of Obama, forty years later and the self-hypnosis was complete. Not even 9/11 could stop it. Gone was the country that had the spine to stop Nazism and communism. Here was the country whose leader went to Cairo to tell the citizens of the Arab Middle East — those citizens that practiced misogyny and homophobia as if we were still in the ninth century, for whom the separation of church and state was a delusional psychosis, who made all their neighborhoods more judenrein than Hitler and nearly Christian-free as well and now have elected the Muslim Brotherhood and similar fundamentalist groups to lead virtually all their people — that all was America’s fault and that we would make amends.
Crazy, huh?
No wonder they stampeded.
Well, we are at a crossroads now clarified by Mitt Romney’s VMI speech. The time has come to make a choice or it will soon be too late.
And how important is foreign policy in this election? Well, how about ninety percent of it? The economy is indeed in a disastrous state and may get Romney elected, but the truth is presidents have far less to do with economic affairs than they do with foreign affairs. Capitalist economies have the capacity to right themselves, even if their leaders are doing everything possible to sabotage them.
Not so foreign policy. The president and his people run the show. Do we want any more of this? I think not.
Here’s JFK on the missile crisis, if you’ve never seen it or, as in my case, would like to be reminded:
It sounds like Mitt Romney spent an hour with Bill Kristol or John McCain. Americans don’t want to get involved in wars for Muslims that are not in our national interest and Syria certainly isn’t and that staying even longer in Afcrapistan is madness should be beyond obvious by now. What part of we are $16 trillion in debt and enough of our sons and daughters have given their lives for worthless Muslims doesn’t Romney understand?
It seems to me that in your multiple ripostes to Roger Simon, you have adopted the anti-imperialist/post-colonialist line or some other isolationist position. In so doing, you have ignored the threat posed to America that has been exacerbated by Obama’s weakness and pseudo-internationalism.
In his speech, Romney was returning to a respectable and admirable view of American foreign policy, one based on America as the political vanguard of the nations, with a mission to uplift suffering humanity. I wrote about that here: http://clarespark.com/2009/09/06/the-hebraic-american-landscape-sublime-or-despotic/.
1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress.
4. Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.
- Ronald Reagan
None of the above points are now being met by our being in Afcrapistan. Points 1 and 3 were reasonably valid at the start but not for the last 10 years. Out of Afcrapistan now!!! No more letting our low life generals use American troops as human sacrifices for their hubris and careers! To continue to let them do so is a national disgrace.
Our “low life generals”? You little twit.
It is not our generals who pick our wars; it is our politicians. Of course, you can change politicians. You can, for example, trade in one with a view of the world that includes the United States for one that doesn’t understand anything but a bunch of leftist BS. You can hire one that understands the need for a strong military, and appoints good generals, or you can hire one that despises the military and hires politically correct flag officers. You can hire one willing to finish a job, or hire one that declares victory and runs away.
Guess which kind we have now?
Thanks, DaveJ for saying that in just that way. You’re more articulate than I.
Earlier I’d been defending “our perfumed generals” as she or some other ‘twit’ had put it in some other post….. one said that she was a secretary at the Pentagon….she wouldn’t be mine…..and I asked just what had provoked the term “perfumed generals”, and was told that that term originated in Lincoln’s time ….Halleck (?)or McClellan ? (sp.) who Lincoln replaced, I don’t know the details…..but I can remind the readers here again that civilians are in charge and call the strategy which “th’ Generals” are ordered to follow….obviously some more adeptly than others. Moreover, it was mentioned, in effect that these Generals (inclusive term) had little or no regard for the lives of their troops.
Frankly I was surprised at at the general anti-military tone, and so I have contempt for the ignorance so displayed.
So, here I’d add that those who don’t have or never have had the responsibilities of those at those senior levels, and aren’t in attendance in the closed door meetings, simply can’t know what they’re talking about. Th’ Media are their font of knowledge? Office gossip?
A very last note….a personal one but “on topic”, sort of, my own military experience was that of an ROTC Lieutenant, USAF, 1954-57; later with Air America in Laos, Station ground staff, and trust me….the compartmentalization up and down the line, and laterally, is such that few, very few, are qualified to opine on tactics and strategy…..much less subordinates discussing the Flag Level….and no one, obviously, among a general (no pun) audience such as this.
What you mean is that we should wait until it is too late before we take any action to defend ourselves. One would think that, after Neville Chamberlain and the French 3rd Republic in 1936, people would know better. Had Kennedy not been so feckless at the Vienna summit with Khrushchev, there would have been no Cuba crisis. Dictators and tyrants can sense weakness.
As Orwell once said, “there is no necessity for war, there is always surrender.” We have been repeatedly attacked and ignored it until they came here on US soil and brought down the WTC towers. The necessity for war is usually a result of weakness. The world learned the wrong lesson from WWI.
Precisely.
No, the Question is what you don’t understand. Like it or not, Syria is vital to American interests. Proof?
Lets define American interests. First and foremost, a Free, prosperous and stable American society. Syria is important to that because one cannot be free while denying freedom to others. We are all in the same boat. For the boat to survive, we must pull together. Will you accept that or will you force me to do your research? Prosperity depends on the freedom to make those decisions that produce the best results for YOU. The gestalt is the unseen hand.
Everybody is an Adam Smith’er, some just refuse to see that. The various economic schools of thought ( Keynesian, Institutionalist School, Marxists, etc.) are just theories on how to control the unseen hand of Mr. Smith. That is why they all fail.
Without freedom, without choice, people are just slaves by another name. To control that choice is to take away freedom. They take away freedom by controlling choice. You need watchers to make sure those slaves make the correct choices. Of course, those watchers also need watchers. You end up with some poor schmuck at the apex of the watcher pyramid going insane trying to watch all the watchers who are watching the watchers. Remind you of a certain long-legged mack daddy?
Stability is contagious. Every stable democracy created creates more pressure for more stable democracies. I cannot prove that without graphing it and if you refuse to look at the graph it would be a big waste of time. I have seen the graph. In a poly sci text book. Here is a lecture from the Stanford series of on-line lectures;
ww.stanford.edu/~ldiamond/iraq/WhaIsDemocracy012004.htm
America’s #1 Strategic goal is the creation of stable democracies. While democracies DO wage war on one another, it is very rare and mostly due to misunderstandings. If every nation on this planet was a democracy, war would be effectively ended. Once every few centuries or so.
The Arab Spring will NOT produce an immediate democracy. It is just one step on a long and rocky road. It is a step in the right direction. The Arab people really want democracy. They really want to make their own choices. That WILL happen. Enough people like that woman who isn’t excited about changing one darkness for another get together, the MB will either have to produce or go the way of the previous despot. Anything America can do to help that women and the hundreds of millions like her is in our interests because it advances our national goal.
Like democracy, this is an idea. You cannot feel it, see it, weigh it or paint it with team colors. That doesn’t make it any less real. That doesn’t make it any less important.
If our national interest (and which nation do you refer to — American? Blacko-American? Mexican-American? Jewish-American? Indo-American?) is at issue, what do you propose? BTW, a ‘nation’ is a group of related people, sharing common genetic ancestry, language, religion, etc. If our primary national interest is a/one/single free, prosperous, stable society, then get ready to kill or expell millions and millions of current US residents.
“BTW, a ‘nation’ is a group of related people, sharing common genetic ancestry, language, religion, etc”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation
{snipped}
“However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up”
I disagree with your definition. Especially on the inclusion of ‘common genetic ancestry’. As a person with considerable amounts of Neanderthal genetic background (Red hair, blue eyes, freckles) I find it mildly offensive and somewhat bigoted.
Language and religion are both learned traits. That is why I prefer a common government and terrority. The entire concept of race is in debate by the scientists that study genetics;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29#Genetically_differentiated_populations
Genetically speaking, Humans are all one species. A gene scan of Obama and Romney would show no significant differences. Just a fact.
America is full of Americans. Not Irish Americans or African Americans or Chinese Americans or Korean Americans or even Canadian American (eh?). Just Americans. If you cannot get down with that you need to ask yourself why you stay here in America.
For the money? Think about that. For the freedom? Think about that too. All those hyphen Americans stay here for the same reasons you do. Isn’t that reason more important then whatever is to the left of the hyphen? Think about that. Still believe your definition of nation is correct?
TWANLOC: Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen
What a bunch of bloat and bluster,”. . . denying freedom to others.” Hyperbolic nonsense, by your statement not only is the US not free, but it never has been, and never will be.
Ideology is the single stupidest reason imaginable to go to war. Have you checked the polls lately? Just how the H*** can you justify war based on ideology in a country as diverse in ideology as ours?
It absolutely should not be our number one goal to spread democracy, our number one goal is to inspire so much fear in potential adversaries so that they dare not attack us. Your “Johnny Appleseed” of democracy theory is directly opposed to inspiring that fear. Name a nation on earth that has survived because it was “loved”, or “admired”. Nations survive because others fear them.
Mitt Romney: “I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders”.
Well, our military commanders, the generals, are worse than incompetent, far worse. What else should they fairly be called after 11 years and all the wasted lives and limbs of American troops and all the wasted hundreds of billions, that we don’t have to spare, and all the bowing and scraping and apologizing to Muslim they have done, on the utter failure that is Afcrapistan?
I can tell you what our military commanders, the worse than worthless generals, will say. They will say what they have been saying for years now, that we need more troops in Afcrapistan and we need to stay long enough to “get the job done”. How many more American troops must lose life or limb for our generals hubris, career-uber-alles and willful blindness? There is nothing to “win” in Afcrapistan and past the few first weeks there never was.
Mitt, please apply the same thinking you used to make Bain so successful. If you had hired these idiot military commanders to run it for you, they would have run it into the ground as well as put you and your family in the poor house.
The problem is that he IS applying the same business thinking to matters that have nothing to do with business.
Lincoln had to go through a few generals before he found Grant. I think Mittens will also not be afraid to switch out ineffective ones (with the tacit admission of having made a bad decision) for a better one. Also, the military is subordinate to civilian leadership. If the administration wants a Muslim friendly policy, all the generals can do is salute it.
“If the administration wants a Muslim friendly policy, all the generals can do is salute it.”
Agree – the ‘Muslim-In-Chief’ calls the shots and the General carries out the policy.
One of the WW1 French General ( Foch?) remarked on learning of Americas entrance in the War, that now we will win. One of his aides asked, ‘but can they fight?’ Foch said ‘oh yes, the real question is if they will treat war as a business or a sport’.
The Best Soldiers of America’s citizen army were drawn from the ranks of Lawyers and Bankers. Attrition warfare as practiced by America is very much a business. Cost benefit ratios are critical. Costs are measured in lives, Benefitis in terrain, enemy lives or both.
An American military officer has to know as much about logistics, on time delivery resource allocation as any businessman. The Japanese consider business to be war without bloodshed. War is the business of delivering death and destruction to your customers. Think of it as a service industry.
“The Best Soldiers of America’s citizen army were drawn from the ranks of Lawyers and Bankers.”
. . . Prove it.
Can’t say the subsistence farmers were any slouches as a rule.
Sgt. York does leap to mind.
OK, what would you consider proof? First I am using ‘best’ as most effective. Those who have the innate ability to organize men and lead them to victory.
The difference between an armed mob and an Military formation with the same number of armed men is discipline and organization. So by best, I mean those blessed individuals that can install the needed discipline and organization to military affairs.
War is always chaotic. The best military people are those who can impose order on that chaos. Sgt. York was a good shot with the rustics attitude toward life and death. Brave beyond a doubt. NO great military person. There is a difference here that I cannot explain very well due to a lack of writing skill.
Here is an URL to someone who’s writing skills and knowledge of military affairs have made him famous for the last few thousand years;
http://suntzusaid.com/
Haji can’t shoot.
I’m having some trouble with your assertion stoicheion, though our differences may be semantics. If you’re talking about deciding what soldiers do, our cohorts of bankers and lawyers have proven better than anybody else – so far. As to actually being fighting soldiers, not so much. Most of my ancestors served in the brigade commanded by Bg. Gen. Ambrose Ransom (Rans) Wright which was composed of the 3rd, 22nd, and 48th Regiments of Georgia Volunteer Infantry and the 2nd Battalion of Georgia Sharpshooters. The 64th GVIR was added in ’64. This unit was the hinge on which Jackson’s Flank Attack at Chancellorsville was swung and which broke the Union line on Cemetery Ridge late in the day on July 2, 1863. By the Overland Campaign of ’64 they were severely depleted and Gen. A.P. Hill pronounced them “practically worthless.” Gen. Hill and Gen. Lee were together at Spotsylvania as Bg. Gen. Wright led his troops in a particularly badly executed attempt at an attack and Gen. Hill wanted Gen. Lee to remove Wright. The ever-polite General Lee replied, “Gen. Hill, General Wright is not a general; he’s a lawyer, and what would the people of Georgia think?”
Lawyers and bankers have from time to time made good political leaders and good civilian leaders of the military; Lincoln was, after all, a lawyer, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a banker or lawyer who’s made a particularly good fighting soldier or even combat commander, at least not in this century and in modern armies. In the Civil War and before, officers below General were usually elected and often prominent men in the community, some bankers and lawyers, did become combat commanders. Some did well, some not.
Our military is also not allowed to actually do what it’s supposed to do: wage war. Do you really think that if we went into any of those countries and glassed them like we are fully capable of those Afghans would stand a chance? Of course not, the only reason we don’t is because we have some silly notion that we can wage war on people while winning their “hearts and minds.” That’s a load of crap.
I say we take off and nuke the place from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure, and it will demonstrate that we mean business.
Bury their hearts and minds with the rest of their bodies. Works 100% of the time.
JFK was an idiot. I would rather Mitt Romney be like Ronald Reagan.
1. The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.
2. If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support needed to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.
3. Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress.
4. Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat abroad only as a last resort, when no other choice is available.
- Ronald Reagan
It is getting tiring bailing out the French in their attempts to continue their colonial Empire. They’re doing well all by themselves, thank you. What, you say? French colonial Empire? Yeah.
First, Viet Nam; Kennedy’s helping hand (although I do think he would have pulled us out)
Next, the whole Congo Mess (ongoing)
Beirut?
And what about Winston’s Folly with the French over Palestine? Iraq?
Enough!! We now have very real entanglements that will require a deft hand at unraveling them while not diminishing American influence where needed. But, we need to get back to Compressional approved WARS and stop with all the Presidential Actions.
The same Reagan who sent our Marines to occupy the Beirut airport for who knows what reason, then did not fortify the base and disarmed the guards? The same guy who ordered shelling of enemy positions there without defining who or what the enemy was. That was the same person who was responsible for the needless deaths of 241 US Marines sent without adequate force protection on a mission with no purpose. Then he did absolutely nothing about it afterword and when our agents and diplomats were tortured and killed again did nothing.
Oh, right he did try to get some of the hostages back by giving weapons to the Iranians who were behind the whole thing to begin with. That worked out well.
Actually I went to school with a guy who was one of those troops that RR did not send into combat as per point #3. He did a not of non-combat in Nicarauga which involved fighting and getting shot at. He was pissed afterword because he could not get his combat benefits afterword because he was “never there”.
I wont even start with Afghanistan. OK they were not our troops then but they are now.
Anyway it is hard to believe that the same guy said all of those things. Politicians are still politicans even the better ones.
“Thanks in part to JFK’s resolve”
His “resolve” where in return he gave up Thor and Jupiter IRBMs stationed in Europe in return for the Russians not putting IRMBs in Cuba? That was probably the Russians plan all along.
….that’s enough. Give us a rest.
Do you mean, “in return for the Soviets moving some boats with covered objects that might have been missiles and might not, which was probably their objective all along”?
It’s amazing to me how many so-called conservatives worship at the Shrine of Camelot.
The thing is, JFK´s intelligence that the missile gap was reversed came from the same, single internal source that gave the locations for those missiles in Cuba + aircraft recons for missile sites.
This single source was one defector, which unlike other defectors didn´t seek asylum in the US or UK, stayed in order to give more intelligence, quiet a lot considering the rank he had, officially he was found out due to a leak. No evidences that he was executed or not.
In reality, there wasn´t any missiles, at least not at the location JFK and his generals believed they where. It was just a decoy, that in the event of war would attract US atomic strikes, allowing the real missiles to be fired on US cities. Same for the rest of the Soviet arsenal.
It never occured to the US military and president that if they only found those missiles in tiny Cuba because of a mole in the Red Army, then their spy plane recons for missile sites over the Soviet-Union could not be considered reliable intelligence.
JFK and the US military of the time bungled big time, made errors of judgement that could have cost some +60 millions lives to their country.
Absolutely correct, Feral Cat. At that time ballistic missiles were not a significant factor in strategic defense. Fully 95% of Soviet nuclear weaponry was bomber based. The missiles in Italy and particularly Turkey had the Soviet bomber force pinned. The approximately 10 minutes to time on target could have destroyed more than half the bombers before they became airborne. The IRBMs in Cuba would have put us in the same situation. That was the game.
By the by, whilst Roger was imbibing at the local college hangout I was in Peshawar, Pakistan helping to monitor Soviet Test 184 – EMP effects on ABM systems.
Were you looking at the U-2′s photos?
No. Some other things. I did meet some of Powers’ ground crew in the NCO club.
Absolutely wrong. When the Soviet Union fell, the KGB archives were opened. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a KGB D and D op all right…with real missiles and nuclear war-heads.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article06.html#author
Dear Mitt, Imagine Uncle Sam Were a Bain Client
Dear Mitt,
I know you’re a busy man. But this foreign policy needs some more time and thought on your part, and before your next debate with Obama.
It’s not that O’s a foreign policy genius; he’s not. It’s not that his foreign policy is good; it stinks. But what you have crafted (excerpted below) is more of the same. Just as you want to remap the economic course of the nation, you should also want to remap the foreign policy course of the nation. Why? The fact is — the fact your experts won’t tell you — through the Bush-Obama years our foreign policy course has been hijacked by a tiny band of extremists: Leftists, dupes and Islamic agents. Or, as we call them today, COINdinistas, neocons/McCainiacs and the Muslim Outreached.
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2261/Dear-Mitt-Imagine-Uncle-Sam-Were-a-Bain-Client.aspx
Dear Mitt, Imagine Uncle Sam Were a Bain Client,
I know you’re a busy man. But this foreign policy needs some more time and thought on your part, and before your next debate with Obama.
It’s not that O’s a foreign policy genius; he’s not. It’s not that his foreign policy is good; it stinks. But what you have crafted (excerpted below) is more of the same. Just as you want to remap the economic course of the nation, you should also want to remap the foreign policy course of the nation. Why? The fact is — the fact your experts won’t tell you — through the Bush-Obama years our foreign policy course has been hijacked by a tiny band of extremists: Leftists, dupes and Islamic agents. Or, as we call them today, COINdinistas, neocons/McCainiacs and the Muslim Outreached.
I agree with your essay.
I’m particularly sick of words of hype and hope of getting along with the Middle East & continued emphasis on the failed premises of “nation building”.
I agree. I think the best policy here is to:
1.) Defend Israel or give them the means to defend themselves, but that ties into …
2.) Seal the region off and keep the tribal locals and their hatreds and prejudices from spilling out into their neighbors’ nice things and yards.
3.) Develop at all speed our own energy reserves so we could care less what the locals do with their own.
4.) Keep Iran from either developing or getting control of nuclear weapons at all costs.
5.) Let the locals prey on each other as much as they want.
6.) Boot them all out of the UN.
6.) Impose strict tests on any who finally decide they have had enough of being ostracized from the international community at large and make sure they have given up on childish medieval things before they are allowed back into the larger world on probationary status, to be revoked at the first sign of crapping on others’ nests again.
It’s tough to argue with perfection!
yes yes and yes
adding:
7. and remove their agents and 5th column from USA
8. quit importing “refugees” their problems, rivalries and fights to our shores
9. prevent those same foreign entities from donating to USA political campaigns
10. free ourselves from needing their product and giving them enough money to buy us out and buy us off
Yes but the US should leave the UN, and the UN should be booted out of New York. Let them find another sandbox to sling mud.
The UN has failed miserably twice. This failure is just as bad as the first, probably worse since we should have known better. Time to stop wasting time, money and pipe dreams.
“I’ve learned to hate Russians All through my whole life
If another war comes It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely With God on my side.”
BOB DYLAN
I grew up in the ’50s. I remember air raid drills in elementary school, hiding under desks or in the hallway, because of the Red Threat. However, I never felt really threatened.
I, too, watched the Cuban Missile Crisis on TV. What we didn’t know then, but should know now is that Castro really wanted to nuke us but was stopped by Khrushchev and Kennedy.
I was downtown when the towers fell. I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of unbelievably dirty well-dressed people walking up Broadway like zombies. That evening, I saw one more thing I never thought I’d see — soldiers and military vehicles lining Houston St from river to river. I never thought I’d see soldiers in NYC. I never thought I’d be asked for an ID to get back to my home. But I was. So, maybe it’s not that unusual that today I feel Islamic extremism is a far bigger threat to the West than Communism ever was.
Obama’s delusional foreign policy, the gutting of our military and his fantasy ideology will cause more harm to the United States — for far longer — than any of his bad economic decisions.
The main long term threat is not from Islamic “extremists”. It’s from Islam – all of it.
While the west sticks it’s fingers in it’s ears and hums. The majority simply will not allow themselves to see what has been self evident since this cult was created.
You didn’t feel threatened? I was in 3rd grade at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On that day, they sent us home from school early. As I walked home, I was afraid the bombs would begin falling. I folded up the hem of my dress and in pen wrote my name and address on the inside hem of my dress, so whoever found my dead body would know who I was….. Remember it like yesterday.
I’m the Duck & Cover generation. I had nightmares about being nuked by the Russians up until a few years ago. Yeah, I felt threatened and unsafe for most of my life.
Just starting High School at Cuba time. Remember asking my father if why we wouldn’t build a shelter; didn’t like his answer.
Was I scared? What do you think?
My current thought is that the Russkies were the wolf in the forest, the Muslims are the plague of locusts. I think the bugs are much worse.
Mike, I have a son in upstate New York. He was a die hard Obamanoid until last year. He hasn’t said why but now he is a rabid Mittennite. He is telling me that Romney has a shot in New York. I laugh and say he’s letting his bias obscure his vision. Is he? Does Mitt have any chance at all? Should I run over to RCP and click New York Red?
PBUH- Place Bomb Under Hood?
Stoicheion –
I know very little of upstate NY, other than it’s very beautiful and has been economically depressed/losing population for decades. Maybe this has changed since the Marcellus shale formation extends into western NY.
Will NYS go Republican? You should live so long.
The following question has to be assessed properly – on which side is the POTUS, America’s or the Islamists? For if he is on the GREEN side, surely Iran will join the nuclear club, menacing the west into submission, even though the Gulf states are terrified of said outcome.The Gulf states are nothing more than flies to be swatted away, just as long as the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia ascends to its ‘rightful’ throne, followed by an empowered Iran. The Gulfies will fall in line.
The above will answer why he failed to even give a ‘shout out’ of support to Iran’s citizens in 2009, yet gave a heads up to those who sought Mubarak’s ouster, knowing full well that the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia would ascend to power. Similarly, the Arab Spring has resulted in an Arab Nightmare, soon to become a nuclear winter – all credit due to the Islamist-in-Chief.
As to Romney, surely he understands the perils of the above, and this is why foreign policy decisions are so fateful.
http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/09/30/white-house-mandates-aid-to-morsis-islamist-egypt-in-the-best-interests-of-the-u-s-addendum-to-coming-full-circle-the-planned-empowerment-of-the-muslim-mafia-commentary-by-adina-kutnick/
And, the POTUS’s secret channels – now coming to the fore – with Iran’s mullahs are proof of his intentions. In other words, holding back Israeli pre-emption is the name of the game. Conversely, allowing Iran to have the bomb – no problem.
The rest is just smoke and mirrors.
I know you mean well, but the Middle East is simply a mess, and our well intentioned meddling just makes it worse. Much much worse. People there don’t want freedom, they want Shariah law.
Look at Turkey. It used to be a secular state. Now it’s competing with Egypt to be another Iran.
People don’t want freedom or shariah law, or democracy, or any other over-intellectualized construct. They want “success”. They want “honor”. They want “security”. By trying to say, “you’ll be more free if you seek less honor by allowing others to speak”, the West has encouraged blasphemy laws and the murder of Theo Van Gogh and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie — because, clearly, such intellectual “freedom” means little compared to the perceived dishonor.
Our “well-intentioned meddling” has been a failure when it was the university-educated postmodernist lefties bumbling around about abstractions, and our “questionably-motivated strong-arm tactics” have been a success when we’ve clearly articulated secure boundaries and enforced them with a clear choice between prosperity and destruction.
If we had been more resolute, Turkey could now be “nudzhed” back into the West; having allowed jihadists a monopoly on honor, security, and prosperity, they are now falling….along with so many others.
Great stuff Roger, it seems to me the muse has been visiting you after Romneys alpha-male performance in the debate. We can and we need to win this – I cannot bear to think of the consequence for the world and especially Israel, should Barry be reelected.
Jeremy R,
I don’t think Turkey and Egypt can be compared at all. I have spent about 30 days in each country (not enough to judge, I know) and the Egyptians are far more radicalized than the Turks. The Turks think of themselves as Europeans, while the Egyptians are Arabs through and through.
Give them time, Carlos. It’s not where they are on the road, it’s which road they are that determines their destination.
You know more than I do, since I’ve never been to Egypt, but my sense of the Turks is that they are trying to reassert the regional influence that they lost upon the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. America feels internal pressure from Christian fundamentalists, Israel the same from Jewish fundamentalists and a democratized Turkey is now feeling the same from Islamic fundamentalists. I’ve always felt that Ataturk’s Turkey is essentially on the side of the West. Not sure about the Egyptians, but Israel is our canary in the coal mine, and I try to listen in now and then on their domestic debates, because they know best what is happening in their neighborhood.
The world is a much more dangerous place than it was during the Cuban missile crisis. Then, the enemy with the nukes was at least a known quantity, and Krushchev, fall all his posturing, wasn’t about to press the button and start rmageddon.
Now — what have we got?
Pakistan, a disastrous failed state, barely under civilian control, under permanent siege from fanatical Islamists, with dozens of nukes. Query: How secure are they? Does the US have a contingency plan for snaffling them if the Islamists take over?
North Korea – with a few nukes that they would presumably be happy to sell to the highest bidder to earn foreign currency.
Iran — soon to have nukes, under the control of a bunch of murderous, amoral grubs with a particularly mad and evil millennial hatred of jews, a hatred that they assert is scripturally sanctioned …
The late Osama bin Laden said that it was a “religious duty” of Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons for use against the infidels of the west.
Why would the Iranian leadership be above slipping a nuke – if they thought they could get away with it – to one of their proxies, even to the loathed sunnis, for use in a western city?
I reckon things are much more dangerous than they were 50 years ago.
Johnny,
” Then, the enemy with the nukes was at least a known quantity, and Krushchev, fall all his posturing, wasn’t about to press the button and start rmageddon”
Quite true, especially in this context:
Would the Kremlin have EVER allowed its “local operators” A GREEN LIGHT TO PULL OFF A 9/11?
Encourage some enterprising cell of Nicaraguan, Cuban, or El Salvadoran communist Death Squad members to openly massacre thousands of Americans in an American city?
“Senior, you hate the Capitalista too….so tomorrow we crash airplanes, and kill many thousands of them….
for you, Comrade, under the Red Flag of Fidel, Che’and Vladimir!…
Death to all capitalistas, no?”
No, the Russians would not have allowed it. They would, in fact, have killed off the team planning it themselves, if they became aware. They wanted us to fall, yes, and they were willing to play rough…kidnap, tourture and kill, overthrow governments and start bush wars to achieve their end.
But they would never have allowed a 9/11 Style Civilian Massacre to occur “in their name” as part of the global conflict between us. There would be nothing to gain and everything to lose, because the Russians, dispite all their evil, are RATIONAL actors, attempting to achieve their ends through RATIONAL, although sometimes violent, means.
The Russians just want CONTROL, and are willing to kill to achieve it.
The Islamists want nothing but Murder, torture, blood and misery…and are willing to pause (for the moment) and use CONTROL (political correctness, islamophobia) to finally achieve it.
The Russians are like corrupt gangsters who MIGHT kidnap/torture you to gain control your business empire if youre not careful…
Islamists are like thrill killers, looking for a random victim.
Who would YOU rather pass on the street in your neighborhood?
Capitalist economies have the capacity to right themselves, even if their leaders are doing everything possible to sabotage them.
Not if what the leaders are doing goes to the foundation of capitalism itself: individualism, a diversity of knowledge and skills, the nature of profit, nurturing Axemaker Minds anytime we find one instead of pushing Paul Ehrlich’s Newmindedness, the Division of Labor. Not when you have a President seeking a redesigned, state run economy based on post fossil fuel, post-Industrial Green Sustainability, Marxist socio-cultural political theory. The Belmont Challenge and the Future Earth Alliance are real international agreements to remodel our economy and dictate what any of us can do or know or be just as if the US Constitution did not exist. That’s the Second Term agenda. The fundamental Transformation. They really have told the tech companies to gather all the needed data on us and our behavior to manage the economy on Sustainability principles that assume man is just another species and has no right to exploit nature.
We need a President who believes in capitalism and recognizes it is the only means of widespread prosperity for the masses. Not an ignoramus who believes every caricature ever cooked up to malign it. We need a President who knows what American exceptionalism is and wants to tear up at the unique history of mass freedom the Stars and Stripes represents. Not one who is unfamiliar with the basic tenets and conditioned to push falsehoods maligning who we are and what makes us special.
Much of what Obama has done has been done through regulatory fiat. What Obama has done, Romney should be able to just as easily undo. That’s a big part of what’s hampering the economy. Some of the other job killing stuff will need Congressional movement which is why the Senate elections are massively important. But, with a lot of luck, the economy can be unleashed quickly and then foreign policy can be focused on.
The Muslim versus Islamist conundrum is one we have to get right. We’ve tried blanket solutions, both against and for Islam, and all have met with failure. SO far, the only thing that has ‘worked’ has been force. The problem with force is that it is expensive to maintain and really against our core beliefs. And trying to depersonalize this conflict (depersonalize war?!?) by calling it a ‘War on Terror’, has been an unmitigated disaster. That’s as foolish as saying WWII was a war against tblitzkrieg.
We need to understand our WAR is against polities that support forced Islamic expansion. Conversely we need to wholeheartedly support those regimes that are benevolent, modern Muslim countries. Any country that supports Islamist groups that have been declared outlawed by the USA must be put on notice that they need mend their ways or a state of war will exist between them and the USA; with ALL the consequences.
We really can’t continue in any other way.
If Obama OKs a strike on Iran later this month his chances of re-election will improve significantly.
Maybe even a credible threat will be enough? Hard to believe he could make it credible enough to the Iranians, but he might to some Americans.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4289855,00.html
And risk getting the Nobel Peace Prize taken away? Doubtful.
No such risk exists. He knows that.
The (ig)Nobel committee members are his comrades-in-arms. They will not mention it. If they are asked point-blank, they will justify his actions as being for the greater good. The askers will be pilloried by the press. Nothing to see here. Move along.
In October of 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower was running for re-election against Adlai Stevenson, two major crises broke out, one over the Suez Canal and the other over the Soviet Union’s suppression of a major revolt in Hungary. My family was very upset over Ike’s handling of those two crises, believing that he had betrayed our allies at Suez and that he had betrayed the freedom fighters in the streets of Budapest. But they voted for Eisenhower anyway, because they couldn’t stand Stevenson. Most Americans will stand with Israel whatever happens, and I simply don’t see an October surprise in the Middle East changing many votes.
A terrific speech by Romney at VMI. And he used the words “America” and exceptional” in the same sentence. Someone who loves this country, let’s try that for a change.
“Someone who loves this country, let’s try that for a change.”
Yes, please … let’s.
Much as I despise Romney, I’ll give him that.
Give him your vote on election day while you’re at it.
I have met Romney (when as Governor), and he is exactly as he seems: a nice, rooted, moral, competent businessman of the Republic. Ward Cleaver brought forward to the 21st Century.
My father discouraged us kids from watching “Leave It to Beaver” because he said Hollywood was using sit-coms to indoctrinate the boomer generation into socialist ideas. My dad was right, of course, so I shiver at the Romney/Ward Cleaver analogy, but I’ll overcome the echo of my father’s voice and vote for Romney anyway.
You shiver at it because it’s accurate.
Simply consider the alternative, whatever your reservations…
Does anyone have a link for an MP3 audio file of Romney’s speech? I’ve seen some videos but I like to listen to things like this on my commute.
Thank you.
Dunno about an MP3 file but here is the speech in its entirety on YouTube.
Thanks, I’ll pull the audio off tonight at home.
“But what fascinates me is what kind of man could have watched the happenings on the streets of Tehran and done nothing, not even lend verbal support. You tell me. I really don’t understand it.”
My guess is that when Obama took no part in the Iranians revolution, we were still involved in Iraq. The mullahs probably threatened total intervention in Iraq, thereby widening the war, if we didn’t stay out of their revolution. And it worked. Obama did nothing, the Greens were crushed, and we wound down our presence in Iraq, running away and leaving that country to twist in the wind.
Would we have stopped fighting the Germans or the Japanese during World War II before the job was done? Obviously not. In those days we actually wanted to win a war. But recent American leaders, from Nixon in Vietnam to Obama in Iraq, always go for some sort of fig leaf so that they can run away “with honor.” In the end, though, there is no substitute for total victory. Vietnam collapsed as is Iraq right now. We go into countries, try to make them work, and usually leave them worse off than when we went into them. Afghanistan will be the next casualty of this fetish we have for getting involved in countries we have no business being in. I’ve said from day one, we should have gone into Afghanistan, defeated the Taliban and al Qaeda with massive military force (killing the bulk of their members), and then left. Call it a punitive expedition if you will. But no, we went in to “nation build” and we now can see how well that worked out. About as well as it did in Vietnam.
Romney may be a throwback to the older, much more robust, foreign policies of the past. Let’s hope he doesn’t repeat the same mistakes of the past as well.
With all due respect, even JFK wasn’t JFK. He bungled Cuba, nearly started World War 3 with the Soviets, secretly sold out our allies by pulling missiles out of Turkey to defuse the situation, ramped up our involvement in Vietnam with no clear strategy for winning, appeased the southern Democrats and delayed civil rights legislation, was a whore-monger who made Bill Clinton look like a choir boy and was almost court-martialed for dereliction of duty in the PT-109 sinking (the Navy lawyer acquitted him at the behest of Joe Sr. was later rewarded with a supreme court nomination).
JFK was a below average president with a well below average character. In the nearly 50 years since his death, he has become mythologized and his record whitewashed. The Dems need their heroes and they have virtually none.
Agree 100%. Roger hasn’t yet come completely over to the right side. He dabbles over there in la la land quite a bit yet.
Brownie point for using “defuse” correctly.
The Civil Rights Act? You mean the reduction of white people to de jure and de facto second-class citizenship? Quotas, affirmative-action, neighborhoods destroyed and whites exiled to far-out suburbs? Under the Civil Rights Acts of ’64 and ’65, white Americans are much worse off than we were under George III.
I have basically never understood the adoration of JFK as a US President or as a person. In my view, just another typical political pragmatist that would change his mind to suit his politics and his adversaries. I read this statement once, and I think it simply fits:
“How we choose to look at the Cold War will determine how we face the strategic challenges of the war on terrorism. If we study JFK, we can learn about how to react to a crisis and the art of “crisis management.” By studying Reagan, we can learn how to forge a strategy of victory and to defeat our enemies.”
The Cuban Missile Crisis might not have happened at all if not for the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion and the disastrous June 1961 Vienna summit where, JFK later admitted, Khrushchev “beat the hell out of me” and “[it was] worst thing in my life. He ravaged me.”
He showed weakness to our enemies, and it came roaring back at him. Obama has also shown weakness to our enemies. When will it come back to us?
Kennedy inherited the Cold War mess and made it worse. Obama inherited the bad economy and made it and foreign relations worse. Uh-oh…
Bingo. Namely JFK spinelessly pulled necessary air support at the last minute and left the whole Bay of Pigs operation sitting ducks. Thus setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was bullied in Berlin as well.
You’re off by 90%. If you want to talk Foreign Policy Theory then 90% might be a good number, if you want reality then the question is “What US foreign policy is important to the Chinese?”. The Chinese will continue to loan us money to advance their national interests but the Chinese are not on the side of Israel in the Middle East; in fact, they support the Iranian regime. Of course if I were the Chinese I’d lend the money and then take Taiwan, and Japan, and South Korea and anything else I wanted as our broke military engaged the Iranians with the MK II “Pointy Stick” because we didn’t have money for fuel, ammo, medical supplies or replacement weapons.
Foreign Policy isn’t Foreign Policy unless you can fund it and we’re broke. Does anybody care about Greece’s Foreign Policy? We’ll be like the UN in a few years (or sooner), making pronouncements that the world ignores because we can’t enforce them. The spending and our massive debt are the greatest threats to our national security since we kicked the British out. We can fix the economy but only the politicians can fix the spending and the debt and there’s no desire whatsoever in DC to reduce the level of spending. Sure, there’s talk about “balancing the budget” but that doesn’t reduce the spending or pay down the debt.
Foreign policy? Meh, might as well talk about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Both will fill the time as we sit shivering and starving in the dark but neither have any real (broke) world application. And a word to our allies… if your future depends on us then you’re dead.
Meh? Really?? Why on earth would anybody ever care about Greece’s foreign policy? American foreign policy, on the other hand, by its very nature puts a great deal at stake for a great many people. Now is no time for concession speeches.
“You can not win elections with foreign policy” (Margaret Thatcher)
I hope she was wrong
I think Margaret Thatcher was referring to the UK and the failed remnants of the British Empire. It doesn’t really apply to the US
Please, don’t compare Romney to JFK. JFK was beautiful to look at and listen to, but he was a disaster for foreign policy. He was just another on the list of young presidents who were illprepared for the job.
And, Romney don’t get us into the war business in Syria. There are no good options. Yes, Assad is ruthless and killing his people, but the other side has a bunch of radicals. Or are you just continuing the polcies of George Soros and the New World Order? Our only best option in the Muslim countries to have them fighting each other, rather than us.
I hear McCain so vigorously and indignantly pumping for the US to provide arms & supplies to Syrian “rebels”, and think…we should know by now the very mixed and highly unpredictable nature of any group or groups we may assist.
“Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.” I can still see McCain dancing as he sang that song in 2008. McCain does not have the temperament to be president, and he is far scarier than Barry Goldwater or Curtis LeMay, both of whom were considered by the mainstream media to be dangerous warmongers in the ’60s. It’s hard to know what a Romney administration might bring in the way of foreign policy, but it surely couldn’t be more soft-focus than what we’ve got now. Besides demonstrating compassion for Islamists and sporadic support for third-world socialists, Obama hasn’t seemed involved in foreign policy.
Waaaiiiiittt just a durn burn minute! You have covered yourself with the escape clause, “in my lifetime” but if we want to talk selfish we need to look at 1940. Why didn’t we enter the war when Hitler attacked his first european nation? Why didn’t we enter the war at least by the time he invaded France?
Because we are a selfish narcissistic nation that’s why. Yeah we sorta got over it during the course of the war. The ‘greatest generation’ grew up and got over it. ( But later they came home and raised up the ‘me’ generation and everything went to $hit.)
We all need to face up to who we are. Obummer is actually the president we deserve.
Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis – oh yeah, JFK was just great. Maybe that is what led to his assassination?
Actually the military industrial complex took him out because he was gong to get us out of Viet Nam. Johnson assented and this ate him up from the inside giving him stomach cancer. This is also a large part of why a whole generation became America hating scum.
Prove your assertions! How many ‘Military Advisors’ were in Viet Nam when JFK took office? How many ‘Military Advisors’ were in Viet Nam when JFK was killed by a left wing nut case? The answers to these questions may give you some idea as to his intentions. Also, I told you who killed him. Show proof!
Oh, Good Lord, history according to Oliver Stone! The greatest likelihood is that Oswald was simply a nutcase acting alone. If not, then one looks to who benefited. The Soviets didn’t fear him, were, I believe, contemptuous of the spoiled, feckless rich kid. The military-industrial complex even assuming there was such a thing and it was of one mind had nothing to fear from a defense hawk Democrat. The ideological right had a beef with him over RFK’s actions against the Texas and other militia and paramilitary/militant groups but really aren’t good suspects for going after a US President. The segregationists in The South didn’t like him – I was in HS Band in Georgia and we marched in the Christmas Parade in a nearby town the night of Nov. 22nd and nobody was grief-stricken – but he’d made his peace with the Southern Democrat political leaders. One and only one entity had a real beef with JFK, the mob. The mob had performed great services on behalf of JFK from election fraud to procurement to who knows what, and when the time came for him to return to them a service, he failed or refused to protect the mobs very valuable and lucrative assets in Cuba. People get killed for stuff like that. There was a very fuzzy line between the mob and various intelligence operatives and stringers in the Caribbean and Cuba. It would have be easy for the mob to put together the assets to arrange the hit using a guy with a link to the Soviets to confuse the trail and just as easy for the mob to arrange the disappearance of anyone who knew anything about it. It only surprised me that Jack Ruby lived as long as he did.
When choosing a conspiracy theory, I, too, have always gone with the mob. They were none too pleased with Bobby’s Justice department by this point. Ya gotta sympathize: first they bought Bautista and then they bought Kennedy and there they sat, empty-handed and under fire.
I know I’d have wreaked great havoc on somebody for peeing backwards on me the way JFK peed backwards on the Mob. You don’t even have to be a mobster to want to kill people for screwing you like that.
Where on earth do you get this hagiography about JFK and Vietnam? Art and JJ Sefton are right. Go back a few years and take a look at the Republicans who implemented racial progress without the dismantling of families that the War on Poverty wrought, and the permanent zero-sum equity of later protocols. If JFK had lived long enough to earn his reputation, it would have been a very different one.
We will never actually address the islamist threat so long as political correctness rules this land. So in all logical reasonable assessment we will never address it.
If we ‘were’ to take it seriously we would quadruple, at least, our special forces numbers, weaponry, and mobility, then use them constantly. Wherever the savages raise their bandaged head we should drop in, wipe them out with no regard to collateral damage and then withdraw. This should take place with absolutely zero regard to ANY foreign nation’s, the UN’s or opposing political party’s here at home objections.
Like this is ever going to happen, right? This nation is a land of complete pu$$ies.
The ongoing DEPRESSION we are enduring at the hands of the Obama administration proves your statement wrong, “. . . but the truth is presidents have far less to do with economic affairs than they do with foreign affairs.” Obama has managed to screw-up every facet of the presidential duties with equal verve!
You compare JFK, the good Democrat, to BHO, a comparison to a nearly rotten apple to a totally rotten orange. Just how different was Jack from Teddy? We know about the women. Because of the Camelot myth, it has been very recent that we discovered that the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which led directly and probably caused the Missile Crisis, was not just his responsibility, but entirely his fault! I’m not referring to canceling the air support at the last minute, although that was gutless! JFK CHOSE the landing site, for political reasons, sound familiar?! You know the place with one way out, that could be defended by a child with a book of matches! For the record, I thought the invasion was a stupid idea. If JFK had been as virtuous as you seem to believe he would nixed it the first time he heard of it!
1. If JFK had supported Bay of Pigs, which was the original plan, there would have been no Cuban missle crisis.
2. JFK gave the go ahead for the CIA to take out Diem, the president of South Viet Nam — he broke it and 50K dead US soldiers could not put it back together again.
3. Cuba was close enough to be an immediate threat whereas Viet Nam was far enough away to be at most a distraction.
4. One JFK was one too many.
Don’t forget allowing the Berlin Wall to stand, although the Red Army was under advance orders to retreat without resistance if the US moved to demolish the barrier. Don’t forget JFK’s wartime doodle-fest with the Nazi spy-ess. Don’t forget the Cuban Missile Crsis, which JFK chickened out on, never inspecting missile sites in Cuba. Yes, and he gave up some of our missiles in Turkey and Persia also. And ran for Prez while suffering from Addison’s Disease, which likely would have killed him in his second term.
“Well, I am at fault . . . I and my generational cohorts . . . our rabble of hippies and New Leftists, wanting . . . to smoke pot . . . drop acid, to boogie until they dropped, and to sleep with as many women as they could. It went on and on with only temporary restraints and interregnums.”
THANK YOU, Roger. I’ve asked for that from you for years, and I finally got it.
I can respect you now. Though I can’t excuse you. You see, I spent the 50s and 60s working multiple jobs to get through school, caring for and educating my children and paying taxes for schools that would only teach them communism, pot smoking and the like, while watching my nation go down the toilet — all under the smirking and mocking of your “cohorts”.
I went Galt and have lived and worked overseas since the end of the 60s, although under threat of imprisonment I can never stop paying US taxes.
Now that your “cohorts” have finished with our country, I recommend anyone left with a brain Go Galt also.
“..lived and worked overseas since the end of the 60s..”
That club keeps getting bigger. We’ve got jackets.
“Pelaut” means sailor in Malay. Wonder if you are over my way somewhere?
I have to assume this was a press conference called on a fairly short notice, which means the text of the statement that President Kennedy made was NOT some well rehearsed speech but a timely statement made at a time of intense stress.
Listening to President Kennedy I try to imagine Barrack Obama in this same situation giving the same address and I shudder to think what it would have sounded like..
The MSM created a false persona around Obama, he is woefully inadequate intellectually and is not the “Great Orator” the MSM has attempted to make him out to be.
President Kennedy , while not perfect by a long shot, was intelligent and polished in public and above all else was an American.
Obama’s thin resume only goes to show the caliber of person that now is able to advance in our present day political system.. pretty pathetic imo..
It’s way way beyond ‘pretty pathetic’. Its pathetic on a biblical scale. If Obummer had dictatorial powers he would be an excellent candidate for the False Prophet. Maybe it will be Romney. He’s got a fair amount of the credentials. The False Prophet and his empire along with the Great City destroyed in one hour can’t be very far off. ( How do you destroy the greatest city the world has ever known in one hour? What one city of all time fits the bill for ‘the greatest’? )
London?
No matter how much money Old Joe made bootlegging, the Kennedy’s were always shanty-Irish bog-trotters. Just check their behavior — bimbos everywhere, cheating in school, nobody ever had a job, low-rent political hacks, rape/murder, drunks, druggies, waitress sandwiches with Chris Dudd — everything but sheep-stealing.
Actually you post is pretty much off base.. I stated clearly “in public” and my statement had nothing to do with Teddy, Joe or anyone other than JFK.
I clearly stated he was not perfect and you may get some satisfaction from your statement but there will be a day you are judged yourself. Hope you enjoy it.
Agreed: a president’s beliefs and preferences—in Obama’s case prejudices—greatly impact current foreign policy. And I agree that a president is unable to proactively right an ailing economy. But I disagree with the assertion that a president has NO impact on the economy one way or the other. A president that spends too much, imposes his prejudices on the energy industry, and tries to pick winners and losers–just as Obama has done–will very negatively impact the economy and people know that O has done just that. The dems have never before gone this far with their “control the people” madness; but under Obama they have and they will pay for it–again.
‘A family that was staunchly anti-communist went wishy-washy, first Bobby and then, of course, Teddy.’
Sorry Roger,
You still living in myth of the 1960′s Camelot. The Kennedy’s always were lefty ideologues all around, how anyone can forget Papa Kennedy siding Hitler. JFK was as much of lefty as his father and his brothers. As for standing to USSR it was just the continuation of WWII and the rivalry of competing lefties ideologies International Socialism -Communism – vs Democratic Socialism -Liberalism – and National Socialism – Fascism -. If JFK had lived, history will be written much differently. For starters he was the one who granted union privileges to federal workers. We know now how it turned out. Luckily he died and he became a saint otherwise he would be one of the worst and irresponsible president USA ever had.
Now that all the principals are dead, JFK’s history will be written. The truth won’t be pretty. Truth can be kept in a bottle only so long.
OT OT OT DON’T READ THIS
SORRY I HAVE TO TEST,
every time I tried to post yesterday and today I got
“You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.”
I got it several times yesterday, had several freezes, and even a full blue-screen shutdown. My computer REALLY didn’t like some of the ads and such here yesterday. Seems OK today.
Romney – mm, more like Eisenhower, or Ulysses S. Grant, or even Thomas Jefferson. Sure, he has some charisma, but he’s more like the guy who quietly gets things done and leaves the glory to others.
If ever America needed a leader of action without a colossal need for self-glory and adulation, it is now. Lincoln and Grant were indeed men of action, who actually cared about the present and future of this nation. Did I mention they had enormous courage as well? I really do believe that Romney deeply cares about the destiny of this country and is willing to do something about it. And I’m a pessimist!
You can debate a lot of thing about the Con Man’s murky past, since he has hidden the entire portfolio of records, other than the fantasies he dectated and/or were invented by Bill Ayers. Not much is known for sure.
But one thing that can’t be questioned is his determination to do nothing other than the sneaky illegal things he knows will never be exposed by the media and which he believes aren’t big enough to capture the public’s attention.
So, he doesn’t lay a finger on the Unaffodable Care Act or the StickItToUs Act or the Dodd Franks power grab. Unemployment soars and he golfs and occasionally pontificates. America’s credit rating is downgraded as he not only sits on his hands, he actually sabotages efforts to fix the problem. So the green revolution in Iran receives no support. Mubaric falls without any halp from the US. Israel is on its own. He gives away Polands missle protection for nothing in return. Three clearn chances to get Bin Laden pass before Panetta finally makes the decision while obama is golfing. He conspires with Medledev only because he stupidly believes the mikes are off.
He has led his entire life without doing anything above board. Every act is a sneak attack of trechery. It is just as true now as when he illegally overruled centuries of law to shaft the Chrysler bondholers and reward his Union thug suppoters.
It will never change.
It appears that based on comments to Mr. Simon’s article that Governor Romney’s major foreign policy address is not playing very well.
I think it fair to assume that Romney’s foreign policy originates with the GOP establishment as represented most recently by the stellar reviews former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice received from her apparently bravura performance with Candidate Romney in private session. That is not going to excite very many citizens, or more importantly “likely voters.”
Americans will only support simple, principled foreign policy: from FDR’s “Unconditional Surrender” to JFK’s “Explicit Threat” to Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall.” While we may accept and understand nuance and complexity involved in foreign relations, we stand committed only to clearly annunciated principled foreign policy. Romney’s address? blah blah blah
Obama’s paralysis on Iran and in the Middle East generally is exactly what you’d expect from someone steeped in the post-colonialist tradition of modern liberal academia. Post-colonial theory teaches that America and the West are inherently malignant, and their attempts to “civilize” the world are destructive and evil. That’s bad enough when done ignorantly, but post-colonialism also posits that, when people in the West realize this and attempt to act on behalf of oppressed peoples, they invariably end up doing the same kind of harm. They silence the people they are trying to save. Basically, if you’re a “colonizer,” you can never understand another people or culture. You are forever tainted. Post-colonialism thus naturally leads to paralysis: nothing you do can possibly be right, so you end up doing nothing.
The question is not why Obama abandoned the Middle East. The question is why we’d expect someone who believes as he does to do anything different.
“There wasn’t a peep in the room while we listened. Republicans, Democrats, even wannabe sixties radicals, we were all American citizens that night, listening to an admired president who was clearly standing tall against totalitarianism.”
That can’t happen anymore in America. The Democrats are all-in for Totalitarianism. They want to ‘fundamentally transform’ the US into a totalitarian socialist state and they support other such states around the world. The LAST thing a Democrat wants to see is anyone in America, much less the president, “standing tall against totalitarianism.”
I don’t think the utter callousness demonstrated by Obama when he flew out to a fundraiser in Las Vegas the day after Ambassador Stevens was murdered, I don’t think that callousness did not register on the American psyche. It will be a factor in the vote of the many who are not partisan but are decent.
Well said ricpic.
Supposedly, our Commander-in-Chief also went to sleep as usual after either hearing our consulate in Benghazi was under attack and/or Ambassador Stevens was murdered.
If this were not bad enough, Obama and his gang then lied about how and why the ambassador died so that it would not hurt his chance for re-election.
I don’t think there’s a word for how morally reprehensible this is.
There is a word and it is EVIL.
I don’t think there’s a word for how morally reprehensible HE is.
The far left has a world view that essentially is sympathetic with our enemies. No Republican in politics has the balls yet to call this treasonous or seditious behavior, but I do. Although Dinesh D’Souza’s movie 2016 does not come out directly and call Obama treasonous, it is a logical conclusion. JFK’s democrats still believed in America – despite its flaws. Today’s leftists are essentially anti-American sympathizers. Obama didn’t say radical “transformation” because he wanted the country to become more “liberal”. He wants to transform America from the land of rugged individuals, limited and divided govt and free markets to the land of dependency, socialism, and tyrannical Utopian Masterminds.
Regardless of what’s going on domestically, foreign policy/national security is always my most important consideration at election time. Always. Obama and his foreign policy handmaidens are downright scary. They refuse to recognize the threat of our time for what it is.
I remember JFK’s speech very well. I was in high school in an ultra-conservative NJ town that had not supported Kennedy, but everyone was behind him on this one. The guys were ready to enlist; we were ready to send them off with smiles on their faces.
Democrats tough on foreign policy are a thing of the past. Romney is certainly nothing like John F. Kennedy (I would consider it an insult; JFK isn’t the hero most make him out to be). JFK’s most notable accomplishments were inspiring a new generation and launching the space program, and even Eisenhower gets more credit in that area. JFK was also a reckless womanizer but that’s irrelevant, we’re talking foreign policy.
Romney isn’t as conservative as I would like, but I have faith that he’ll be tough on his foreign policy, at least moreso than Obama.
To answer your question though: No, I don’t think Romney is the new JFK. I hope we don’t see another JFK, or Bill Clinton, or Woodrow Wilson, or FDR, or Barack Obama and especially no Jimmy Carter.
Precisely, Clare!
A robust national leader willing to fight for and defend America is essential. We have the exact opposite in Obama, from the ‘defend America’ angle. He is a robust demagogue and a robust enemy of The People. And that makes him very dangerous. We don’t yet know how low he will go, but if his serial lies and treasonous subversions are prologue, (from the atrocity of F&F to shredding the First Amendment before the Muslim fascists at the UN), then Obama is willing to go pretty low, and possibly all the way to fundamentally destroy America.
You know what I find scary? The confused admixture of defense of America with First World Messianism embodied in Roger’s post and among many commentors. Somewhere along the way, perhaps after America’s heroic defeat of Fascism in WW2, followed by our miraculous remaking of Germany and Japan, Americans got the insane notions that
1. It is America’s job to remake the world in our image
2. That underneath it all, all people yearn to be like us.
These are catastrophic conceits. Germany and Japan were both exceptional nations which had both exhibited amazing capacities to advance (not always in good directions, mind you), and invent. They both chose dark paths, and we set about in WW2 to annihilate their poisoned software and replace them with functioning software. It worked because we went after the core of their bad beliefs, and retained that which was positive. That was something to build upon.
Islam has none of these qualities, and exhibits none of the inventiveness or worthiness to be rebuilt. Islam is a cancer, and the messianism of neocons like Roger Simon or Bush2 is deadly to American interests. Yes, stand up unapologetically to the savages of Islam. We have nothing to apologize to the Muslim world about. But delusions about salvaging Muslims or Islam from its cancerous path entangles us in an unwinnable and ruinous blunder. See Afghanistan. See Iraq. See the grim death toll. See the trillion dollars squandered on the savages. See them betray us and set about with renewed vigor to rape the world and pillage humanity.
Save us from the Obamas. We cannot afford them.
Save us from the neocons. We cannot afford them either.
Well said.
Your analysis is sound and I agree with it, mostly. Islam is indeed a cultural cancer. The moribund countries where it dominates are going backwards at a frightening clip and it’s doubtful any sort of Marshall Plan rebuilding would work in any country where Islamists holds sway. They are not like us and don’t want to be us. Still, what we need to look at closely is whether U.S. disengagement in the Middle East might eventually lead to a major conflict that–because of the world’s dependence on oil and our political commitment to Israel–we won’t have the luxury of watching from the sidelines. We should not try and remake the world into a carbon-copy of us, granted. But will a new isolationism limit our exposure to conflict or add to it?
I also have concerns about Romney’s statement in support of the Syrian rebels. Syria is indeed importatn to U.S. interests in the region, but which Syria? We have maintained a chilly, but largely pragmatic, relationship with al-Assad, whose regime offered dqualified support for the War on Terror. Would that same relationship exist if Islamist rebels replaced Assad? It seems very unclear which horse we should back in this race and I give Obama credit for not rushing in half-cocked. Maybe Romney is supporting the rebels simply because Obama is not, which seems a mistake to me. On the larger question of isolationism vs. active, robust engagement in world affairs I must admit to being on the fence. The way I see it, isolationism is not a bad idea right now considering our deficit and growing public debt. We can’t keep fighting ten-year wars on more than one front. On the other hand, if we do withdraw from the Middle East and adopt more of a containment strategy, letting each country sort out their own problems, what guarantee is there that we won’t eventually be forced to intervene should the whole region explode into conflict. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon Saudi Arabia will surely follow suit, a development that threatens to destabilize the whole region and that might eventually disrupt oil exports altogether. Strong U.S. leadership in the region might tamp down a lot of what is going on now. but that would require a commitment to use military force–again–should saber-rattling and soft power come up short. Isolationism is no gurantee that the U.S. will be able to stay out of world conflicts, a lesson we learned at great cost in WWII. One thing is certain, though. Obama is presenting the U.S. as a weak horse to the entire Middle East, a perception that must be changed if we are to have any meaningful influence in the region. That doesn’t mean we have to go to war, only that we are prepared to should circumstances necessitate it. By sending out signals that the U.S. wants to avoid another war at all costs–including his insinuation that we will not back Israel militarily should she be attacked– Obama is actually increasing the chances of that war happening.
Comparing Mitt Romney to JFK is an insult to JFK. I’m a southerner and an unReconstructed one at that, and didn’t – and don’t – like JFK at all. That said, Kennedy served his country during WWII in one of the most hazardous ways one can think of, as skipper of a PT boat, which were plywood hulls powered by 3 1200 HP airplane engines and designed to attack enemy warships with torpedoes at almost 50 MPH. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is one of several Republican “chicken hawks” who avoided service during Vietnam but latterly adopted a hawkish position on military deployment. These cowards are quite willing to put young Americans in harms way, but were unwilling to put their precious butts on the line when they had the chance.
Much as I deplore this Administration, there is too much cheerleading for Romney and his not-proven character on this site. Roger – you really do not know if Mitt Romney would have supported the Greens in Iran, 2009. You really do not..
Larry -
I’m not a big cheerleader for Romney. The point about the Greens is this: Almost anyone — on any side of the aisle — would’ve supported them. It could’ve been just w/words, it didn’t need to be w/guns. That Obama did not SHOUTS what a warped ideological fool this guy is.
Don’t forget: Obama appointed an ambassador to Syria w/o getting any concessions just so he could suck up to Iran. Why suck up to Iran? John Batchelor explains it like this: “POTUS hangs on to the hero dream that he can deliver Tehran to the table the way Nixon delivered Beijing in 1972.”