It's hard not to be startled, outraged, and angered at Mitt Romney's tone-deaf foreign policy pronouncements. And rightly so ...
Mitt Romney’s ‘No Apology’ Foreign Policy
by Michael Falcone, abcnews.go.com -- Sep 12, 2012
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As Romney said on Wednesday at his news conference in Jacksonville, Fla.: “I think it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values, that instead when our grounds are being attacked and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation. An apology for America’s values is never the right course.”
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The line appeared in his remarks last Saturday at a campaign rally in Virginia Beach, Va.: “I will not divide this nation. I will not apologize for America abroad, and I will not apologize for Americans here at home.”
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Some would chalk up Romney's bellicose, indignant rhetoric to the Candidate's own innate ineptitude. However if you look at bit beyond Mitt's 'ah-shucks' cluelessness -- it seems Mitt has had "some help" with his foreign policy "crib notes" ...
It seems Mr Romney been getting a little help with his 'tough guy' talk ... and not from just Clint Eastwood either ...
Mitt Romney's Neocon War Cabinet
by Ari Berman, The Nation -- May 21, 2012
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Of Romney's forty identified foreign policy advisers, more than 70 percent worked for Bush. Many hail from the neoconservative wing of the party, were enthusiastic backers of the Iraq War and are proponents of a US or Israeli attack on Iran.
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The Romney campaign released the white paper and its initial roster of foreign policy advisers in October, to coincide with a major address at The Citadel. The cornerstone of Romney’s speech was a gauzy defense of American exceptionalism, a theme the candidate adopted from another PNAC founder and Romney adviser, Robert Kagan. The speech and white paper were long on distortions -- claiming that Obama believed “there is nothing unique about the United States” and “issued apologies for America” abroad -- and short on policy proposals. The few substantive ideas were costly and bellicose: increasing the number of warships the Navy builds per year from nine to fifteen (five more than the service requested in its 2012 budget), boosting the size of the military by 100,000 troops, placing a missile defense system in Europe and stationing two aircraft carriers near Iran. “What he articulated in the Citadel speech was one of the most inchoate, disorganized, cliché-filled foreign policy speeches that any serious candidate has ever given,” says Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Romney’s team is notable for including Bush aides tarnished by the Iraq fiasco: Robert Joseph, the National Security Council official who inserted the infamous “sixteen words” in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union message claiming that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger; Dan Senor, former spokesman for the hapless Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer in Iraq; and Eric Edelman, a top official at the Pentagon under Bush. “I can’t name a single Romney foreign policy adviser who believes the Iraq War was a mistake,” says Cato’s Preble. “Two-thirds of the American people do believe the Iraq War was a mistake. So he has willingly chosen to align himself with that one-third of the population right out of the gate.”
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Romney hasn’t said what he’d do with a bigger military or how he’d pay for it. But it’s safe to assume the money will go toward preserving or enlarging the national security state. Romney’s counterterrorism adviser since 2007 has been former CIA operative Cofer Black, another controversial figure from the Bush era. The Daily Beast calls Black “Romney’s trusted envoy to the dark side” and “the campaign’s in-house intelligence officer.” In 2007 Romney sourced Black in refusing to classify waterboarding as torture (and also said he wanted to “double Guantánamo”). As head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center following 9/11, Black supervised the agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program, which illegally transported alleged terrorists to secret detention centers abroad, where they were tortured. “After 9/11 the gloves come off,” Black infamously testified before Congress. He joined the private security firm Blackwater in 2005, specializing in intelligence gathering for governments and business. More recently, the Daily Beast reported, Romney has relied on Black for security assessments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Iran, including Iran’s nuclear program.
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Meet the new Neocon front guy -- even more malleable than the last front guy.
This band of international Blackwater risk-takers enforcers -- must never come to power again.
Not in our life-times. Not if we can prevent it.
PS. the above Neocon link is well-worth reading, bookmarking, & sharing ...
Or check out these posts, for my summary takes on Mitt's "recycled" GW advisers:
Romney's Neocon advisers want a Do-over
by jamess -- Sep 08, 2012
Romney doubles down on his Cluelessness
by jamess -- Sep 08, 2012
Thanks for taking the time. This stuff matters.