Romney to give defense of Neoconservative Foreign Policy at VMI

[Cowlesy]

I detest Obama and his policies.

Romney is much better than Obama on domestic policy.

But if Romney is going all-in for neoconservatism in foreign policy, he does not have my vote.

I cannot vote for an individual who will recklessly and carelessly, based on the cries and whines of neoconservatives, send our soldiers off to these dirt-farms to fight trolls in caves.

I can't do it. I will vote third party, even though I want to vote for Romney. I can't have a YEA vote for neoconservative foreign policy on my conscience.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/8/romney-to-slam-obama-on-warfare/

 

[Lucille]

Hard to believe the neo-Trots are still in charge, and that GOP voters nominated another neo-Trot after the epic failures of the Bush admin. and its disastrous Islamic Theocracy-building misadventures. I guess "conservative" voters forget it was the the neocons who made Obama's win possible.

The Monster That Wouldn’t Die
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2008/02/13/the-monster-that-wouldnt-die/

The neocons, we were told, had been "marginalized," and their dreams of "benevolent global hegemony" were pronounced dead. Yet, not much more than a year later, the beast has reawakened; the corpse is animate. Frankenstein lives! As Jacob Heilbrunn, a senior editor at The National Interest, a former neocon himself, and author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, put it the other day, the idea that the neoconservatives are finished "could be the biggest whopper of them all."
[...]
"The truth is that the neocons have been repeatedly declared dead before – and, to the chagrin of their enemies on the left and the right, bounced back. At the end of the Cold War, the arch-realist George H.W. Bush relegated them to the sidelines; then the triangulating Bill Clinton seemed to deprive them of their biggest foreign and domestic policy issues. If they came back from that, they can come back from anything. Now that Robert Kagan, William Kristol (who seems not to be discredited in the eyes of the New York Times, which just made him a columnist) and a host of other neocons have hitched their fortunes to McCain, the neocons are poised for a fresh comeback. If they make a hash of foreign policy by 2011, perhaps the familiar cycle of public scorn and rebirth might even start all over again."
[...]
Like vampires risen from the dead each night, these creatures who shun the light and feast on pain and suffering, are refreshed and ready to take wing again. What they seek is what makes them feel alive and energizes them to want more, and that is war. They are the War Party, and they are Democrats and Republicans. They are columnists and publishers and academics, as well as politicians and publicists. They don’t have much of a mass base: they prefer to work in the shadows, manipulating rather than inspiring. By such Machiavellian means have they managed to stay viable, in spite of the disasters they have wrought through the years – giving them more scope for fresh disasters yet to be imagined.

 

[Lucille]

There's a poll at your link. Pathetic, ineducable, perpetually afraid chickenhawks:

Poll: Which presidential candidate do you think is better able to handle foreign policy issues?

Obama 149(7%)
Romney 1734(90%)
Undecided 17(0%)
Other 52(2%)

I am the 2%!

 

[AGRP]

There's a poll at your link. Pathetic, ineducable, perpetually afraid chickenhawks:

Poll: Which presidential candidate do you think is better able to handle foreign policy issues?

Obama 149(7%)
Romney 1734(90%)
Undecided 17(0%)
Other 52(2%)

I am the 2%!

If you polled the same people they would overwhelmingly support nuking every square inch of land mass outside of the US.

 

[Cowlesy]

There's a poll at your link. Pathetic, ineducable, perpetually afraid chickenhawks:

Poll: Which presidential candidate do you think is better able to handle foreign policy issues?

Obama 149(7%)
Romney 1734(90%)
Undecided 17(0%)
Other 52(2%)

I am the 2%!

Me too (no pun intended).

It's sad, that so many misconstrue a "strong national defense" with neoconservative foreign policy. Neoconservatives are the jedi-masters of pulling the emotion strings of "strong amurican pride" and calling themselves "national security conservatives", when, in fact, they do nothing but get our boys needlessly killed, and make us LESS SAFE.

 

[Cowlesy]

Romney's full remarks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...2665c2-115d-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html

 

[Anti Federalist]

Romney is much better than Obama on domestic policy.

I won't vote for a gun banner or the creator of the "individual mandate" idea of government regulation.

Obama didn't do either one of those.

They are just as bad as each other, across the board, on every issue, I think.

 

[jmdrake]

I detest Obama and his policies.

Romney is much better than Obama on domestic policy.

But if Romney is going all-in for neoconservatism in foreign policy, he does not have my vote.

I cannot vote for an individual who will recklessly and carelessly, based on the cries and whines of neoconservatives, send our soldiers off to these dirt-farms to fight trolls in caves.

I can't do it. I will vote third party, even though I want to vote for Romney. I can't have a YEA vote for neoconservative foreign policy on my conscience.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/8/romney-to-slam-obama-on-warfare/

I can't believe anybody actually wants to vote for Romney. He's domestic policy is every bit as bad as Obama's. And Obama is every bit the neoconservative that Romney is. They both play rolls to appeal to their respective constituencies, but that's it. Romneycare = Obamacare. Both support the NDAA, TARP, no audit for the fed, the TSA, the Patriot Act etc. The only possible difference is that Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I detest Obama and his policies.

Romney is much better than Obama on domestic policy.

But if Romney is going all-in for neoconservatism in foreign policy, he does not have my vote.

I cannot vote for an individual who will recklessly and carelessly, based on the cries and whines of neoconservatives, send our soldiers off to these dirt-farms to fight trolls in caves.

I can't do it. I will vote third party, even though I want to vote for Romney. I can't have a YEA vote for neoconservative foreign policy on my conscience.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/8/romney-to-slam-obama-on-warfare/

The soldiers don't even fight trolls in dirt caves, they kick down doors and invade family homes and shoot the wrong people because they are forced to do these missions after enlisting and becoming G I property. I hear you on the Romney foreign policy...I will never vote for someone who advocates that shit.

 

[Lucille]

Romney Offers Vague Rhetoric in ‘Major’ Foreign Policy Speech
Romney tried desperately - but failed - to differentiate himself from Obama on policy towards the Middle East
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/08/romney-offers-vague-rhetoric-in-major-foreign-policy-speech/

Romney didn’t mention the fact that Obama’s interventionist foreign policy – including imposing regime change in Libya, bombing Yemen and Pakistan with drones on a weekly basis, surging in Afghanistan, and continuing to prop up dictatorships across the region – is what is driving al-Qaeda’s growth. Instead, Romney’s remedy is a vague prescription of American “power,” as if it has been dormant for the last four years.

 

[COpatriot]

Disgusting speech.

 

[Lucille]

Mitt Romney's vapid, misleading foreign policy speech
Obama has made some big international mistakes, but Romney seems incapable of honestly critiquing them
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/234468/mitt-romneys-vapid-misleading-foreign-policy-speech

The failings of Romney’s foreign policy arguments are not entirely his. Boxed in by his party’s hawks and most Republicans’ unwillingness to acknowledge Bush administration blunders, Romney’s script was to some extent written for him before he became a candidate. Not being in a position to lead his party in a new direction on this or any other issue, he had already embraced the worldview that he found among Republican hawks in an effort to become acceptable to them. Unfortunately for the country, Americans could have used a credible opposition party and presidential candidate to hold the administration accountable for its real mistakes.

via http://www.theamericanconservative....mi-and-obamas-biggest-foreign-policy-mistake/

 

[Lucille]

Romney’s Foreign-Policy Speech: More War, Bigger Budgets
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/romneys-foreign-policy-speech-more-war-bigger-budgets/

Mitt Romney’s speech at VMI today confirmed every realist’s and non-interventionist’s worst fears about him: not only is his foreign-policy vision indistinguishable from that of George W. Bush — except that it may be more utopian and Wilsonian — but there’s no indication that any realist has the slightest influence on his strategic thinking.

That includes political realists: anyone who might convey to Mitt what a price the GOP paid for Bush’s wars in 2006 and 2008 — the price it will pay again in 2012, the way Mitt is going. Romney promised military Kenyesianism and was as demagogic as the best-paid Pentagon lobbyist in claiming “our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut.”
[...]
This was not a speech he had to make — a speech distracting from the ground Romney had recently made up by refocusing his attention on the plight of America’s middle class. And if he had to make a foreign-policy speech, it did not have to cater to the neoconservatives and pork hawks already on his team. Nothing in this speech appeals to a war-weary and economically troubled people. It’s politically damaging. But he gave this speech anyway, and the only reasonable explanation is either that Mitt really believes — zealously — what he says, or else he’s entirely compliant to the ideological demands of right-wing Wilsonians. I suspect the latter is the case, and that portends a Romney presidency that would repeat all the errors of his Republican predecessor. The issue here is not even a reckless foreign policy versus a domestic policy that may give Republicans grounds for hope: a foreign policy like this will not permit much of a domestic policy at all. It will consume a presidency, just as it consumed George W. Bush’s.

P.S. Romney didn’t take Danielle Pletka’s advice: even the chief hawk at the most neoconservative think tank warned beforehand that “Mr. Romney needs to persuade people that he’s not simply a George W. Bush retread, eager to go to war in Syria and Iran and answer all the mail with an F-16″ and “Criticisms of Mr. Obama’s national security policies have degenerated into a set of clichés about apologies, Israel, Iran and military spending.” I suspect a new tune will be sung now that the speech has been given, but it’s telling that Romney has outdone AEI itself in pushing an unrelenting “Long War” line.

 

[dbill27]

Romney can not be allowed to win. He's officially worse than obama.

 

[AuH20]

Disgusting speech.

It's just a speech. Ahmajinedad talks the same way (vaporize Israel yadda yadda) and we all know he's full of it. Both sides are scared shitless of a war because of the dire implications it entails. Secondly, as POTUS Romney wouldn't have the revenue nor the military capabilties to implement the aforementioned. He's just kissing AIPAC donor ass. There will no war under Romney or Obama. Write that down. I'm not advocating for anyone to vote for Romney but many of the assured conclusions amount to fearmongering.

 

[LibertyEagle]

I seriously cannot deal with the neocons again. It gives me shivers to even think about it.

 

[Cowlesy]

It's just a speech. Ahmajinedad talks the same way (vaporize Israel yadda yadda) and we all know he's full of it. Both sides are scared shitless of a war because of the dire implications it entails. Secondly, as POTUS Romney wouldn't have the revenue nor the military capabilties to implement the aforementioned. He's just kissing AIPAC donor ass. There will no war under Romney or Obama. Write that down. I'm not advocating for anyone to vote for Romney but many of the assured conclusions amount to fearmongering.

We may not have the revenue, but that didn't stop Bush.

In fact, we can borrow for 10 years at 1.6%. That pretty much gives him carte blanche to do whatever he wants.

 

[Lucille]

It's just a speech. Ahmajinedad talks the same way (vaporize Israel yadda yadda) and we all know he's full of it. Both sides are scared shitless of a war because of the dire implications it entails. Secondly, as POTUS Romney wouldn't have the revenue nor the military capabilties to implement the aforementioned. He's just kissing AIPAC donor ass. There will no war under Romney or Obama. Write that down. I'm not advocating for anyone to vote for Romney but many of the assured conclusions amount to fearmongering.

Sure there will be. It's all part of the plaaaan:

 

[Brett85]

I detest Obama and his policies.

Romney is much better than Obama on domestic policy.

But if Romney is going all-in for neoconservatism in foreign policy, he does not have my vote.

I agree completely. I'd like to be able to vote for Romney, and was starting to consider voting for him. But I just can't go along with this either. His terrible views on foreign policy cancel out his good views on domestic policy.

 

[Brett85]

I won't vote for a gun banner or the creator of the "individual mandate" idea of government regulation.

Obama didn't do either one of those.

They are just as bad as each other, across the board, on every issue, I think.

Romney supports repealing Obamacare at the federal level and would never try to ram through federal gun control bills with a GOP Congress in control. Like Cowlesly said, Romney is considerably better than Obama on domestic issues, but seems to want to make it impossible for any paleo-conservative to vote for him, due to his hardcore neo-conservative foreign policy views.