Monday, October 22, 2012
Foreign Policy Debate
Both Obama and Romney are being dishonest. Telling Americans what Americans want to hear. The fact is, the Middle East is going down the crapper. Also, Russia did hit the reset button back to the cold war. The US would have been better off with Mubarak as leader. He and his wife promoted women's rights. Like no child marriages, no female circumcision, education for all. Women have now lost all those rights in Egypt.
As for Libya. Obama said the U.S. stopped a massacre in Benghazi. You know, where are the extremists posing as pro-Democracy supporters so they could get Western intervention. What Obama conveniently left out was that he stopped one massacre but there have been many many more. Ex Gaddafi supporters have been murdered on a daily basis. Oh and the guy who found Gaddafi? He was killed in a revenge killing.
And then all of those weapons. 20,000 surface to air missiles are flooding Islamic states. Why do you think no one wants to impose a no fly zone?
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Have just watched the debate live on Australian world news program. For the first half hour, where was the Foreign Policy debate? Can someone tell me the time each had the floor/ it appeared Gov Romney had about a 60/40 advantage? On Foreign policy Romney appeared to vacillate and was pushed into responding by the president. Romney’s solution "to change" Pakistan smacked of paternalism. Pres tried valiantly to defend his last 4 years but did not surprisingly cry foul at the tactics of congress. Who won? I think the President but I must reserve judgment until I sort the wheat from the chaff in Romney’s remarks. Perhaps that is why he got extra time; he had more words but fewer facts to relate.
ReplyDeleteCheers from Aussie
Kingston,
DeleteJust a couple of points:
Obama can't blame congress's tactics for four years. He had a majority for two, and still had the Senate for the other two. He could have shown more leadership, but when he saw that he couldn't bully the House, he symbollically washed his hands, deciding he would use that as an opportunity to blame congress for failures.
Second, in the previous debates, I think you'll find Obama garnered more time. Certainly in the second.
Jean
Jean,
DeleteOur incursions into Egypt, Libya were based on the democratic notion it's what the people wanted. The administration failed to understand who was waiting in the wings to take over or didn't care. All part of the ongoing nation building.
Pretty amazing to see Obama throw Mubarak under the bus. Pretty amazing to see the administration leave an embassy unguarded in a very dangerous place. The more amazing thing is the media never broached the subject even once. The question: Why didn't you have military support at an embassy in one of the most dangerous places in the world??
Upside is they caught it on drone camera.
Do you honestly think anyone in the world can keep Iran from making a nuclear device? What are we going to do nuc em? The bravado is disgusting as they rattle their swords.
Jean and Lou.
DeleteMy thanks for the reply. Of course Pres O had the congress for the first half. It had caused me to wonder why his program stalled early in the term. Some progress was made but the glue like substance smeared on the latter half has the world wondering if there is any real intent on the part of your leaders to actually solve the problems you face.
Listening yesterday I was given to wonder if the American influence is spread too thin across the globe.Pres Obama is boosting American influence in the Pacific. Presumably as a response to growing Chinese influence. Afghanistan remains a carbuncle on this and the future administration and as with so many global spot fires will prove difficult to exit with any dignity remaining.
Iran is going to be difficult for any administration unless global sanctions are increased and for that to be effective Russia and China need to be on side. North Korea is another problem but then it has been a problem since the creation of two nations. Whoever wins, I think you will need to focus closer to home and at least in part, allow the rest of the world to muddle along without excessive interference.
Cheers from Aussie
It's time for this country to retrench and stop the policy of nation building. Work with our friends and allies to secure our interests and if the rest of the world wants participation from the US they can buy our services.
DeleteNo more protecting Saudi oil for free, eliminate many of the over 1000 military bases, put the world on notice, Don't Tread On Me.
However, the fools in Washington will continue the madness until all is lost.
This comment Lou, I am in 100% agreement with and I especially like your comment about letting other countries buy our services. I'm not sure if you would agree with this part or not, but I think it is essential that we continue to patrol the seas the way we do. As for our bases all over the world, I agree it's well past time to start closing those down.
DeleteAs for the fools in Washington, I think we need to be more specific about which fools we are discussing. I believe a lot of our policy is being driven by ideological think tanks AND business interests. We destroy a lot of blood and treasure defending the ideals and money interests of a select few rather then what is in the interest of a majority of people in this country. We force the airlines to help move troops and material, why don't we ask anyone else to shoulder the burden? If we did, it might help to limit the stuff we step in.
Winner or not, Obama won't get a boost out of this debate either.
ReplyDeleteOne recent example of foreign policy failure is that Obama and Afghanistan have agreed to keep more troops PAST 2014. 2014 is the date Obama pledged to have everyone out of there. But, Ummmm these troops we "trained" to replace our soldiers are pathetic, and if they aren't pathetic are probably Al Qaeda or Taliban infiltrators.
Tell me you are scared of these guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFGFYqr-jyw
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyMy0KTut4&feature=endscreen&NR=1
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=8ThUxg1hrrU&feature=endscreen
livestrongest,
ReplyDeleteI can not understand, to this day, what U. S. interest was served in helping oust Gaddafi. God knows he was a murderous thug, but the U. S. could be taking out numerous regimes with that benchmark. I can't help but think it was a move by Obama to demonstrate how 'tough' he could be. And what do we see so far in Libya? A mess, and a bunch of arms and ammo that may end up somewhere they should not. Egypt? That needs to play out, but I'm concerned, even with some protests against those currently in power.
Jean
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteKingston, for an alleged liberal perspective, this is my take. Romney basically did a 180 degree turn against what he has said this entire campaign. The only conservative angle he stuck with was to call Obama an apologist and spew the predictable lines that we need to look strong to the world. Other then that, I felt like he did an enormous amount of centrist ass kissing. His most surprising comment to me was, "We can't kill our way out of this". I can't believe this sat well with the majority of conservatives.
ReplyDeleteHow can we say anyone won when both candidates basically agreed on quite a bit? I don't mean to sound crass, but the response to these deaths of four Americans in Libya is absurd. I agree with Jean's comment in that I saw little in Obama's actions that I could tie directly to protecting our interests. That said, I can hardly equate the death of these four American's to a level of outrage of 9/11. This was not an attack on our soil and short of having a hundred Marines there, and we certainly would have needed to question the logic of that, this was a soft target. Obama has waged a very direct war on Al Queda. For us to believe they are never going to get a punch of their own in from time to time is not realistic. How many operatives die that we never hear about? I don't believe that number is zero.
I'm a broken record of harping George Friedman's book, The Next Ten Years, but it's just about the most accurate and most adult perspective I have heard on the matter. And I have to say, Friedman is not a guy I would say I particularly like. Aside from talking tougher, I don't believe Romney offered anything substantially different from Obama.