Romney's War Speech

++Willard Romney addressed the country as commander in chief with full flags behind him at Virginia Military Institute. He opened his remarks by invoking George Marshall and his heroic role in WWII and later in the Marshall Plan. I found this ironic since the Romney family going back 5 generations has never had a single person serve in the American military. That's why Romney can glorify war and not address anything about veterans issues.

++In case you wondered what a Romney foreign policy would entail. First subtract China,Asia,Africa and most of Latin American except for Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. (Even though Hugo Chavez won re-election yesterday he still has stage 4 cancer and will probably not be around ,along with Fidel, by the end of a second Obama Administration.) The #1 geopolitical enemy of the United States, Putin's Russia, got one mention today.

++Mitt Romney said he would sign trade agreements while President Obama has not signed any. (For accuracy rate, President Obama has signed three, including with Colombia and Panama and is in the process of negotiating a Trans-Pacific Agreement. 

++Mitt Romney said that our Navy is the same size it was in 1815 and he would build many more ships. By 2014,our Navy should have 300 ships. Romney would vastly increase our military spending --we have only doubled the size of our spending in real dollars the last 10 years. We now are the number 1 arms exporters in the world and have a military budget that dwarfs any country and is close to equalling the expenditure of the entire planet combined. And the cool thing is that the wealthy will get even greater tax cuts even though we will escape our military spending, while ending two wars.

++Romney proposes that we serve as Israel's surrogate in the Middle East. Israel right now claims they have not had a better relationship than the one they have with the Obama Administration. But Willard will make it better and he even proposes starting talks for a two state solution, even though he told his donors that he thought it was a useless proposition. 

++He blasted the Obama Administration for leading from behind and blamed it for the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. He also criticized the Administration for leaving Iraq too soon as violence there has escalated. He also said the President's timeline for leaving Afghanistan was politically expedient. 

++Very little discussion was of the tools of Foreign Policy except the military. He wants our European allies to increase their defense spending. For what purpose, we wasn't clear. He said he would arm the Syrian opposition like the Reagan policy of old, which in Afghanistan brought us Al Qaeda. On Iran, he would have tougher sanctions on the country, which are now crippling their economy as we speak. He will not tolerate any nuclear activity by Iran--his red line is much lower than President Obama. Or what? he doesn't say.

++The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes today that the United States can't escape the Middle East. But he doesn't say that all our policy should be focused on the Middle East.

++The speech was a rewrite of the positions held by the New America Project--a unilateral vision of the world proposed when we were the only superpower left standing after the Cold War and that minimizes diplomacy or any relationships with other countries. The NAP project pre-dated the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as 9/11. It is a whimsical document representing the thinking of 20 years ago.

++Mitt Romney basically believes that we have an inherent right to rule the world by diktat because of our awesome virtues and values we don't practice at home.  It was delivered well as should make the jingoistic heart thumping. But it is a recipe for disaster.