Mitt Romney Just Hammered Obama On Libya In A Big, Wide-Ranging Foreign Policy Speech

[qui_est_ce]

As far as WMDs, why didn’t we hold Egypt t

And Saddam was no more evil than the leadership of China or North Korea. Why didn’t Bush want to tangle with them? Because THEY HAD NO OIL.

I thought we got most of our foreign oil from Canada.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not an absolutist kind of moral argument I’m making against war in general. I’m reiterating his point, partially: Saddam was certainly a monster, but he was also a secularist. Leaders of that type are getting thin on the ground there anyway—why hasten the process? It leads to religious radicals getting more political traction (as they have in Iraq), and the collateral disruption is costly in human terms, too—look at the shortages of electricity and potable water in Iraq, and the precipitous decline in its health care system, which was once one of the best in the Middle East.

Anyway, if one is annoyed at him for starting wars, why did Reagan sell him weapons? And why did Ambassador Glaspie tell him we didn’t care if he settled his border dispute with Kuwait with armed force?

As far as WMDs, why didn’t we hold Egypt to account for its use of poison gas against Saudi forces in the Yemeni civil war in the sixties?

And Saddam was no more evil than the leadership of China or North Korea. Why didn’t Bush want to tangle with them? Because THEY HAD NO OIL.

We don’t get oil from Iraq. Time to lay that old canard about wanting Iraqi oil as the motivation for the war aside. Do you really think the lack of NoKo oil was a greater deterrent to intervention than the experience of the Korean War, in which some 36,000 American soldiers died? Do you really think that?

So, it’s okay to kill a million people as long as you’re a secularist? I don’t know what the Al Quaeda body count is to date, but I very much doubt it is anywhere remotely near a million. Were you really willing to see Saddam (or his vicious sons who would have succeeded him) kill another million? Did you really think Uday or Qusay (probably the latter) would not have succeeded Saddam? What is the last (first for them) name of the last three dictators of North Korea?

We can’t intervene with every dictator and certainly we couldn’t back when Egypt was a Soviet ally without risking more than we were then willing to risk. We didn’t even intervene in the Hungarian or Polish revolutions for that reason.

Let’s get serious about all of this.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I thought we got most of our foreign oil from Canada.

Canada and Mexico are pretty much it.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

We don’t get oil from Iraq. Time to lay that old canard about wanting Iraqi oil as the motivation for the war aside. Do you really think the lack of NoKo oil was a greater deterrent to intervention than the experience of the Korean War, in which some 36,000 American soldiers died? Do you really think that?

So, it’s okay to kill a million people as long as you’re a secularist? I don’t know what the Al Quaeda body count is to date, but I very much doubt it is anywhere remotely near a million. Were you really willing to see Saddam (or his vicious sons who would have succeeded him) kill another million? Did you really think Uday or Qusay (probably the latter) would not have succeeded Saddam? What is the last (first for them) name of the last three dictators of North Korea?

We can’t intervene with every dictator and certainly we couldn’t back when Egypt was a Soviet ally without risking more than we were then willing to risk. We didn’t even intervene in the Hungarian or Polish revolutions for that reason.

Let’s get serious about all of this.

I didn’t say we did. But oil is a precious commodity throughout the world, and being able to DENY it to people is a formidable kind of leverage. Or even being able to THREATEN to deny it. Having it as an ace in the hole for supply purposes is useful, too.

Even Paul Wolfowitz once admitted that we wouldn’t be in Iraq were it not for its oil. “Look, the primarily difference – to put it a little too simply – between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.” Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Q&A following IISS Asia Security Conference, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs),News Transcript, U.S. Department of Defense, defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2704

Secularism is a good thing in the Islamic world. No matter what kind of monsters Saddam’s family is, I can promise you that empowering religious fanatics in that part of the world is MORE dangerous to us. 9/11 bears testament to that. THAT’S the kind of danger that can strike home. You want that happening?

A region filled with secularist leaders is our best line of defense against Islamic radicalism in the Middle East. Apparently, a LOT of people have forgotten that.

And anyone who thinks Iraq is better off today should read how Human Rights Watch has documented the very degenerated state of human rights in Iraq these days. hrw.org/news/2012/08/31/iraq-lack-transparency-26-executions

 

[Yerusalyim]

The rebels are comprised of al Qaeda, a sworn enemy of the United States.

Providing support to enemies in time of war is a violation of the NDAA.

Some are associated with AQ…some with Iran…some are unaligned. we seek out the majority that are unaligned.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I didn’t say we did. But oil is a precious commodity throughout the world, and being able to DENY it to people is a formidable kind of leverage. Or even being able to THREATEN to deny it. Having it as an ace in the hole for supply purposes is useful, too.

Even Paul Wolfowitz once admitted that we wouldn’t be in Iraq were it not for its oil. “Look, the primarily difference – to put it a little too simply – between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.” Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Q&A following IISS Asia Security Conference, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs),News Transcript, U.S. Department of Defense, defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2704

Secularism is a good thing in the Islamic world. No matter what kind of monsters Saddam’s family is, I can promise you that empowering religious fanatics in that part of the world is MORE dangerous to us. 9/11 bears testament to that. THAT’S the kind of danger that can strike home. You want that happening?

A region filled with secularist leaders is our best line of defense against Islamic radicalism in the Middle East. Apparently, a LOT of people have forgotten that.

And anyone who thinks Iraq is better off today should read how Human Rights Watch has documented the very degenerated state of human rights in Iraq these days. hrw.org/news/2012/08/31/iraq-lack-transparency-26-executions

Wolfowitz aside, there is no oil in Afghanistan, yet we’re there.

And Saddam might have been the “infidel” that Bin Ladin called him. Nevertheless, he was still sectarian.

Of course Iraq is sinking. We abandoned it, and our allies there, to internecine sectarian conflict so Obama could brag about how he ended the “bad war”. And how is his program going in Libya?

 

[SamH]

Canada and Mexico are pretty much it.

That’s why the Keystone pipeline was such a big deal - but Obama wants that oil to go to China.

 

[SamH]

. And how is his program going in Libya?

Who knows, the Obama administrations and the State Dept (along with the MSM) can only be entrusted to lie about current events there - we are forced to rely upon their government to tell us the truth.

 

[Roselle]

Thought Jonathan Tobin has a nice article up and posted this morning on what happened in Libya and the White Houses’s response.

“Admin Libya Lies Take Mitt Off the Hook”

commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/11/administration-libya-lies-take-mitt-romney-off-the-hook-carney-tapper/

snippet from his article:

As he has done many times in recent years, ABC’s Jake Tapper hit the nail on the head when he asked White House spokesman Jay Carney yesterday whether President Obama hadn’t done exactly what he and other Democrats and liberals accused Mitt Romney of doing:

TAPPER: President Obama, shortly after the attack told “60 Minutes” that regarding Mitt Romney’s response to the attacks, specifically in Egypt, the president said that Romney has a tendency to “shoot first and aim later.” Given the fact that so much was made out of the video that apparently had absolutely nothing to do with the attack in Benghazi, that there wasn’t even a protest outside the Benghazi post, didn’t President Obama shoot first and aim later?

CARNEY: First of all, Jake, I think your assessment of what we know now is not complete, but I would simply say that the -

TAPPER: I’m just going by what the State Department said yesterday.

CARNEY: Look, there is no question that in the region, including in Cairo, there were demonstrations reacting to the release of that video, and I will leave it to those who are testifying on the hill to -

TAPPER: You said yesterday there was no protest? I’m talking about in Benghazi.

This was yet another cringe-inducing moment from a White House that is allergic to the truth. But Tapper’s question hits an important political point that has been ignored, as the country seeks answers to the questions about the Benghazi attack that the Obama foreign policy team still finds itself incapable of answering honestly. Mitt Romney is still taking abuse from those who claim he was wrong to criticize the administration’s behavior in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi disaster as well as the assault on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. The Republican spoke out before all the information about both incidents was aired. In retrospect, that was a mistake. But it pales in comparison to the many deceptive statements from the president, the secretary of state and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations that were not only wrong but part of what appears to have been a campaign of deception aimed at distracting the American people from a major security breakdown…

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Wolfowitz aside, there is no oil in Afghanistan, yet we’re there.

And Saddam might have been the “infidel” that Bin Ladin called him. Nevertheless, he was still sectarian.

Of course Iraq is sinking. We abandoned it, and our allies there, to internecine sectarian conflict so Obama could brag about how he ended the “bad war”. And how is his program going in Libya?

We’re in Afghanistan because that’s where Osama and the Taliban were—after they pulled off 9/11. In other posts and other threads I have defended the Afghan intervention—though it was soon mishandled and ruined beyond all hope.

Human rights-wise, Iraq is sinking, but I’m not referring to sectarian conflict (though toppling the govt and disbanding the army did that, too); I’m referring to the heavy-handed callous attitude toward human rights that the American-created government has exhibited. It’s well on its way toward being what Saddam’s government was, without being a stabilizing force on ethnic and sectarian conflict the way his government was. The worst of both worlds is what Iraq is well on its way to having.

Obama got elected on a platform that included, among other things, a pledge to withdraw from Iraq. He was quite open about that. The American people still voted him into office. He had a mandate.

He didn’t have a choice, anyway. The SOFA was potentially too unfavorable to American servicemen in that country. The Bush administration essentially conceded this, in its waning days, when they suppressed the English translation of the agreement to forestall public dispute over several provisions with the Iraqis until after the Iraqi parliament had voted on the agreement. One of the provisions in question would have been Iraqi legal jurisdiction over American troops and contractors.

mcclatchydc.com/2008/11/25/56474/us-staying-silent-on-its-view.html

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Who knows, the Obama administrations and the State Dept (along with the MSM) can only be entrusted to lie about current events there - we are forced to rely upon their government to tell us the truth.

Reliance on the Obama administration for nearly anything AND $2 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

 

[SamH]

This was yet another cringe-inducing moment from a White House that is allergic to the truth. But Tapper’s question hits an important political point that has been ignored, as the country seeks answers to the questions about the Benghazi attack that the Obama foreign policy team still finds itself incapable of answering honestly. Mitt Romney is still taking abuse from those who claim he was wrong to criticize the administration’s behavior in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi disaster as well as the assault on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. The Republican spoke out before all the information about both incidents was aired. In retrospect, that was a mistake. **But it pales in comparison to the many deceptive statements from the president, the secretary of state and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations that were not only wrong but part of what appears to have been a campaign of deception aimed at distracting the American people from a major security breakdown… **

If only Jimmy Carter had been smart enough to claim the Iranian take over of the US embassy was an exaggeration by Republicans and deny that there were even hostages.

 

[HansTrappist]

Some are associated with AQ…some with Iran…some are unaligned. we seek out the majority that are unaligned.

One word: Fungible.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I agree naturally with the Holy Father. Romney’s foreign policy aims in Syria are at odds with Catholic teaching. I believe that this is important to remember if one is going to vote for him.

It’s certainly worth knowing, but the problem is the other guy.

If the democrats want to compete for my vote, they can’t be giving mortal sins the green light.