Did You Like George W. Bush's Foreign Policies?
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Did You Like George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy?
By
ThinkProgress War Room on Apr 27, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Mitt Romney’s Misguided, Mistaken, and Misbegotten Foreign Policy
Today, Vice President Biden gave a speech at New York University laying out a broad attack on Mitt Romney
— a candidate whose only foreign policy experience comes from shipping
jobs overseas — and his approach to foreign policy. Biden said that
Romney was relying on the American people developing a ”collective
amnesia” about the policies of the past — namely those of the Bush
administration and the Cold War — that Romney is advocating a return to.
Romney’s desire for amnesia is probably particularly true when it comes
to a disastrous press call that his campaign held today in order to
attempt to attack the president on foreign policy.
Here’s the rundown.
Back to the Cold War
In his speech today, the vice president called Romney “one of a small group of Cold War holdovers” — a reference to Romney’s recent and much-maligned statement that Russia remains “without question our number one geopolitical foe.” This misguided and mistaken view of foreign policy was much in evidence on today’s Romney press call.
One Romney adviser, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, brought up the
threat posed by the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist in 1991:
We are seeing the Soviets pushing into the Arctic with no response from us. In fact the only response from us is to announce the early retirement of the last remaining ice breaker.
Another Romney adviser, former Ambassador Pierre Prosper, launched a multiply false attack on the president involving Czechoslovakia, a country which ceased to exist in 1992:
The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia, yet Russia does nothing but obstruct us, or efforts in Iran and Syria.
Mitt Romney himself recently made a reference to the “Soviets” when trying to attack the president for reaching a far-reaching arms reduction treaty that helped pave the way for greater Russian cooperation on Iran, among other things.
Back to Bush
Many of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers are the same Bush administration hands and neoconservatives
that helped push us into the Iraq War. Leading the attack on Romney’s
behalf today was Dan Senor, best known for his role as senior adviser to
and spokesman for Paul Bremer, the U.S. viceroy that headed the
Coalition Provisional Authority, which is widely blamed for botching the
early days of the occupation.
In October of 2003, Senor infamously declared
that “the good news is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi people
have embraced the liberation and are grateful for all we are doing to
reconstruct their country.” He also boasted that Iraq “was a model for the region” of a nation at peace with its citizens and claimed that “ninety-five percent of the country is at peace and returning to normal daily life.”
Steve Benen from MSNBC makes the key point:
When Team Romney needs a credible GOP voice to attack the
Obama administration’s foreign policy and advise the inexperienced
former governor on international affairs, it turns to this guy.Remember, the Republican National Committee believes the party’s agenda in 2013 will simply be a warmed over version of Bush’s policies. Romney surrounding himself with officials from the Bush/Cheney administration helps drive the point home.
As ThinkProgress Security’s Eli Clifton wrote today, the vice president also laid into Romney for his “loose talk” about war with Iran:
Biden’s harshest reprimand of Romney was saved for the
former Massachusetts governor’s critique of President Obama’s Iran
policy. Romney has swung between essentially endorsing the Obama administration’s policy of diplomacy plus pressure — via sanctions — to calling for outright military action against Iran. Biden said:Here’s what he says. He says we need
“crippling sanctions,” apparently unaware that through President Obama’s
leadership we produced just that, crippling sanctions. He emphasizes
the need for “a credible military option” and “a regular presence of
aircraft carrier groups” in the region, apparently ignorant of the fact that’s exactly what our policy is and what we’re doing.Biden singled out Romney’s criticisms of the White House’s
Iran-policy as “counterproductive” and promoting “loose talk of war”
that could ultimately hurt the international sanctions regime engineered
by the administration:I think it’s fair to say the only step we could take that we aren’t already taking is to launch a war against Iran. If that’s what governor Romney means by a “very different policy” then he should tell the American people.
He should say so. Otherwise the governor’s tough talk about military
action is just that, talk. And I would add, counterproductive talk. Folks,
loose talk about a war has incredible negative consequences in our
efforts to end Iran’s nuclear quest. And let me tell you why, because it
unsettles world oil markets. It drives up oil prices. When oil prices
go up, Iran’s coffers fill up, undermining the effect of the sanctions
that are already in place. This type of Romney Talk is just not smart.
Mitt Romney also shares something else with George W. Bush — a
lackadaisical attitude about capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. In
March 2002, just months after the 9/11 attacks, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added. In 2007, Romney said that catching bin Laden would be “insignificant” and it’s “not worth moving heaven and earth.”
No wonder that Romney surrogate and vice-presidential contender Marco Rubio neglected to mention either al-Qaeda or Iraq during his “major address” on foreign policy yesterday.
IN TWO SENTENCES: As Vice President Biden said today,
“Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. If Governor
Romney had been president, could he have used the same slogan in
reverse?”
Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed
The Senate passed a reauthorization of the expanded Violence Against
Women Act today by an overwhelming 68-31 margin. House Republicans still
contend that they want a watered down version without “contentious”
elements that will help protect all women from violence.
Forget Super PAC’s, outside spending by non-profits, businesses, is way more secretive.
Behind the right’s phony war on the nonexistent religion of secularism.
Mitt Romney’s false claims about all those small grassrootsy donations.
Rush Limbaugh on Hillary Clinton: ‘All she is is a Secretary’ who needs to wear Spanx.
Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate supports closing tax loophole for wealthy investors like Mitt Romney.
While Americans are paying a higher gas bill, Exxon has been making $104 million a day in 2012.
The National Endowment for the Arts is opening up more grants for media projects.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is not a fan of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) watered down DREAM Act proposal
Top Opinion
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The Bantam Seditioner 2012/04/29 02:59:50NO
+7Not at all. And I've observed with shocked revulsion how quickly the Bush Doctrine of preventive wars waged for morally ambiguous purposes has been adopted by almost all mainstream politicians, of both parties. There used to be a healthy anti-war movement out there, and that seems to be almost entirely gone now, even though the Unconstitutional and unjust wars continue through the first term of Bush's successor.
Look at the mess he left behihnd...
2 unpaid-for wars
TAX BREAKS for the WEALTHY
TAX BREAKS for Big Oil
And everyone is BITCHING because Obama is trying to clean up an 8-year mess???
PUH-LEEZE....
Khalid Sheik Mohamed gave up the plan to bomb the LA Library Tower in Los Angeles after water boarding and it was thwarted saving countless lives..
I'm sorry that after they behead our soldiers and innocent civilians like David Pearl, I can't shed a tear for terrorists getting dunked in water.
I realize what I wrote is contrary to what the media reported but there is no reason for you to tell me that I am wrong. The raw historical UN demographic data is there for anyone to see.
But, you are so right. It did not help the US taxpayer directly. Although one could argue that it was somewhat like the 2009 stimulus bill that costs about the same. Most of that money went to Americans who had that money to spend. My 2 sons and brother all came out ahead financially from their service.
I commend you for the consistency of your values. Clearly the anti-libertarian views of Bush and Obama are similar, as is the legality of some of their foreign adventures.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/...
Bush Administration Officials from the President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney and many others did intentionally with malice upon the American people willfully perpetrate the following acts which violated U.S. laws and international laws.
The American people were lied into a war in Iraq which resulted in the death of 3500 Americans and used torture of combatants and innocents. Instituted no bid contracts to financially enrich many people in the Bush administration and their business acquaintances. Here is a brief synopsis of the of the Iraq war, a war that was for the profit of a few while burying the American Dream for the rest of us.
The rationale for that war was fabricated in the highest reaches of the U.S. leadership.
First came the lies, so many it was impossible to keep up. Then came the shock and awe, the crudely invented Iraqi jubilation, the torture, the renditions, the secret prisons, the indefinite detentions, the deluge of unaccounted-for cash, the no-bid contracts, the flaccid media, the spectacle of "mission accomplished," the smug claims that there was no insurgency, the lousy armor ...
The endless flow of blood.
There is now a long list of the dea...
Bush Administration Officials from the President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney and many others did intentionally with malice upon the American people willfully perpetrate the following acts which violated U.S. laws and international laws.
The American people were lied into a war in Iraq which resulted in the death of 3500 Americans and used torture of combatants and innocents. Instituted no bid contracts to financially enrich many people in the Bush administration and their business acquaintances. Here is a brief synopsis of the of the Iraq war, a war that was for the profit of a few while burying the American Dream for the rest of us.
The rationale for that war was fabricated in the highest reaches of the U.S. leadership.
First came the lies, so many it was impossible to keep up. Then came the shock and awe, the crudely invented Iraqi jubilation, the torture, the renditions, the secret prisons, the indefinite detentions, the deluge of unaccounted-for cash, the no-bid contracts, the flaccid media, the spectacle of "mission accomplished," the smug claims that there was no insurgency, the lousy armor ...
The endless flow of blood.
There is now a long list of the dead who would not be dead were it not for this war initiated out of bravado, rancid ideology and doctored "evidence." Thousands of dead Americans and allied troops. And, at the very least, 120,000 dead Iraqis, perhaps several hundred thousand. Deaths in any war are terrible enough. Deaths in a war of choice, a concocted war, an illegal preventive war, count as nothing short of murder. The list of the maimed, the widowed, the orphaned is far longer, the list of the psychologically impaired longer still.
Before George W. Bush was voted 5-4 by the Supreme Court into the presidency, those who lied us into this war were already plotting their justification for sinking deeper military and economic roots into the Middle East—petropolitics and neo-imperialist sophistry interlaced with arrogant disdain for Iraqis and Americans alike. When they stepped into office in the footsteps of the mediocrity they had chosen to manipulate, terrorism gave them no worries, as Richard Clarke later explained to us. They focused, as former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill later informed us, on finding the right excuse to persuade the American people to go to war with Saddam Hussein. This they perceived and planned as a prelude for going to war with some of his neighbors. Less than nine months later, the excuse dropped into their laps in the form of Osama bin Laden's kamikaze crews.
From that terrible day forward, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and their fellow rogues engineered the invasion with eager nods from Bush. They saw the chance to carry out their invasion plan and moved every obstacle—most especially the truth—out of their way to make it happen.
It didn't have to. They could have been blocked. Due diligence and some spinal fortitude in Congress might have stopped the war in its tracks. But in October 2002, the Senate and the House voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. Five months and one week later, the bombs began falling on Baghdad.
The blame is widespread and the American people demand that our government hold the people responsible for these crimes to include treason, be held responsible and prosecuted to the full extent of the law