Romney’s “surrender” statement provides us yet another opportunity to reflect on foreign policy and militarism.
Jeff Huber of Pen and Sword, a retired Navy commander, looks at the attitude of the presidential candidates towards war and foreign policy in Blooper Tuesday.
Whatever line may have once demarked American foreign policies from domestic ones has vanished, probably forever. We cannot possibly address our internal woes effectively without some sort of workable solution to the overseas fiasco our Unitary George has created, but I’m somewhat pessimistic that the majority of our leading presidential hopefuls can provide that solution.
John McCain gives the promise of more war, even though war has devolved over the Bush decade into a degenerative tool of foreign policy. All Mitt Romney seems offer is a chance bribe the rest of the world into cooperating with us from his personal fortune, but even his pockets aren’t deep enough to pull off a stunt like that. As best I can tell, the crux of Mike Huckabee’s foreign policy plan involves having Chuck Norris beat up anybody who doesn’t do what we tell them to, and I fear Hillary Clinton will still be explaining how she didn’t really vote for the war in Iraq she voted for even as she explains how she didn’t really promise to get us out of it.
That leaves one viable candidate who might have a chance of hauling us out of the sand trap we’ve hooked our way into. So far, Barack Obama’s taste in foreign policy advisers (like Zbigniew Brzezinski) seems impeccable. Let’s just hope we never hear of him hunkering down with the likes of Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan.
Faithful Progressive looks at the lack of depth in the Conservative agenda revealed in Romney’s statement.
If Mitt Romney is the great hope of the conservative movement, it is a very shallow movement indeed–particularly when it comes to foreign policy and efforts to curb world-wide terrorist groups. Romney offered the American people only cheap and bellicose slogans rather than a coherent strategy to oppose al-Qaida. It is a mildly hopeful sign that even red-meat, rank-and-file Republicans rejected his one-liners and slogans.
…This is the most self-serving and ridiculous statement made by a Presidential candidate this year. Neither Democrat has talked about any such surrender where we have real interests at stake.
…This latest slogan–Democrats are for surrender– comes after his earlier promise to double the size of Guantánamo. How this would help the US national interest is unclear: Romney offered only slogans, not a policy…
…Now that the cheap slogan-eers are out of the race, perhaps Americans can have a real debate on whether or not we remain a Constitutional Republic.
Tags: 2008 presidential election, Faithful Progressive, militarism, Mitt Romney, Pen and Sword
A Liberal Mormon 
February 8, 2008 at 6:14 pm |
Mormons Need Not Apply
Most likely Utah will still by and large vote for whoever the Republican nominee is with one caveat. If John McCain names Mike Huckabee as his running mate he may very well lose Utah and other western states. For a Republican to lose Utah would be a …
February 9, 2008 at 10:37 pm |
darekstaff
I didn’t link to your post because I thought it supported my position of anti-Mormon bigotry. I just thought your post was interesting coming from a liberal Mormons point of view. I often link to posts that have contrary points of view or because it is similar in subject matter. Don’t assume that I am close minded and am not interested in listening to others viewpoints, in fact I am a regular contributor to oneutah.org which is a very liberal leaning blog.
February 10, 2008 at 1:02 pm |
There seems missing among Protestants and LDSers to me any sense of the traditional Christian just war doctrine and the idea that war is an evil, foreigners have human dignity, and the military is not the only source of virtue in society.
February 13, 2008 at 9:06 pm |
My apologies, Ken. I’m sorry I concluded that you were using my post as an example of Christian bias against Romney because my post had no other relationship to your post whatsoever. I’m also a little mystified that you would then choose to link to my post, as it didn’t talk about any sort of prejudice against Romney or his religion, only criticisms of his position, and so had nothing to do with your thesis whatsoever.