Tag Archives: foreign policy

Biden Benghazi Answer Going To Cause Problems For The Administration

October 12, 2012 – 7:44 am

The reality is Vice Presidential debates don’t matter much at all, just ask President Dukakis. But what they can do is tee up issues for the top dogs in future debates. One of the lesser talked about stories this morning is how Joe Biden made more than a few curious comments regarding the Embassy attack in Benghazi as well as the Administration’s misrepresentations in its aftermath. Mark Halperin smartly keys in on this while other TV talking heads focus on less substantive issues. Look for Team Romney to pounce on this in the days and weeks ahead:

Here is the BuzzFeed story already making the rounds:

Biden Contradicts Evidence On Benghazi Security Requests

“We did not know they wanted more security there,” the vice president says. A hearing this week suggested the opposite.

During the vice presidential debate Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said the administration “did not know” that personnel working at the American embassy in Libya had requested more security before the deadly attack on Sept. 11. As Biden was discussing the attack, Martha Raddatz, the debate moderator, cut in. “And they wanted more security there,” Raddatz said. “But we weren’t told they wanted more security there,” Biden responded. “We did not know they wanted more security there.”

That assertion runs counter to evidence and testimonies that were presented at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, where the committee released five memos requesting additional security, and witnesses from the State Department confirmed that those requests had been denied.

During the hearing, Eric Nordstrom, who was in charge of security in Libya for the State Department, recalled his frustration when he tried to request more agents in Benghazi. He told a regional director, he said, that the toughest part of his job was “not the hardships, it’s not the gunfire, it’s not the threats. It’s dealing, and fighting, against the people, programs, and personnel who are supposed to be supporting me.” He added, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”

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Major Romney Foreign Policy Speech This Morning at the Virginia Military Institute

October 8, 2012 – 12:26 am

Excerpts of Mitt Romney’s major foreign policy address to be given just before noon today at VMI:

“The Mantle of Leadership”
Foreign Policy Address
October 8, 2012
Virginia Military Institute—Lexington, VA

The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts. They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East—a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century. And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself.

The attack on our Consulate in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 was likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001. This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the Administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long. No, as the Administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.

***

I know the President hopes for a safer, freer, and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy. We cannot support our friends and defeat our enemies in the Middle East when our words are not backed up by deeds, when our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut, when we have no trade agenda to speak of, and the perception of our strategy is not one of partnership, but of passivity. …

… It is time to change course in the Middle East. …

I will put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United States and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran, and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf the region—and work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination. For the sake of peace, we must make clear to Iran through actions—not just words—that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated. …

… I will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of our strategy, both in the Middle East and across the world. The President has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years. I will reverse that failure. I will work with nations around the world that are committed to the principles of free enterprise, expanding existing relationships and establishing new ones.

I will support friends across the Middle East who share our values, but need help defending them and their sovereignty against our common enemies.

In Libya, I will support the Libyan people’s efforts to forge a lasting government that represents all of them, and I will vigorously pursue the terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed Americans.

In Egypt, I will use our influence—including clear conditions on our aid—to urge the new government to represent all Egyptians, to build democratic institutions, and to maintain its peace treaty with Israel. And we must persuade our friends and allies to place similar stipulations on their aid.

In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets. Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran—rather than sitting on the sidelines. It is essential that we develop influence with those forces in Syria that will one day lead a country that sits at the heart of the Middle East.

And in Afghanistan, I will pursue a real and successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. President Obama would have you believe that anyone who disagrees with his decisions in Afghanistan is arguing for endless war. But the route to more war – and to potential attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to the same extremists who ravaged their country and used it to launch the attacks of 9/11. I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders. And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation.

Finally, I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel. On this vital issue, the President has failed, and what should be a negotiation process has devolved into a series of heated disputes at the United Nations. In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew.

***

I believe that if America does not lead, others will—others who do not share our interests and our values—and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us. America’s security and the cause of freedom cannot afford four more years like the last four years. I am running for President because I believe the leader of the free world has a duty, to our citizens, and to our friends everywhere, to use America’s great influence—wisely, with solemnity and without false pride, but also firmly and actively—to shape events in ways that secure our interests, further our values, prevent conflict, and make the world better—not perfect, but better.

***

Sir Winston Churchill once said of George Marshall: “He … always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement, and disillusion.” That is the role our friends want America to play again. And it is the role we must play. The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

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Foreign Policy #ObamaIsntWorking

October 7, 2012 – 8:41 pm

First of two videos rightly taking Obama to task over the Embassy attacks and the Administration lies to cover for the fact this was a terrorist attack and they knew it:

 

The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya

 

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Romney Launches Foreign Policy Critique in Wall Street Journal Op-ed

October 1, 2012 – 9:49 am

The first Presidential debate this Wednesday is scheduled to focus on domestic issues which most assume would be dominated by the economy.  But between the Embassy attacks and the dishonesty from the White House in their public responses to the terrorist bombings and murder of our Ambassador, Mitt Romney has basically thrown down the gauntlet and made foreign policy a major topic of discussion.  It’s as if he is saying to the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, if you don’t bring this issue up on Wednesday, I will:

Disturbing developments are sweeping across the greater Middle East. In Syria, tens of thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power, and the country’s peace treaty with Israel hangs in the balance. In Libya, our ambassador was murdered in a terrorist attack. U.S. embassies throughout the region have been stormed in violent protests. And in Iran, the ayatollahs continue to move full tilt toward nuclear-weapons capability, all the while promising to annihilate Israel. These developments are not, as President Obama says, mere “bumps in the road.” They are major issues that put our security at risk. Yet amid this upheaval, our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies.

…

[I]n recent years, President Obama has allowed our leadership to atrophy. Our economy is stuck in a “recovery” that barely deserves the name. Our national debt has risen to record levels. Our military, tested by a decade of war, is facing devastating cuts thanks to the budgetary games played by the White House. Finally, our values have been misapplied—and misunderstood—by a president who thinks that weakness will win favor with our adversaries. By failing to maintain the elements of our influence and by stepping away from our allies, President Obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability. He does not understand that an American policy that lacks resolve can provoke aggression and encourage disorder.

…

In this period of uncertainty, we need to apply a coherent strategy of supporting our partners in the Middle East—that is, both governments and individuals who share our values.

  • This means restoring our credibility with Iran. When we say an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability—and the regional instability that comes with it—is unacceptable, the ayatollahs must be made to believe us.
  • It means placing no daylight between the United States and Israel. And it means using the full spectrum of our soft power to encourage liberty and opportunity for those who have for too long known only corruption and oppression. The dignity of work and the ability to steer the course of their lives are the best alternatives to extremism.

But this Middle East policy will be undermined unless we restore the three sinews of our influence:

  • our economic strength,
  • our military strength and
  • the strength of our values.

That will require a very different set of policies from those President Obama is pursuing.

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Romney Talks the Military and Foreign Policy in Pennsylvania

September 29, 2012 – 9:41 am

The Romney campaign surprised more than a few observers hitting the stump in Pennsylvania this week. Speaking at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Delaware County he took the opportunity to take the Obama Administration to task over crippling cuts in defense spending as well as a flailing foreign policy in the face of Islamic extremists:

Mitt Romney journeyed to a military college here Friday, aiming to make Pennsylvania a more competitive election battleground and tearing into President Obama on foreign and domestic policy in a speech delivered before a backdrop of stoic, uniformed cadets. The Republican presidential nominee charged that Obama has failed to lead both abroad, during a year of tumult in the Middle East, and on the home front, through a prolonged economic recession. “The president wants to go down the same path he’s been on for the last four years,” Romney said. “He wants to keep the status quo. I don’t think we can afford four more years like the last four years. The president calls his campaign slogan ‘Forward.’ I call it ‘Forewarned,’ all right? We know where it heads; we don’t want to go there.”

Crippling Defense Cuts

He argued that Obama would cut the military budget by $1 trillion over the next decade and that cadets looking for a regular job after graduation would have trouble finding one. The defense cuts Romney referred to are automatic spending cuts that would go into effect next year if Congress does not agree to a long-term plan to reduce the deficit.

Note: the classic liberal bias is in this report where the President is doing absolutely nothing about stopping these defense cuts but the Post reporter takes time to make sure readers know Obama has mouthed the words he against the defense cuts> The reporter also ensures the opposing campaign can respond to the charges. When Obama levies an attack it is presented unchallenged by the reporter and often without any response from the Romney campaign.

Foreign Policy

Obama, Romney said, is not providing real leadership as deadly protests sweep the Middle East. “As we’ve seen over the last year, the world needs American leadership,” he said. “I think we look around and say: Why is it we are at the mercy of events? Why are we not shaping events?”

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Obama Could Have Met With Netanyahu, “Afternoon Was Free”

September 28, 2012 – 10:18 am

Probably interfered with his tee time:

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“Odd” That Obama Won’t Meet Foreign Leaders Given Crisis

September 24, 2012 – 10:14 am

America only had dozens of embassies attacked an Ambassador murdered, three civilians murdered and President Obama is meeting with no foreign leaders when they all come to New York for the UN General Assembly? That’s the very definition of leading from behind. Note: Obama had 13 bi-lateral foreign leaders during the last General Assembly. It’s one of the very reasons to have the UN in New York. I hammer Chuck Todd with the best of them, but give Chuck Todd credit for this lead-in:

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When is a Terrorist Attack on Americans Not a Terrorist Attack?

September 22, 2012 – 10:18 am

When the Obama Administration refuses to say so.  The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes has a great piece showing the Administration’s recent obfuscation on the terrorist attacks and murder of Americans in Libya wasn’t a one-off foreign policy PR bungle.  It is only the most recent example of the White House misleading the public on terrorist attacks on Americans both in the US and abroad:

For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue: that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was a random, spontaneous act of individuals upset about an online video—an unpredictable attack on a well-protected compound that had nothing do to with the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. These claims were wrong. Every one of them. But the White House pushed them hard.

  • Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appeared on five Sunday talk shows on September 16…“We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.”
  • White House press secretary Jay Carney not only denied that the attacks had anything to do with the anniversary of 9/11 but scolded reporters who, citing the administration’s own pre-9/11 boasts about its security preparations for the anniversary, made the connection.

Unfortunately…

Intelligence officials understood immediately that the attacks took place on 9/11 for a reason. The ambassador, in a country that faces a growing al Qaeda threat, had virtually no security. The two contractors killed in the attacks were not part of the ambassador’s security detail, and there were not, in fact, “many other colleagues” working security with them.

So we are left with this: Four Americans were killed in a premeditated terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, and for more than a week the Obama administration misled the country about what happened.

But this isn’t a new development for the Obama White House

  • On December 28, 2009, [after the Underwear bomber attack] President Obama told the country that the incident was the work of “an isolated extremist.” It wasn’t. Abdulmutallab was trained, directed, and financed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a fact he shared with investigators early in his interrogation.
  • On May 1, 2010, Faisal Shahzad attempted to blow up his Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano took to the Sunday shows to dismiss reports of a conspiracy and insisted that the attempted bombing was just a “one-off” by a single attacker. It wasn’t. A week later, after much of the information had leaked, Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged that the United States had “evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack.

No penalty for Administration lies

Whether it was because the attempted attacks were unsuccessful or because the media simply lost interest, the administration largely escaped serious criticism for making claims that turned out to be wrong.

The Libya lies unravel

[A]s the final elements of the administration’s story began to unravel in the middle of last week, the New York Times did not find those facts fit to print. On Thursday morning, the same day White House spokesman Jay Carney would finally admit that the Benghazi assault was “a terrorist attack,” the Times did not publish a story about Libya.

Not Everyone is in the tank

One day earlier, Fox News had reported that intelligence officials were investigating the possibility that a former Guantánamo detainee had been involved in the attack. A story by Reuters raised questions about administration descriptions of the protests, noting “new information” that “suggests that the protests at the outset were so small and unthreatening as to attract little notice.” The story reported: “While many questions remain, the latest accounts differ from the initial information provided by the Obama administration, which had suggested that protests in front of the consulate over an anti-Islamic film had played a major role in precipitating the subsequent violent attack.” And CBS, as noted, reported that same day that there simply were no protests.

Who brought notoriety to that obscure film?  The Obama Administration

The Obama administration has sought to explain nearly everything that has happened over the past two weeks as a response to the video. President Obama denounced it during his remarks at the memorial for the four Americans killed in Libya. So did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. White House spokesman Jay Carney has mentioned it almost daily. At the end of last week, the United States spent $70,000 to buy ads in Pakistan to distance the U.S. government from its message.

That’s ironic. In its effort to deflect blame for the unrest, the administration has given more attention to this obscure film than it ever would have gotten if they’d simply ignored it. It’s true that radical Islamists used the film to help populate the 9/11 protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo. But they also told fellow radicals to join in a protest of the continued detention of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. And some of the others who gathered were “Ultras”—soccer hooligans looking for trouble.

The American embassy in Cairo first drew attention to the film in its statement. And the administration—after initially distancing itself from that statement—has made it the centerpiece of its public relations campaign ever since, as protests spread to more than 20 countries. The result: Every Muslim with access to media is now aware of a bizarre video that had a few thousand views on YouTube on September 10. That’s exactly what the radicals wanted, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the reporting on Egypt. The focus on the film was an “information operation” by jihadists designed to generate rage against America. If he’s right, it worked.

Conclusion

Barack Obama came to office promising to repair relations with the Islamic world. What he couldn’t accomplish by the mere fact of his presidency, through his name and his familiarity with Islam, he would achieve through “smart diplomacy.” Instead, over the last four years, and particularly the last two weeks, the defining characteristics of his foreign policy have been mendacity, incompetence, and, yes, stupidity.

 

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Any other countries Obama wants to turn over to extremists who want us dead?

September 13, 2012 – 11:17 am

First they throw the Cairo Embassy under the bus for their apology that drew the appropriate ire of Mitt Romney (despite aggressive media protestations to the contrary). Now Egypt gets tossed aside and we get reaction on the ground to President Obama ending 40+ years of the United States and Egypt as allies with an incredulous Richard Engle of NBC in Cairo. I love how Engle in disbelief points out the incredible hypocrisy of President Obama siding with protestors against our ally Hosni Mubarek only to now say the regime he strongly helped usher in is not our ally. Any other countries — in addition to Israel, of course — Obama’s brilliant foreign policy would like to turn over to extremists who want us dead? Might be helpful to know that before his second term:

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Several Questions on Cairo and Benghazi

September 12, 2012 – 1:18 pm

National security and State Department official in the Reagan and both Bush Administrations Elliot Abrams asks several important questions missing in EVERY media report:

  • Why police protection was not provided until it was too late?
  • Where is Egypt’s new president, Mohammed Morsi? Why has he not gone on Egyptian TV to express outrage? Coming from a Muslim Brotherhood leader that would be significant; its absence is even more significant.
  • The protest had been announced in advance and was related to an apparently offensive film created somewhere in the United States. What did the State Department say to our embassies around the world, and particularly in the Islamic world, about risks and protective steps?
  • Where is the wave of condemnation from Islamic religious leaders? By choosing to attack the U.S. embassy on the anniversary of 9/11, the Egyptian protesters were expressing their support not for the victims but for the perpetrators of that act of terror and mass murder. In Benghazi our ambassador and several others were murdered on 9/11.
  • Condemnations from Washington will have no impact on rioters and potential rioters, while condemnations from their own religious leaders might. The issue is a simple one: Is the taking of life an appropriate response to hurt feelings?
  • [The Cairo Embassy apology] is a bizarre statement to make on 9/11, an event that was not about “hurting feelings” but about murdering Americans…If it was an effort to buy off potential demonstrators by showing respect for their “feelings” as “believers,” of course it failed…Entirely missing from the embassy’s statement was any reminder that violence is never justified, even when religious “feelings are hurt.”
  • Muslims, and Islam, are not under assault in Egypt. Christianity and the Coptic community are. If you were an Egyptian Copt watching the assault on the American embassy on TV and then reading the embassy’s statement, would you feel the Americans planned to work hard to protect you and your rights? And given that the Egyptian government will not even protect the American embassy, what are the chances that it will protect Christians in Egypt?
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Lead Cairo Protestor Brother of Al Qaeda Mastermind

September 12, 2012 – 12:53 pm

Osama bin Laden was the spiritual and financial leader of Al Qaeda. Ayman al Zawahiri is the tactical and operational leader of Al Qaeda. He is the Egyptian doctor who was behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat among numerous other crimes. His brother, Mohammed al Zawahiri, was featured in a YouTube video released on September 10 with his famous Al Qaeda brother. Now he is leading the violence in Cairo.

Mohamed Morsi, elected President of Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood, remains silent on the violence while the Muslim Brotherhood has gone public encouraging a return to the protests on Friday.

UPDATE: Muslim Brotherhood now calling for worldwide “peaceful” protests.  Like the “peaceful” protests in Libya and Egypt?

Here is the report from The Weekly Standard:

During the assault on the U.S. embassy in Egypt, demonstrators reportedly chanted “Obama! Obama! We are all Osama!” They yelled this obvious reference to Osama bin Laden as an al Qaeda-style flag was hoisted and the American flag brought down. At least one of the protesters at the anti-American rally knows a thing or two about al Qaeda: Mohammed al Zawahiri, who is the younger brother of al Qaeda’s emir, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Mohammed al Zawahiri has even claimed credit for sparking the anti-American protest. “We called for the peaceful protest joined by different Islamic factions including the Islamic Jihad (and the) Hazem Abu Ismael movement,” he said, according to CNN. Islamic Jihad is most likely the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), a core part of al Qaeda’s international jihadist coalition.

The younger Zawahiri has been on a media tour since he was released from an Egyptian prison this past March. And some press outlets have portrayed him as a reformed moderate. In its coverage of the embassy storming, The Wall Street Journal said that Mohammed al Zawahiri “has renounced violence and has stylized himself as an intermediary between Islamists and the West.”

Renouncing violence?  Not so much.

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CNN reporting attack was pre-planned. Not related to any movie

September 12, 2012 – 12:30 pm

Enough with the false pretenses this was an act of war:

But our press sees Obama’s foreign policy decisions and inattention as unnewsworthy. Just Romney’s reaction to it

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Romney Press Conference Today

September 12, 2012 – 12:17 pm
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Political Media Continues to Disgrace Itself Over Embassy Attack Coverage

September 12, 2012 – 11:56 am

Islamist mobs attacked  TWO US embassies on 9/11, killed a US Ambassador, 2 marines and a foreign service officer yet the advice is to chill out and condemn the timing of Romeny’s statement.

The media is also shifting Romney’s statement about the feckless apology in Cairo, Egypt to the murderous actions in Benghazi, Libya.

National Review’s Dan Foster lays out the chronology:

If I’ve got it straight, here’s the actual order of events: 1) U.S. diplomats in Cairo shamefully apologize more or less preemptively for private U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in a way that “hurts the religious feelings” of Muslims. 2) “Protests” intensify into attacks on embassy in Cairo and consulate in Benghazi. 3) Romney calls Cairo embassy response disgraceful.  4) News of murders of Americans in Benghazi. 5) Obama administration disavows Cairo embassy line. 6) Obama campaign flack LaBolt shames Romney for politicizing murders.

But the instant narrative from the media is that Romney “jumped the gun”, that using the death of Americans as a campaign prop and broken the sacred rule that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” Except that’s not what happened at all. Cairo jumped the gun on its controllers in Washington, and by the time Cairo’s disgraceful response filtered out into the media either it was being rendered more disgraceful still by the violent turn the protests took, and Romney rightly condemned it as disgraceful. The Obama administration then caught up to Romney and muzzled Cairo. So how is Romney the one with the bad messaging here?

His initial statement had nothing to do with Ambassador Stevens’ murder. But just about the same time the Obama administration started un$&%*ing its response to the crisis, Obama’s political hatchet man (not even his White House press secretary!) started condemning Romney for politicizing it.

I agree with Foster’s statement earlier in the piece that Romney’s statement was spot on. Our embassy’s were attacked and citizens murdered.  A strong forceful statement was warranted immediately and a full-throated refutation of the “apology.”  Yet the only condemnation the White House could muster until 24 hours later was a condemnation of Romney.

You got a full view on the media’s substance-less objectives during the Romney press conference Q&A when nearly every question was on the timing of Romney’s statement and not on ANY of the genuinely horrific acts in the Middle East.  The are trying to discredit Romney in order to de-legitimize all of his critiques.  It’s a very old tactic: If you can’t attack the substance, attack the process.  This is your political media in full Obama re-election mode.

UPDATE: Only two days ago it was revealed that Obama skips over half of his intelligence briefings, now reports are surfacing that the US knew these attacks were coming but the story is still the timing of Mitt Romney’s statements.  Got it.

UPDATE II: The gaggle covering Romney’s press conference were caught by a “hot mic” coordinating their questions to make certain they hit him about the timing of his statement and not anything substantive about the Embassy attacks.  Transcript and audio at the link.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: …pointing out that the Republicans… *unintelligible* …Obama….
CBS REPORTER: That’s the question.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: *unintelligible*
CBS REPORTER: Yeah that’s the question. I would just say do you regret your question.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Your question? Your statement?
CBS REPORTER: I mean your statement. Not even the tone, because then he can go off on…
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And then if he does, if we can just follow up and say ‘but this morning your answer is continuing to sound…’ – *becomes unintelligble*
CBS REPORTER: You can’t say that..
**Later**
CBS REPORTER: I’m just trying to make sure that we’re just talking about, no matter who he calls on we’re covered on the one question.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?

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The Romney Strategy on Condemning the Attacks and White House Response

September 12, 2012 – 11:01 am

Amid the spineless mealy-mouthed hand-wringing by journalists over Romney’s strong and quick denunciation of the outrageous attacks on our Embassies “disgraceful” US apology, Major Garrett has the scoop on the thinking of Team Romney regarding their official comments yesterday and standing by them in today’s press Conference:

Senior Romney advisers, who declined to speak on the record, said on Wednesday the protests at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed along with three others, demanded a comment from the GOP nominee. The larger point of Romney’s statement, which faulted the administration for initially siding with protesters in Cairo, was that Obama is misreading the violent underbelly of the Arab Spring and jeopardizing U.S. interests in the region.

“This was a story that was building the entire day,” a senior Romney official said of the developments that took place late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. “With the killing of a U.S. diplomat it is the type of thing where the Republican nominee for president has to have a response. This was a big deal. And the statement was about the consistent failure of this administration to engage constructively with the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”

The Romney official said the campaign’s tough criticism of the White House was meant to set in motion a larger debate about U.S. interests in a region full of new and potentially hazardous political transformation.

“This is an opportunity and a chance for us to debate existing administration policy,” the senior official said. “It will be a part of a larger criticism about the president’s policy in the region.”

Asked if the Romney campaign had any doubts or second thoughts about the timing, substance or tone of its statement, the official said: “none.”

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Romney “outraged” over Embassy attacks and “disgraceful” US apology for hurt feelings that led to the attacks

September 11, 2012 – 10:52 pm

Here is the complete statement:

I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.

Thanks for the link from the Blogfather who notes the Obama Administration is distancing itself from the apology.  Funny they can make a statement covering their behind, but they can’t seem to make an official statement of their own on the attacks of two Embassies and the murder of an official in Libya.  It’s as if “they are … new to foreign policy” as he said of his opponents during his Convention speech.

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I’m Guessing Obama’s “Landmark” 2009 Cairo Speech Didn’t Lower the Tides in Egypt Either

September 11, 2012 – 9:25 pm

President Obama’s foreign policy of distancing America from allies like Israel while coddling extremists like the Muslim Brotherhood don’t seem to be working out too well today:

Angry protesters attacked U.S. diplomatic compounds in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, citing in both instances an online film considered offensive to Islam.

In Cairo, several men scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy and tore down its American flag, according to CNN producer Mohammed Fahmy, who was on the scene. In Libya, witnesses say members of a radical Islamist group called Ansar al-Sharia protested near the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where NATO jets established no-fly zones last year to blunt ground attacks from then Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The group then clashed with security forces in the city, blocking roads leading to the consulate, witnesses said. The Libyan government notified the United States that an employee at the U.S. Consulate was killed, a State Department official told CNN.

In Egypt, police and army personnel formed defensive lines around the U.S. Embassy in an effort to prevent demonstrators from advancing, but not before the protesters affixed a black flag atop a ladder in the American compound. The black flag, which hangs in full view from inside the complex, is adorned with white characters that read, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger,” an emblem often used by Islamic radicals. A volley of warning shots were fired as a large crowd gathered around the compound, although it is not clear who fired the shots.

As you will recall, Obama and his surrogates spent inordinate amounts of time self-congratulating the President Obama for his landmark speech in Cairo immediately after he was sworn into office. Let’s highlights some key tenets of that speech and see if they ring true today:

[L]et me speak as clearly and plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together. The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

So far one American dead, our sovereign soil desecrated and the Al Qaeda flag flown over our embassy in Cairo.

The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.

I’m not sure everyone is on the same page here but let’s move on.

Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: “I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

Our embassy apologized for the radical filmmaker Muslims are protesting but failed to condemn the violence.  I’m doubt highly anyone Muslim or otherwise believes our power has grown today.

So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

Last week, our nearly bankrupt government agreed to forgive $1 billion in debt to Egypt now being run by the Muslim Brotherhood who gained their power thanks in large part to the support of Islamic extremists. To reward the US, they have violated our sovereignty and killed on of our officials.  I’m going to say this makes us less safe.

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world. America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable.

So long as that unbreakable bond doesn’t interfere with Obama’s appearance on the David Letterman Show.

But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people.

Peaceful and law-abiding voices of Jews, Christians and any non-Muslim are continually snuffed out by Egypt’s lawless police force under the Muslim Brotherhood. Good thing we forgave that $1 billion.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

Speechless

The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom. Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.

Despite the familiarity of today’s images to all Americans alive when the Islamsists storm the American Embassy in Iran, I’m sure this is just an aberration…

People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways. Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of another’s. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld – whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq. Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it… it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

I know there are many – Muslim and non-Muslim – who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn’t worth the effort – that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward…We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written. The Holy Koran tells us, “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.” The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.” The Holy Bible tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God’s peace be upon you.

Maybe something got lost in translation?

By keithbacker | Posted in General | Also tagged , | Comments (2)

Why Ever Would Isreal Think They Don’t Have an Ally in Obama?

September 11, 2012 – 8:04 pm

President Obama who can give interviews to People magazine and chat on “morning zoo” radio shows is too busy with his re-election campaign to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

President Obama will not meet with Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister is in the United States later this month for the U.N. General Assembly, because the two leaders’ schedules make a meeting impossible, the White House said today. “The President arrives in New York for the UN on Monday, September 24th and departs on Tuesday, September 25th. The Prime Minister doesn’t arrive in New York until later in the week. They’re simply not in the city at the same time. But the President and PM are in frequent contact and the PM will meet with other senior officials, including Secretary Clinton, during his visit,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a written statement. The announcement comes amid tension between the United States and Israel over Iran’s nuclear program and follows Netanyahu’s declaration earlier this week that those who refuse to put “red lines” before Iran, have no moral right to give Israel a “red light.”

This snub closely follows the embarrassment when the official Democrat Convention Platform specifically removed stating Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, leading to the public shaming of Democrat Delegates booing its re-inclusion in the platform:

Among the many incidents, few were as torturous as the embarrassment where the official White House spokesman won’t name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as the Israelis designate:

Putting all this together, why ever would Israel think President Obama’s White House holds anything but Isreal’s interest close to its heart?

By keithbacker | Posted in Florida, General | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Paul Ryan on Foreign Policy — Today’s Must Read

August 14, 2012 – 3:55 am

Much has been made of Paul Ryan’s domestic budget efforts concluding he is a serious, thoughtful and pragmatic man whose ideas, while at times contentious, are grounded in legitimate policy prescriptions. There’s not a lot of pomp and bluster with this guy. Less in know about his foreign policy views, but he’s taken more than a few stands and made multiple speeches in this area. Careful scrutiny finds Ryan is the same serious, thoughtful and pragmatic person in this arena just as he is on domestic issues. Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal takes an in-depth look at  a 2011 Ryan foreign policy speech and analyzes the way Ryan thinks on this topic and also out-lines many of his stances:

  • First, that he’s an internationalist of the old school; in another day, he would have sat comfortably in the cabinets of Harry Truman, Jack Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.
  • He believes in free trade, a strong defense, engagement with our allies—and expectations of them.
  • He wants America to stay and win in Afghanistan.
  • He supports the “arduous task of building free societies,” even as he harbored early doubts the Arab Spring was the vehicle for building free societies.
  • Ryan has an astute understanding of the fundamental challenge of China. “The key question for American policy makers,” he said, “is whether we are competing with China for leadership of the international system or against them over the fundamental nature of that system.”

Regarding his substance over style:

What Mr. Ryan’s speech really tells us, however, is that he knows how to think…his speeches communicate ideas and arguments, not pieties and emotions.

Dealing with tomorrow’s  problems today

“Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course.” It proceeds, briefly, to demonstrate the point quantitatively: Defense spending in 1970 consumed 39% of the federal budget but takes only 16% today. In the proverbial guns-to-butter ratio, our veins are already clogged.

Learning from history

Why can’t the U.S. simply cede the cumbersome role of world policeman to somebody else? Didn’t Britain do as much in the 1940s? It did. Yet, “unlike Britain, which handed leadership to a power that shared its fundamental values, today’s most dynamic and growing powers do not embrace basic principles that should be at the core of the international system.”

Uniqueness of America

American exceptionalism isn’t a type of jingoism. Instead, it derives from the fact that it was the first nation born of an idea, and from an idea that is true not only for Americans. “America’s foundations,” he says, are not our own—they belong equally to every person everywhere.” So what follows? “If you believe these rights are universal human rights . . . it leads you to reject moral relativism. It causes you to recoil at the idea of persistent moral indifference toward any nation that stifles and denies liberty, no matter how friendly and accommodating its rulers are to American interests.”

Restraint not passiveness

None of this means that Mr. Ryan is a foreign-policy crusader. He talks of a “healthy humility” about the degree to which the U.S. can “control events in other regions.” … Speaking of the U.K., he notes the extent to which its postwar leaders chose their own diminished fate: “Once they concluded that they should manage Britain’s decline, it mattered little what Britain was objectively capable of achieving on the world stage. The crisis of self-perception was fatal to Britain’s global leadership.”

By keithbacker | Posted in General | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Poland and the Battleground States

July 29, 2012 – 9:59 am

With Mitt Romney heading to Poland, the press is picking up on the Battleground state implications of such a targeted visit:

The states that hold the largest communities of Polish-American voters overlap significantly with this year’s swing states. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio all are home to numerous voters who trace their heritage to Poland, according to John Kromkowski, a Catholic University professor who studies urban and ethnic politics. “They’re not only in swing states, but over the decades that I’ve been tracking this, they’re also swing voters,” he said. “It’s sort of a mixed population, so it’s an almost archetypal swing vote.”

The Polish vote

One issue Romney will likely have to address to get the attention — and votes — of Polish-Americans is to promise to help Poland become a member of the visa waiver program, which is important for voters who still have family in Europe. President Obama offered his support for legislation to do just that during his own trip to the country in 2011.

The Catholic vote

Along with the Polish vote, Romney hopes to woo Catholic voters who may appreciate his visit to a country in which the church is still enormously important. Since the 1960 election, when Catholics flocked to John F. Kennedy as the first candidate of their faith, the balance between Democrats and Republicans has evened out among the population. Still, Romney’s trip won’t have nearly the same resonance it might have had in the midst of the Cold War.

Minding the gap

But this is an election where nibbling at the margins can help, especially after Obama may have alienated some Catholics with an executive order that requires religiously-affiliated organizations to provide their employees with insurance plans that include birth control. Obama received 54 percent of the Catholic vote in 2008, according to the Pew Research Center, several points better than the two Democrats who preceded him. Much of that support comes from Hispanic Catholics, who comprise 58 percent of the religious group in the United States.

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By keithbacker | Posted in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)
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