You may have heard that an election is coming up in the U.S., it's October 2012 and the U.S. Presidential Election between Obama and Romney is around the corner. One hopes that Obama will prevail, and that the electorate will wake up to the insanity that is circulated as fact among the Republicans. In case that does not happen, in case Romney does win, Salon.com's Alex Pareene just published an article going over what a Romney Presidency might do. He didn't just parrot the promises made by Romney's campaign, if only because Romney has flip-flopped so much that it would be impossible to pin the campaign down on any promise, but instead going by the merits of the people surrounding the Romney campaign. Basically, it's a retread of the disastrous Bush II Presidency, and of the disastrous prior Republican Presidencies.
Let's go through the high points ...
"Obviously we're bombing Iran.." Hooooboy.. Basically the reasoning goes that Romney's campaign has collected up a bunch of the people that led the Bush II Presidency to think that an invasion of Iraq would be easy, bloodless, over in a few weeks, and that it would usher in an era of world peace and nirvana. The last 9 years since the invasion of Iraq should have proved the case that this was a bunch of hooey, but... we have a right wing echo chamber that is recycling ridiculous insane ideas over and over, such as the Iraq War was a success.
Bombing or invasion of Iran would not be easy, and there are a lot of differences between Iraq and Iran. Iraq had been under U.S. sanctions for 10 years, under constant military not-quite-invasion-occupation (no flight zone etc) and was weakened. Iran has on the other hand been free to act on its own, not been under any such sanctions, has been able to sell Oil on the market, etc etc .. they're in a strong position, where Iraq was in a weak position.
Under the guideline promoted by Gen. Shinseki before the Iraq War, a successful invasion of Iran would require an army of 1.4 million troops. But the advisors surrounding Romney are the ones who surrounded Bush and ignored Shinseki's recommendations, and just as the U.S. went into Iraq with too few troops, so too will we go into Iran with too few troops.
What will be the bloodshed and death in Iran because of this? Will it be in the Millions where in Iraq it was in the Hundreds of Thousands of civilian casualties resulting from the war?
What if Romney appoints John Bolton as Secretary of Defense? Yikes! "Remember: John Bolton isn’t just being kept around for show. Romney actually listens to the guy."
Pareene predicts a big role for Dan Senor in the Romney Administration calling him "the man who instantly went from unqualified idiot political hack appointee to Respected Foreign Policy Expert the day Bush sent him to lie on behalf of the disastrously incompetent provisional government in post-invasion Iraq."
And .. Cofer Black .. a former CIA agent, who was there while the Extraordinary Rendition plans were being drawn up. and who was Vice Chairman of Blackwater
And .. Michael Hayden (“Warrantless Surveillance”) who is expected to be the Director of National Intelligence .. implication:- we'll see even more illegal warrantless wiretapping and privacy invasions
Sen. Joe Lieberman, expected to become Secretary of State. He's worrisome because of being such an uber-hawk.
We can expect the Supreme Court to become far more conservative. ... Justice Anthony Kennedy (born in 1936) ... Ginsburg (born in 1933) ... Stephen Breyer (1938) ... all old enough we can expect within the next few years one or all three will be replaced on the bench. "means the effective end of Roe v. Wade and the Commerce Clause... possibly mean the end of the entire New Deal regulatory state... conservative control of the Court for decades..."
Environment ... plausibly an Obama administration is better for environmental and energy supply issues, because his ideas are more enlightened (less "oil friendly") than Romney's. But Obama has a number of big question marks about this, such as his enthusiastic support for that Clean Coal idiocy.
Federal Budget .. we can expect a return to the trickle down tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing programs for the poor while expanding the military sort of policies that proved so disastrous under recent Republican Administrations. Especially if Romney has Congress with him.
Source: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/the_romney_presidency_the_worst_case_scenario/
Let's go through the high points ...
"Obviously we're bombing Iran.." Hooooboy.. Basically the reasoning goes that Romney's campaign has collected up a bunch of the people that led the Bush II Presidency to think that an invasion of Iraq would be easy, bloodless, over in a few weeks, and that it would usher in an era of world peace and nirvana. The last 9 years since the invasion of Iraq should have proved the case that this was a bunch of hooey, but... we have a right wing echo chamber that is recycling ridiculous insane ideas over and over, such as the Iraq War was a success.
Bombing or invasion of Iran would not be easy, and there are a lot of differences between Iraq and Iran. Iraq had been under U.S. sanctions for 10 years, under constant military not-quite-invasion-occupation (no flight zone etc) and was weakened. Iran has on the other hand been free to act on its own, not been under any such sanctions, has been able to sell Oil on the market, etc etc .. they're in a strong position, where Iraq was in a weak position.
Under the guideline promoted by Gen. Shinseki before the Iraq War, a successful invasion of Iran would require an army of 1.4 million troops. But the advisors surrounding Romney are the ones who surrounded Bush and ignored Shinseki's recommendations, and just as the U.S. went into Iraq with too few troops, so too will we go into Iran with too few troops.
What will be the bloodshed and death in Iran because of this? Will it be in the Millions where in Iraq it was in the Hundreds of Thousands of civilian casualties resulting from the war?
What if Romney appoints John Bolton as Secretary of Defense? Yikes! "Remember: John Bolton isn’t just being kept around for show. Romney actually listens to the guy."
Pareene predicts a big role for Dan Senor in the Romney Administration calling him "the man who instantly went from unqualified idiot political hack appointee to Respected Foreign Policy Expert the day Bush sent him to lie on behalf of the disastrously incompetent provisional government in post-invasion Iraq."
And .. Cofer Black .. a former CIA agent, who was there while the Extraordinary Rendition plans were being drawn up. and who was Vice Chairman of Blackwater
And .. Michael Hayden (“Warrantless Surveillance”) who is expected to be the Director of National Intelligence .. implication:- we'll see even more illegal warrantless wiretapping and privacy invasions
Sen. Joe Lieberman, expected to become Secretary of State. He's worrisome because of being such an uber-hawk.
We can expect the Supreme Court to become far more conservative. ... Justice Anthony Kennedy (born in 1936) ... Ginsburg (born in 1933) ... Stephen Breyer (1938) ... all old enough we can expect within the next few years one or all three will be replaced on the bench. "means the effective end of Roe v. Wade and the Commerce Clause... possibly mean the end of the entire New Deal regulatory state... conservative control of the Court for decades..."
Environment ... plausibly an Obama administration is better for environmental and energy supply issues, because his ideas are more enlightened (less "oil friendly") than Romney's. But Obama has a number of big question marks about this, such as his enthusiastic support for that Clean Coal idiocy.
Federal Budget .. we can expect a return to the trickle down tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing programs for the poor while expanding the military sort of policies that proved so disastrous under recent Republican Administrations. Especially if Romney has Congress with him.
Source: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/the_romney_presidency_the_worst_case_scenario/
