Romney Presidency will be disastrous for America - Salon.com

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/

Presidential Candidate Romney would bring Bush's NeoCon's back into power for more of their abysmally failing policies

In a speech on Friday Oct 7, 2011, Romney made a promise which should cause many to reject him for seeking to re-establish the utterly abysmal policy failures of the Bush43 administration.  Most news coverage didn't comment on on the meaning of the promise, but fortunately Rachel Maddow not only noticed this but opened her show that evening with awesome discussion of that promise (see video below).  What was the promise?  It was that he would lead the country into what he called “an American Century.”

The speech was his foreign policy vision, was delivered at The Citadel, and was on the 10th anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan war.  The speech called for strengthening the military and economy, which is expected rhetoric from a Republican.  What stands out is the phrase “an American Century,” the history of that phrase (Project For A New American Century), that he has hired a dozen or so PNAC Neocon's to be foreign policy advisors, and how the rhetoric strongly refers back to the PNAC Neocon policies that fueled the utter abysmal failures of the Bush43 years.

Sounds nice and benign doesn't it?  Calling for a stronger military and economy is expected from Republicans.  The phrase "An American Century" surely sounds nice to a country accustomed to being the strongest/richest country of this era.  To understand the significance of “an American Century” we have to revisit the Bush43 years, and think over what happened, so that by remembering our history we can avoid committing the same failures again.

His words connect directly with The Project for a New American Century, an infamous Neocon think-tank from the 90's that concocted the whole nightmare plan of "Let's Invade Iraq To Establish Moderate Friendly Democracy In The Middle East To Sway The Middle East To Be Friendly To Us".

The Invade-Iraq-To-Sway-The-Middle-East plan originated in the mid-90's in position papers published by the PNAC.  PNAC members used those position papers in political rabble rousing, congressional testimony, etc, and eventually many PNAC members came into power when Bush43 was elected.  Then the 9/11 attack happened and you may recall the perpetrators had been living in Afghanistan but were primarily Saudi nationals.  And that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.  And the Bush43 administration lied and connived things to make it look like Iraq was a horrible evil threat that had to be extinguished, never mind that the threat came from Afghanistan and that the threat-mongers were getting away scott-free.  The illegal war against Iraq was launched because of how the Bush43 administration twisted facts around the 9/11 attack to justify attacking Iraq.

Hence the PNAC Neocons originated the Invade-Iraq plan in the 90's, they came into power with Bush43, then used their first opportunity to twist American policy into committing the U.S. to a war to topple the Iraqi government.

But let's get back to Romney - because his actions are more profound than a simple statement in a speech.  He has hired a dozen or more former Bush43 Administration staffers, as foreign policy advisors, who had played key roles in creating the policies just outlined, and were of the PNAC Neocon crowd.  When Romney promised us “an American Century,” then, he can only have been referring to the Project For A New American Century.

Especially given the rhetoric from the speech that's directly out of the PNAC talking points:

“In an American Century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world.  In an American Century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world.”

“If America is the undisputed leader of the world, it reduces our need to police a more chaotic world.  But know this: While America should work with other nations, we always reserve the right to act alone to protect our vital national interest.”

“full spectrum of hard and soft power to influence events before they erupt into conflict.”

These statements come directly out of the PNAC mythology.  That America must assert a Pax Americana upon the world because we are the strongest country, the sole remaining superpower, and that it's our duty as a moral and strong country to force other countries to behave correctly.  Or something like that.

The last statement eerily harkens of Bush43's pre-emptive war doctrine.  That it is correct to stomp on countries we knew are going to commit evil before they did so.  And that we have the right to "act alone," presumably flouting international law just as the Bush43 administration did.

What actually happened under the Bush43 administration was wholesale flouting of International law, repeated treasonous acts by  administration officials, lies to Congress, lies to the UN (The "case" for War), lies to the American people, the launching of an illegal stupid war against Iraq (Background material for the second Gulf "War", Is the Gulf War II Impeachable?, Powell Rebuts criticism, Next: Iran?, It's Official - No WMD Found, The Man who Knew: More about the Lies, Perle admits invasion was illegal: Say what?, Review: Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq …, Review: Will they trust us again?, How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelli…, US Invasion of Iraq officially FRAUD, An utter and abysmal failure) that has caused tremendous pain and suffering throughout the Middle East, and much more.

As Maddow noted in the segment visible below, Romney also announced his national security advisory team.  That team of 22 people included 15 from the Bush43 administration, 6 of whom had been part of the Project for a New American Century crowd.  These are the people who advised the Bush43 administration into doing all the stupid things perpetrated in those years.

Hence, it's fair game to assume his plan is to reincarnate the Bush43 years.  Lest we want to live through that nightmare story again, this is a presidential candidate that must be defeated.

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In Foreign Policy Speech, Romney Calls for an ‘American Century’

Mitt Romney calls for century of American dominance: Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential frontrunner, has called for a century of American dominance and greater defence spending, in his first major venture into US foreign policy.

Romney Gives Bush Neocons Another Chance

And for more on PNAC, here's Source Watch's site on them -- Project for the New American Century.