Romney=Perle

A vote for Romney is a vote for Richard Perle. 

Perle is a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,  the Center for Security Policy,  the American Enterprise Institute,  the Project for the New American Century,  and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

He was a Member of the Defense Policy Board, U. S. Department of Defense from 1987-2004, and was its Chairman from 2001-2003. With fellow neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz,  he played a supporting role in the ballistic missile defense project in the 1980s known as “Star Wars

His book “An End to Evil:  How to Win the War on Terror”  which he coauthored with fellow neoconservative David Frum in 2004 criticizes American civil service, and law. The book suggests that we as Americans must “overhaul the institutions of our government to ready them for a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy” .  According to Perle and Frum this includes the FBI, CIA, the  armed forces, and the State Department. The book was also used as a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and outlined important neoconservative ideas, including ways to abandon all Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, to invade Syria, and implement strict US domestic surveillance with biometric identity cards and public vigilance to hinder potential terrorist immigrant or terrorist sympathizer threats.

He has been aided by other prominent neoconservatives, including Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. 

Perle had long been an advocate of regime change in Iraq. In 1998 Perle led an effort known as the Project for the New American Century with close neoconservative allies Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Eliott Abrams, and John Bolton. 

Perle has been a frequent critic of the United Nations, and would like to see it abandoned by America.  

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Perle stated that international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.

Perle has been out of the picture for the past 4 years but he has experience that would be sought out by other players on Romney’s yet-to-be-announced administration, particularily Wolfowitz, Frum, Feith, Woolsey, Abrams, and the new probably Secretary of State, John Bolton.   These men mean business, and they mean to see that America will try to rule the entire planet.  They think the 21th Century is the New American Century.  Only thing is they can’t do a thing, because none of them could be elected to any position.  What they NEED is a guy who can be elected to the presidency.  THEN they can “advise” him on what he “should” or “ought not” to do.

Flyswatter Award to Schieffer

I hearby present My Flyswatter Award for the  debate last night – with a bit of a sting to it – to Bob Schieffer for asking a hypothetical question about what the two debaters would do if, as president, they found that Israel aircraft were already airborne enroute to a strike on Iran. I give Romney a serious kudo for leaping on that even quicker than I could deliver the swat.

I also award Schieffer an additional swat or two for failing to bring up the issue of drones, or Gitmo, or Global Warming among many other  significantly important discussion points concerning International Relations.

Schieffer also gets an additional swat – loudly! – on the moderator's table for letting Romney ramble on as if he, Schieffer, was rattled and didn't know what to do.  He did OK a couple of times later, and that is why that swat will be aimed for the table.

The debate seemed to me to go almost completely in Obama's favor.  Obama spoke carefully, choosing his thoughts.  Romney spoke in a stacato, hesitating, cascade of sounds, making noises even when he didn't have a word ready, like he didn't want anyone to try to interrupt him.  I noticed when Romney was talking Obama fixed him with a fond gaze much the same as my dog looks at a possible intruder.  I wondered where I had seen that before, then I remembered the photo of Obama when he was listening to the attack on Osama bin Laden.  Romney wound up the last two minutes of the debate, just before the closing points, with a pouring out of points about the economy and other non-debate topics.  He should have gotten a series of swats right on top of his head for that!

Bound for Glory? Or Just in a Bind?

Mitt Romney spoke lovingly of women the other night.  He talked of how he had insisted on helping to hire women when he was governor of Massachusetts .  He said he got women to present information on their skills, lots of women, “Binders full”  of them.  It happened during a presidential debate on TV and his comment was so anachronistic that it caught EVERYbody off guard.  Binders?  Binders full?  Of women? There were a lot of blank looks on a lot of faces, all except Romney’s.  His lips were smiling and flashes of happiness glinted from deep under his brows. He knew he had scored a big one.  But he was the only one there who understood.  

Romney=Tenet

During his tenure as CIA director, Tenet and the intelligence community were criticized for their failure to prevent or even anticipate the September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2002, Tenet lent his personal authority to intelligence reports verifying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a key factor in the decision to go to war. Subsequent searches yielded no such stockpiles. In 2004, George Tenet resigned his post as CIA director citing personal reasons

Tenet testified before a public hearing of the Sept. 11 Commission investigating 9/11, that he did not meet with Bush in August 2001, the month before the September 11 attacks. The same evening after the hearings, a CIA spokesman corrected Tenet’s testimony, stating that Tenet did indeed meet with Bush twice in August. Tenet in his memoir writes of his memorable visit to Bush at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, August 2001.

On December 12, 2002, he assured Bush that the evidence that Iraq had WMDs amounted to a “Slam Dunk!”  After several months of refusing to confirm this statement, Tenet stated that it was taken out of context. He indicated that it was made pursuant to a discussion about how to convince the American people to support invading Iraq

If Romney is elected, will George Tenet come back again?  Tenet's seven-year term as Director of Central Intelligence was the second-longest in U.S. history and  President Bush awarded Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He has credentials, and extensive "experience" with the middle-east and might well be available as a "tie-breaker" for one of the sides involved in an administration discussion.  Tenet knows the people who will be Romney's staff and assistants very well.  They know him.  Even if Tenet does not play a headline role in a Romney administration, he will be there, behind the scenes perhaps, but a source of "information" and acquaintances.

  

Romney=Yoo

 Yoo's view of presidential power played an important role in developing a legal justification for the Bush administration's policy in the war on terrorism.  He insisted that enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, and held in Guantanamo, were not “prisoners of war” as described by the Geneva Conventions.   

Yoo developed the concept that the president of the United States had the authority to use “waterboarding” and other procedures which he called “enhanced” interrogation techniques, and that they were not legally torture, even though they were so regarded by other developed nations and the Geneva Conventions.   also He insisted that the president was immune from being considered a war criminal and was not bound by the War Crimes Act.  He also claimed legal authority for the president to conduct  wire taps without needing a warrant to do so.

Yoo claimed that the president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be destroyed even though that country was not at war with the United States.  

Yoo has argued that the original understanding of the Constitution gives the President the authority to use armed force abroad without congressional authorization, subject to Congress's power of the purse; that treaties do not generally have domestic legal force without implementing legislation; and that courts cannot intervene in foreign policy disputes between the President and Congress. 

Yoo has argued that the separation of powers provides each branch of government with the authority to interpret the Constitution for itself. In international law, Yoo has written that the rules governing the use of force must be understood to allow nations to engage in armed intervention to end humanitarian disasters, rebuild failed states, and stop terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

John Yoo is an attorney, a professor of law (Berkeley) and author (5 books).   Yoo is also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

He has not been a player in Washington in recent years but his shadow has proven to have a long reach through the Republican  Party.  He has impressive credentials and if Romney becomes president, Yoo may well have an important role to play again in American actions.  He fit in very well with Dick Chenney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, John Bolton and a number of other behind-the-scene Puppeteers of the George Bush Presidency.  He “needs” for Romney to become president.

Romney=Feith

From 2001 to 2005, Feith was under secretary of defense for policy and the No. 3 man at the Pentagon, intimately involved both pre-war strategy and post-war planning. His boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, called Feith one of the most brilliant individuals in government but he has also been a lightning rod for criticism and a magnet for blame. 

Military lawyers and top brass fought to retain Geneva protections, which formed the basic framework for the Army field manual and underlay all combat planning. The State Department also was loathe to abandon such a major treaty. Feith outmaneuvered his opponents, sometimes by keeping them out of the loop, sometimes by deceptively claiming to share their respect for Geneva.

He argues that advising the President not to protect prisoners with the Geneva Conventions could not be linked to subsequent torture of those prisoners. He has also participated in efforts to advise the Israeli government that Palestinian prisoners should not be covered by the Geneva Conventions, but he insists that he was only "consulted" in such projects and did not officially "coauthor" relevant documents.

In March 2009, a Spanish court named him and other Bush-era officials in criminal complaints concerning torture at Guantanamo of prisoners who were citizens of Spain or had other connections to Spain. Feith claimed to be shocked that anything he had ever done might be considered remotely relevant to torture.

Under George Bush, Feith's primary responsibility was to formulate Pentagon policy and assist in its relations with other federal agencies and foreign nations. Also, he was responsible for overseeing the work of the Office of Special Plans, the group set up by Donald Rumsfeld  to send intelligence data to Vice President Dick Cheney, bypassing  CIA analysis.

Feith's office was also responsible for the oversight of military prisons, including Abu Ghraib.  Feith himself masterminded the policy of ignoring the Geneva Conventions against torture.  After his 2005 resignation, the Pentagon's Inspector General investigated Feith's office for supplying pre-war intelligence assessments -- at odds with findings of the intelligence community -- outlining strong ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Feith has been largely absent from the headlines lately, but he "understands how to get the job done".  If Romney is elected, he will be back.  In spades.

Romney=Wolfowitz

A vote for Romney is a vote for Wolfowitz.  

Paul Wolfowitz,  who was known by his constant assertion that the proper role for America included the following:

The new American century.

radical neo-conservatism

United Nations not necessary

American MIlitary Domination

US must take pre-emptive military action

Military Action without the support of allies

Aggressive foreign policy 

American Enterprise Institute

Wolfowitz Doctrine is an unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) authored by Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby .  Not intended for public release, it was leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992, and sparked a public controversy about U.S. foreign and defense policy. The document was widely criticized as imperialist as the document outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations and prevent any other nation from rising to superpower status.

"While the U.S. cannot become the world's policeman, by assuming responsibility for righting every wrong, we will retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations."

"In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, advocated an objective is to become and remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil."

Wolfowitz dismissed the work by Hans Blix of the UN who searched Iraq for WMD and said there were none there.  Blix was told to get out of Iraq before the American pre-emptive invasion began.

Wolfowitz was a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate.

After serving two years, he resigned as president of the World Bank Group ending what a Reuters report called "a protracted battle over his stewardship, prompted by his involvement in a high-paying promotion for his companion."

Wolfowitz is a power player in the Republican Party.  If Romney is elected, he will be a force that America's international friends will have to reckon with, and he will push our antagonists to confrontation after confrontation.  Just like he did under George Bush.

Romney=Bolton

A vote for Romney is a vote for Bolton.  John Bolton.    Our once-upon-a-time ambassador to the UN who wanted to 1)  abolish the organization, or 2) at least withdraw America from it and 3) kick the organization out of the United States.  Failing that, he 4) suggested that we remove the top ten stories of the building.  

 Currently he is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributer to Fox News and the National Rifle Association.  He is a leader in the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and a member of the Project for the New American Century.  

Bolton equates diplomacy with weakness and indecisiveness.  He upset a Biological Weapons Conference in Geneva in 2001, and stated that such a program would let American sites be opened to international inspection.  

Bolton was a big player in the last Bush administration, often in open confrontation with Colin Powell and other military leaders on matters pertaining to military action.  Romney’s aides would surely see him as an “experienced” member of their team and already capable of presenting America to the international community.

Easy Rape?

Roger Rivard, a republican Wisconsin state lawmaker made headlines when he said that “Some women, they rape so easy.”  

OK, how did he find out?  Was his mother raped?  Was a sister raped?  I don’t mean to seem crude but he speaks with the voice of authority.  How does he know so much about raping women?  Does this statement come from raping a lot of women himself?  Come on Roger, we know who you are now, how did you get that way?  And don’t tell us your father said that.  Your father did not tell that stupidity to the nation, or to the press.  You did.