Lucille
08-30-2012, 09:58 AM
To a war-weary public, no less.
Three Dangerous Speeches by McCain, Rice, and Ryan
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/three-dangerous-speeches-by-mccain-rice-and-ryan/
The three main speeches tonight by McCain, Rice, and Ryan addressed foreign policy issues to different degrees. The substance of their foreign policy remarks was about as bad as could be expected. Through their presence on the convention stage and their speeches, McCain and Rice linked Romney and Ryan to Bush-like policies.
McCain relied on grossly exaggerating contemporary threats:
We are now being tested by an array of threats that are more complex, more numerous, and just as deeply and deadly as I can recall in my lifetime.
This is some of the basest and most misleading fear-mongering imaginable. Security threats to the U.S. are fewer and less dangerous than they have been in more than half a century. We all know that McCain is a hawkish interventionist who has rarely ever seen a conflict he didn’t think the U.S. should enter in one way or another, and by raising him up as one of the main speakers on the night dedicated to national security the Romney campaign indicated that it generally approves of McCain’s militarism. That is what we should have expected all along from Romney, and perhaps now we can start to set aside the feigned confusion about what Romney’s foreign policy will look like.
Among other things, McCain was agitating for U.S. involvement in Syria, and Rice took a more indirect route to hint that she favored a generally more activist U.S. abroad. She asked, “Where does America stand?” and she made it clear that she wants much more activism. As she said, “We cannot be reluctant to lead – and one cannot lead from behind.” Here as elsewhere, “leading” is synonymous with entangling the U.S. in other nations’ affairs. After spending most of the convention avoiding much discussion of foreign policy, the Romney campaign opted to promote the two people most closely identified with everything that was wrong with Bush’s foreign policy.
More at the link
Three Dangerous Speeches by McCain, Rice, and Ryan
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/three-dangerous-speeches-by-mccain-rice-and-ryan/
The three main speeches tonight by McCain, Rice, and Ryan addressed foreign policy issues to different degrees. The substance of their foreign policy remarks was about as bad as could be expected. Through their presence on the convention stage and their speeches, McCain and Rice linked Romney and Ryan to Bush-like policies.
McCain relied on grossly exaggerating contemporary threats:
We are now being tested by an array of threats that are more complex, more numerous, and just as deeply and deadly as I can recall in my lifetime.
This is some of the basest and most misleading fear-mongering imaginable. Security threats to the U.S. are fewer and less dangerous than they have been in more than half a century. We all know that McCain is a hawkish interventionist who has rarely ever seen a conflict he didn’t think the U.S. should enter in one way or another, and by raising him up as one of the main speakers on the night dedicated to national security the Romney campaign indicated that it generally approves of McCain’s militarism. That is what we should have expected all along from Romney, and perhaps now we can start to set aside the feigned confusion about what Romney’s foreign policy will look like.
Among other things, McCain was agitating for U.S. involvement in Syria, and Rice took a more indirect route to hint that she favored a generally more activist U.S. abroad. She asked, “Where does America stand?” and she made it clear that she wants much more activism. As she said, “We cannot be reluctant to lead – and one cannot lead from behind.” Here as elsewhere, “leading” is synonymous with entangling the U.S. in other nations’ affairs. After spending most of the convention avoiding much discussion of foreign policy, the Romney campaign opted to promote the two people most closely identified with everything that was wrong with Bush’s foreign policy.
More at the link