Romney Promises Worlds Strongest Military By Steve Peoples | May 28, 2012 06:59 PM EST | Associated Press Excerpts: SAN DIEGO Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney promised Monday to maintain an American military "with no comparable power anywhere in the world." The likely Republican presidential nominee faced a San Diego crowd estimated at 5,000 in what was billed as a Memorial Day service paying tribute to the nation's war dead, not a campaign rally. Without naming his general election rival on Monday, Romney drew clear contrasts with Obama on the issue of defense. The Democratic president has proposed reducing the size of the military following the end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq and plans to remove troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. "We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs," Romney said outside the city's Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. "The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world." The White House and congressional Republicans have agreed to cut $487 billion in military spending over the next decade. Even with Obama's proposed cuts in the military budget, the U.S. would remain by far the world's dominant military power. The Pentagon's budget this year exceeds $600 billion. Closest rival China said this year its defense budget will top $100 billion for the first time, although the U.S. claims China spends twice as much. Across the country in Washington, Obama marked the solemn holiday with remembrances at Arlington National Cemetery, and later at the Vietnam War Memorial marking the 50th anniversary of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He noted that for the first time in nine years "Americans are not fighting and dying in Iraq. After a decade under the dark cloud of war, we can see the light of the new day on the horizon." The candidates' comments underscored the political and practical effects the presidential contest could have on America's role in the world. Obama won the presidency handily four years ago while losing veterans by 10 points to Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot. Neither Obama nor Romney served in the military. Romney, 65, did not serve in Vietnam. His campaign says he received deferments for his Mormon mission to France and academic studies. He later entered the draft, but his number was not called, a spokesman said. Obama, 50, was a child during the Vietnam conflict. Still, Romney has been critical of Obama's plans to reduce the military, in addition to the administration's policy toward Syria's handling of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's government. In a written statement Sunday, Romney said Obama "can no longer ignore calls from congressional leaders in both parties to take more assertive steps in Syria." Romney said the current approach has only given Syrian leaders more time to crackdown on protesters. World leaders blame the Syrian government for the weekend killing of more than 100 people, including 49 children and 34 women, following peaceful protests. "I wish I could tell you that the world is a safe place today. It is not," Romney said Monday, ticking off a list of threats including Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Venezuela and Mexican drug cartels. He did not mention Syria. Romney said Monday that America's military might is needed "not so that we just win wars, but so we can prevent wars." "A strong America is the best deterrent to war that has ever been invented," he said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120528/us-romney/ ....... Here is a person with no military experience and was never in the service for his country...got mutiple deferments to attend college, and has no foreign policy other than not to follow in Europes footsteps and to build the biggest military engine with nothing comparable to it in the world. Is this the only answer Romney has to the stubborn recession that plagues America and the rest of the world?...build a big military? It clearly is the answer the GOP has in mind to bring American workers cheap jobs...build more munitions and death dealing armaments so that if we are ever compromised again we will be ready? What was the reason for the last eleven years of senseless wars and destruction, only to have a bankrupt country where outsourcing of American workers jobs left massive unemployment coupled with a huge illegal alien invasion that has further bankrupted America. Romney has not offered any solution to our unemployment issues, telling people that their productivity equates to a better salary, disregarding the fact that many of the jobs are part-time with no benefits, has no remedy for lack of medical care for the elderly, children and the poor. In fact he has promised to cut taxes for the wealthy, allowing them to keep undeclared earnings in offshore accounts with the admonition that he himself pays only the legal amount of wages at his 14% of earnings after many deductions, incentives, loopholes which all wealthy people will keep while the middle class have no such deductions or perks. Any American can predict the chaos that will ensue as we enter a second more painful recession as Mitt Romney follows thru on the republican agenda of catering to the wealthy corporations, building a huge military complex, and driving the middle class into extinction. Romney himself has a problem dealing with anyone other than the very rich and the very poor. That will be the new Romney America....George Bush II.
We already have the world's strongest military and will continue to do so even if we do cut its funding by 48 billion. Romney is just playing the jingoist.
All I need is to read another wall of huffing and puffing, and since this post contain zero contribution by the poster, it is summarily dismissed as garbage.
Mitt Romney merely confirmed that maintain the U.S. as the top military in the world. He never said "build"... is this more HuffPo/Agent lies? Nice Source there.... Agent! Someday.... this whole site will simply go to HuffPo... and we can use their forum and close this one... well in a perfect Liberal brainwashed world.
However, his bull(*)(*)(*)(*) rhetoric is still just that: bull(*)(*)(*)(*) rhetoric. Even if Obama's cuts to the DoD go through, we will still have the top military in the world. I personally don't see the importance in bankrupting ourselves just so we can have that propaganda victory. We could cut out military by 75% and still no one would be able to strike our nation.
Mitt Romney spouts PNAC-like rhetoric. If I am not mistaken, the United States still has the largest and most powerful military in the world.
Thanks to Bushs intel, we had OBL's whereabouts long before the SEALS took him out. Strangely, Obama made that decision to send in SEAL Team6 in the midst of Obama's BC being questioned by Donald Trump.
I sure as hope would like to believe that Gov Romney should already know the US military is incomparable. In fact few people realize, while the US did build a very effective military machine, in its proceedings of this goal, it has effectively ended open warfare. No other nation will openly declare war against another without having some assurance the US will not retaliate.
Kudos to you my man. Watch that list he ticked off. Is he going to go to war with all those countries? If not, what have those countries to do with the US having a larger military? What's the game plan here?
That's just great! And who's gonna foot the bill for this hair-brain scheme of his? The American people of course. This is the best that the Republicans can offer?
Why is Romney so eager to intervene in Syria? Don't we have enough to worry about at home without choosing sides in an Islamic civil war? I'm for American strength, but the focus of our foreign policy should be narrowed, not expanded. We cannot afford to keep getting mixed up in all these foreign affairs. Just protect our trade routes and our country. Stop worrying about civil wars in the Islamic world. And isn't AQ an element of this resistance movement? Why the hell should we help them?
Yeah, Its called "Peace thru Strength", and its exactly what ended the cold war.... I dont know what all the lefty are crying about.... Obama is the president of the most powerful military on the planet and they aint crying about that.... Ronnie tell em all about it... [video=youtube;lvg7lRsCVJ8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvg7lRsCVJ8[/video] Plus spending on military means jobs are being created in America, instead of Obama creating jobs in Mexico, and whatnot...
Spending on military is the least economic accelerative form of govt spending. Economic infrastructure is where our money should be.
Ronnie increased spending every year by about 7% on average, tripled the deficit and almost tripled the debt. Just what we need in the WH. You have a decent role model?
Reagan had successes and failures. While contributing to the end of the Cold War, as well as thwarting communist takeover in Grenada, Reagan continued Operation Cyclone, which financed the Mujahedeen, the resistance movement from which the most prominent terrorists and terrorist groups, including Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, were militarized and formed. On his watch, Iran-Contra ensued, a tactical disaster which did nothing to stop Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas from gaining power in Nicaragua. Consequently, Reagan's 'peace thru strength' is in no way foolproof, nor should it be the sole foreign policy doctrine used by the United States.
I certainly agree with you that the amount of military spending has increased, mainly because of the wars, and those war debts must be paid by taxes and maybe some war bond, or the like effort. Before these wars, the US military has highly engaged in data communications research, and would often team up with the telecomms and the like to produce prototypes and concepts. Those prototypes and concepts would then be public domain, and hence a significant amount of data services can be made available. Since the wars costliness, those R&D programs were cannibalized for the wars, and hence far less R&D for possible economic manifestations. Our RW brethren do not seem to understand this.
If you've read my prior posts about spending, you'll find that i've almost always advocated cutting back on military spending. Fail.