Sat Sep 1, 2012, 08:10 AM

Kristol Blasts Romney For Ignoring Afghanistan, U.S. Troops In Convention Speech

Even Bill Kristol has moments of clarity...

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/31/783701/kristol-romney-afghanistan/

Kristol Blasts Romney For Ignoring Afghanistan, U.S. Troops In Convention Speech

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 31, 2012 at 11:16 am

Weekly Standard editor and influential right-wing foreign policy voice Bill Kristol criticized Mitt Romney for ignoring the war in Afghanistan and the military in his speech to the Republican National Convention last night. In a short, scathing piece Kristol put up on the Standard’s website shortly after the speech, the neocon don scolded Romney for not uttering “a word of appreciation” to American troops fighting in Afghanistan:

The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party’s nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan. Nor did he utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting there, or to those who have fought there. Nor for that matter were there thanks for those who fought in Iraq, another conflict that went unmentioned.

Leave aside the question of the political wisdom of Romney’s silence, and the opportunities it opens up for President Obama next week. What about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing even to mention, in his acceptance speech, a war we’re fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we’ve been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors?

Perhaps Romney didn’t mention Afghanistan because he has no plan. Back in July, the then-presumptive GOP presidential nominee had a chance talk about his Afghanistan policy in a major foreign policy speech but Romney offered no specifics, saying his goal would be to withdraw U.S. troops by 2014 — which is exactly what President Obama is going to do. In fact, Romney’s own advisers don’t know what Romney’s Afghanistan policy is.

And maybe Romney ignored the military and veterans in his speech last night because he has no plan to address those issues either. “We haven’t … heard any specific plans yet from Governor Romney or his campaign,” a VFW official said recently.

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6 replies	Author	Time	Post
Kristol Blasts Romney For Ignoring Afghanistan, U.S. Troops In Convention Speech (Original post)	babylonsister	Sep 2012	OP
Mitt has a pre-911 mindset.	JoePhilly	Sep 2012	#1
Lol	cash__whatiwant	Sep 2012	#2
LOL.	bemildred	Sep 2012	#3
first he blew off the women's vote, the black vote, the latino vote...	magical thyme	Sep 2012	#4
Actually, I think he takes them for granted.	qwlauren35	Sep 2012	#5
You mean this?	Panasonic	Sep 2012	#6

Response to babylonsister (Original post)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 09:59 AM

JoePhilly (16,303 posts)

1. Mitt has a pre-911 mindset.

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Response to JoePhilly (Reply #1)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 01:07 PM

cash__whatiwant (370 posts)

2. Lol

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Response to babylonsister (Original post)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 01:10 PM

bemildred (67,730 posts)

3. LOL.

Election 2000 was the tragedy, this is the farce.

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Response to babylonsister (Original post)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 03:17 PM

magical thyme (4,254 posts)

4. first he blew off the women's vote, the black vote, the latino vote...

Guess it was just the veterans turn.

Who needs no steenkin' veterans. I've got my base and my $$$.

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Response to magical thyme (Reply #4)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 10:30 PM

qwlauren35 (2,455 posts)

5. Actually, I think he takes them for granted.

I think many veterans vote Republican. Not sure whether all of Obama's efforts over the last 4 years will change that. I'm curious, though. I think I'll google it.

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Response to qwlauren35 (Reply #5)

Sat Sep 1, 2012, 10:47 PM

Panasonic (2,921 posts)

6. You mean this?

Yeah, I think we got the vets and the soldier votes locked up.

Obama ended the war in Iraq and should speed up withdrawal of Afghanistan immediately and begin butchering the hell out of the DoD budget and redirecting the excess money to K-12, college (should be free) jobs, healthcare, and the general welfare of America.

Once that is done, increase the number of Revenue Agents that are highly skilled on finding tax evaders and have permission to freeze assets of any companies involved with the tax evasion and all assets are taken out and turned over to the U.S. Treasury for repayment of back taxes plus the rest of their assets. The number of arrests to bankers, investors and people fucking around with money should be extremely high - and no first class lawyers - all tax evaders will be only allowed a poor public defender or go pro se.

Their choice, their fate.

Fat cat oil companies? Gone - nationalized by the United States of America. Gas drops to its corrected price of maybe $2.25.

And all gas revenues are no longer in the fat cat's pockets but rather to continue to improve the infrastructure that the fat cats damaged for the last 30 years.

Bridges, roads, airports, railroad (high speed! We need bullet trains!) Internet access capabilities, and much more needs the money to fix and it's right there, at that insane $711 billion spent on defense.

Finally, the Republicans will have no choice but to concede the minimum wage needs to be increased by $20 to $27.75/hour - a living wage. No Americans should be poor.

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