WHAT MR. ROMNEY SHOULD SAY - MUST SAY
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
"As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also." Thomas Jefferson
For today, something I've done on only a couple of other occasions - relinquish the space to a guest.
After reading what follows, I felt obligated to help spread the message. The author agreed to my request to post. Pass along if you feel so inclined.
So, as proposed by a fellow Marine, here's what Mr. Romney should say - must say - and soon...
The Foreign Policy Speech Romney Should
Give
by Robert A. Hall
Good evening, my fellow America Patriots. I use that phrase
advisedly, because it is American Patriots - those who love this country and
cherish our system of free political institutions, free enterprise and limited
government - I wish to address. You and I know those institution have made us a
prosperous and happy people and our country both a shining ideal to which the
world’s poor and oppressed want to come, and the target of those who loath
liberty.
From the founding of our Republic to the events of the
present day, those institutions have been under assault from enemies abroad who
hate our freedom and prosperity, and from misguided individuals at home who
believe that they can create an all-powerful and utopian government that can
better make decisions for you than you can for yourself. They believe that
America’s Constitution
and prosperous economic system are no more entitled to a claim of exceptionalism
and our loyalty than any other system or culture.
We have seen the results of that utopian belief in
unlimited government power on our prosperity. We have seen it in a job crisis
that has kept the official unemployment rate above 8% for years, and the real
unemployment rate, counting those under-employed, those who have had to take
part-time jobs, those whose benefits have run out and those who have given up
looking, that is far higher than 8%. We see it in the continuing weakness in the
housing market, in the unprecedented growth of government debt, and in private
sector businesses - which the president says are doing fine - increasingly
unwilling to expand investment to create jobs in the face of government growth
and economic uncertainty.
And we see it in the failure of this president’s foreign
policy on diverse and disastrous fronts across the globe. It is of President
Obama’s manifest foreign policy failures that I wish to speak to you
tonight.
It is no secret that far too many in the media believe the
duty of a journalist is not to present unbiased facts to American voters to let
them make up their own minds, but to advocate for an agenda, shaping the debate
so as to help the president’s political campaign, even at the expense of the
country. We saw that when they were inadvertently caught on tape, like the
president promising the Russian strongman more flexibility after the election,
coordinating their “gotcha” questions to help the Obama campaign.
In support of their efforts to politicize the news and to
shape the agenda, they have created the meme that it is not what is happening in
the world that is the problem, but rather my speaking out about it. The same
people who cheered then-Senator Obama in 2008 and Senator Kerry in 2004 when
they criticized President Bush’s foreign policy while American troops were in
battle now insult your intelligence by saying that this president’s foreign
policy should be off limits during a campaign, or that criticism of him is based
not on his clear failures but his ethnic heritage. Unfortunately, this
contemptible lie propagated by the Obama campaign water-carriers in the media
resonates with some voters who are less attuned to events and less inclined to
seek out the facts.
The facts are these. What we are seeing today across the
world is the direct result of perceived American weakness, of this president’s
unwillingness to champion American values and to support America’s friends like Israel and the friends of freedom like the
Iranian resistance against those who wish both us and freedom ill.
We see an American Ambassador and his staff murdered with
the connivance of the very people this president sent American troops to risk
their lives for and billions of your tax dollars to aid. We see American soil in
American embassies assaulted by radicals in coordinated attacks by whipping up
mobs over the excuse of a poorly-made, little known private video, while
governments to whom we have given billions of your tax dollars in aid turn a
blind eye, secure in the knowledge that this administration is so eager to buy
them off, it will go on paying tribute regardless of their actions.
We see it in timid half-measures toward Iran, even as they seek nuclear
weapons while promising the destruction of America and Israel. Must we lose New
York City, Washington DC
or Tel Aviv before we get serious about dealing with the mad mullahs?
We see it in the willingness of a tyrant like Hugh Chavez
to suppress freedom in his country while threatening American interests and the
security of his neighbors, secure in the knowledge that his leftist rhetoric
makes him off limits to serious opposition from this administration.
We see it in an administration willing to provide thousands
of guns to ruthless Mexican drug cartels, destabilizing that country and killing
hundreds of Mexicans and two American agents, to further their anti-gun agenda.
And then they lie and withhold information to cover it up.
We see it in an increasingly aggressive China willing to
muscle both our allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines as well as
their old allies like Vietnam, secure in the knowledge that our strong natural
desire for good economic and political relations with them, and our need for
their continued funding of a portion of our burgeoning debt means that we must
acquiesce in their domination of their smaller neighbors.
We see it most of all in the unwillingness of this
administration to name the enemy that seeks to destroy our way of life. That
enemy - let us be clear - is Islamic Extremism and Islamic Supremacism. The
president and leaders on both sides of the political aisle are perfectly correct
in saying that we are not at war with Islam and I assure you we will never be at
war with Islam under a Romney administration. Indeed, we must never forget that
the most frequent victims of the daily catalog of murders and outrages by the
extremists are decent Muslims who want to live in peace and freedom, seeking
only prosperity for their families. But President Obama has never understood, in
fact seems incapable of understanding, that it takes two sides to make peace,
only one side to make war. Islamic extremism is growing, is often funded by our
erstwhile friends, numbers millions of adherents and is able to manipulate the
emotions of tens of millions more poor and ignorant Muslims who are
understandably frustrated at the poverty created by the lack of economic and
political freedom in their countries. And they are at war with us, with
western civilization, and with the majority of peaceful Muslims, and have been
for decades. Wishing it were not so will not change that painful fact. They give
us only the options of defense, or defeat and death.
That Islamic extremism is not centrally directed as were
the Nazi or Stalinist regimes does not make it either less understandable or
less of a threat to our lives and liberties. That the threat can spring up
undirected among our own citizens does not make the deaths of our soldiers in
Little Rock or at Fort Hood any
less casualties of that war than those who have sacrificed while wearing the
uniform of the Republic in Iraq or Afghanistan. And when I’m president, their
families will receive the appropriate recognition of their sacrifice. That is
the least this country can do for their service.
This frightening growth of Islamic extremism is fed by an
American posture of apologetic weakness. Over thirty years of attacks, terror
and murder of Americans, westerners and their fellow Muslims should have taught
us that they will always find an excuse, be it a cartoon or a clownish YouTube
video to ferment violence and mob terror. We must not feed the beast. We must
stand with that majority of Muslims who desire peace, freedom and prosperity. We
must support those Muslims who have the courage to speak out against extremism
and terror. We must lead from the front, and abandon weak euphemisms like
calling war “overseas contingency operations.”
We cannot defend women’s rights and other human rights at
home if we fear to speak out against the oppression of women under Shari’a Law
abroad. Being for tolerance for gay people at home is meaningless if we are
supinely silent about the murder of gays in Iran and other intolerant countries at the hands
is Islamic extremists.
American freedom, American prosperity and the aspirations
of tens of millions of people around the world, Muslim and non-Muslim, depend on
American strength, American leadership and American courage. If we fear to
defend liberty out of fear for our lives, we shall find we have lost both life
and liberty. We must stand with the friends of freedom and against extremism and
aggression and terror. We must honor and support the service and sacrifice of
our gallant troops, and those of our allies, on whom our freedom depends. The
future of all decent people in the world, regardless of nationality, religion or
ethnic heritage, depend on our making that American policy. The president talked
of change and in our foreign policy, change now is desperately needed. As your
president, I will lead us to a new foreign policy that values freedom and life
and prosperity, and stands against murder and extremism and terror. And I will
not apologize for it.
Thank you.
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the
Massachusetts
Senate. He is the author of 'The Coming Collapse of the
American Republic: And what you can do to prevent
it.'
E-mail: tartanmarine@gmail.com
Post Script
I sent Mr. Hall a note suggesting he send his remarks to the Romney camp and that I could not image Mr. Romney's speechwriter editing a single word. He replied there may be parts too strong for that crowd. I countered all the critics are saying Mr. Romney is not being clear enough and that his proposed speech was clear and strong. "Send it," I wrote. "What's the worst that can happen - they don't read it or reject it?" Momentarily, he sent a short note back saying he'd sent it. Bravo! Now, in the days ahead, let's see (and hear) what Mr. Romney has to say, and if it rings familiar to the words of Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall oversees a popular blog site where he amasses the more important news items of the day as seen through the eyes of professional analysts and opiners - sometimes one of my submissions make the cut. And he, too, occasionally weights in - as above. Visit his site: www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com
And, he is an author.
'The
Coming Collapse of the American Republic: And what you can do to prevent it'
All
royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans. Write me for a free PDF of
"Collapse.
'Advice
for my Granddaughter: For When I'm Gone'
All
royalties go to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.
Posts
