Since I am on my soap-box of the dangers to the rest of the planet arising out of future US foreign policy should the militaristic racist wing of the Republican Party seize control because of the lazy apathy of progressives in the US (where fortunately I don't have to live if I don't want to), let's look at Mitt Romney's recent Washington Post Op-Ed from two weeks ago. Aside from the fact that the START treaty has the support of every thinking Republican and Democrat including Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James Baker, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Senator Richard Lugar, the ludicrously fact-challenged piece by Romney is wrong on every single point his pathetic ghost-writer attempts to make.
Let's create an index to measure Romney's (and every other race-to-the-crazy-right racist teabagger out there) mendacity. The scale is 1 - 10, with 1 indicating a more or less sane, logical and fact supported approach to developing a policy - in this case, foreign - and 10 indicating a severe case of moronous conservetousness best exemplified by the tea baggers spokesperson, Bachmann.
First, the strap-my-dog-to-the-car-roof ex-presidential candidate seems to believe that the preamble of a treaty is legally binding. It's not. And the fact that it allows a party to withdraw from the treaty if it felt national security was in danger is not unusual. It is normal and has been for every previous treaty. Of course, I am assuming the Mittster would not want to waive that right of withdrawal. On the scale, this merely rates a 5 as it simply shows he needs to study more.
Next, in typical Romneyesque style, he absorbs and regurgitates the perennial uniformed view of the wingers that the US would be prevented from pursuing missile defence strategies. It does not. Rinse, repeat. It does not. Since this is an outright lie, it rates an 8 on the index.
Amusingly, Romney also asserts that the treaty would allow Russia to build up its bomber based nuclear arsenal. What color is the sky on his planet? The entire concept of strategic nuclear bomber systems is a joke and has not be seriously pursued by either the US or Russia in 20 or more years. Sure, Russia could march down that path. So what? The US could withdraw from the treaty or demand that the treaty be amended. On the index, this rates a 7.
Finally, Romney asserts that the treaty allows Russia an advantage in warheads. The limitations on each side are the same. This is an outrageous lie and earns a 9 on the index because it leads to his ultimate conclusion that the START Treaty endangers US security.
His conclusion flies in the face of even Bush's policy on nuclear weapons. How far right is that.
So, tell us Mitty - are you as stupid as Sarah? Are you so desperate that you want to portray the US as the militaristic, racist society it is in danger of lapsing back into? The failure to ratify START would send a signal to the rest of the world, particularly Russia and China, that the US was re-entering the shoot-first foreign policy choices of the right wing lunatics.
The planet needs to take note that US foreign policy may take a turn for the worse, endangering others for purely ideological grounds and threatening military adventures which the world needs to think about now so that they can be countered if they come to pass with the rise of the right wing in the US.
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