On a recent campaign visit to Iowa, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said he'd like to "carry a big stick" by expanding our military. If you didn't know already, the Federal Government's budget spends 51% of its entire budget on the military. Some of our spending is totally validated, like recruitment, taking care of our veterans from past wars and also modernizing the way we gather intelligence. Regardless of all that needs to be done with our military there are better ways to get money rather than ratcheting up more debt. We need to take a look at paying our soldiers better rather than spending ten times as much on private military contractors. We also need to stop building new nuclear weapons, and start focusing more on modernizing our intelligence capabilities.
What I found most disturbing was that Romney believes we need to increase the size of our military because, "If you look across the world you can recognize that there is terror going on". Did I hear him correctly? What difference will a larger military make in regards to terrorism? I find it ridiculous that Romney believes gay interpreters should not be allowed to serve because they're gay. These are exactly the kinds of people we need desperately in our military. We don't need a big military to fight the terrorist ideology. But, we do need to modernize our intelligence capabilities and not turn away interpreters just because they're gay. Romney has shown a lack of understanding when it comes to terrorism. It's not going to take a big stick, it's going to take reliable intelligence, working with our allies and building new bridges with countries like Iran. Increasing the size of our military may scare some countries off, but it sure as hell won't do anything to quell the extremist ideology. The only way to really fight terrorism is to show compassion around the world. We need to show people we are a good, moral country that wants to help the less fortunate. The more we flex our military muscles, the more we act out with arrogance the more hatred towards our country grows. Why is it so hard for big stick Romney to realize this?
1 comment:
I was thinking about Overlake's Cambodia Project in conjunction with an economical way to help rebuild Iraq and stumbled on this article about Romney. In agreeing with most of what you day, I'm wondering if you have taken a look at Dr. Ron Paul's ideas regarding a non-interventionist foreign policy, i.e. bringing the troops home, using the money to fund domestic programs, removing the tax burden of the IRS so that the generous American people can help others around the world as they choose and in a much more efficient and economical manner. I didn't know about Dr. Paul until the Presidential debates started, but he makes a whole lot of sense to me.
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