Debate III, the one just for Languish: US Foreign Policy

[MadImmortalMan]

I think obama won.

Romney came in a very close 2nd, if only by mimicry.

I would do the same thing, but EVEN MORE!!111

[Neil]

At any rate, a president who shit talks the Navy has no business being president.  Who cares if his opponent will sell the whole country to the Chinese.

Don't see where you're coming from with that.  The POTUS made the very distinct difference between scale and capability.  More is not better.

Besides, do you really want to see a POTUS that believes Iran needs Syria for access to the sea?  They need a warm water port or something?

I don't know.  My wife told me that Obama was talking shit about how the navy was obsolete like horses and whatnot, but we didn't watch the debate.

Whichever guy will pledge to eliminate the independence of the USAF is the kind of skilled administrator that America needs.

[DGuller]

Besides, do you really want to see a POTUS that believes Iran needs Syria for access to the sea?  They need a warm water port or something?

Yeah, WTF was that?  Did he forget about Persian Gulf or something?  Or did he jumble the index cards he used for cramming and confused it with Russia's strategic interest in the Mediterranean port?

[Razgovory]

Which is weird, because Obama has a pretty privileged background, except for the Obama's criminality.  Not because he's black, but because he's from Chicago.

At any rate, a president who shit talks the Navy has no business being president.  Who cares if his opponent will sell the whole country to the Chinese.

What sort of privilege?

[CountDeMoney]

I don't know.  My wife told me that Obama was talking shit about how the navy was obsolete like horses and whatnot, but we didn't watch the debate.

Whichever guy will pledge to eliminate the independence of the USAF is the kind of skilled administrator that America needs.

Then allow me to retort:

President Barack Obama mocked Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday for his repeated attack over the size of the Navy, which he has said proves the president doesn't prioritize national defense.

"You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets," Obama said during the final presidential debate. "Because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

"And so the question is not a game of battleship where we're counting ships, it's 'What are our capabilities?'" Obama said.

Your wife needs to hook up with Meri and derspiess' wife, and make some fucking cupcakes. 

[CountDeMoney]

Besides, do you really want to see a POTUS that believes Iran needs Syria for access to the sea?  They need a warm water port or something?

Yeah, WTF was that?  Did he forget about Persian Gulf or something?  Or did he jumble the index cards he used for cramming and confused it with Russia's strategic interest in the Mediterranean port?

From the WashPost:

We've puzzled over this comment for a while. When the presumptive GOP nominee referred to Syria as Iran's "route to the sea" during the Arizona GOP debate in February, we figured it was just a slip of the tongue.

But then a reader counted at least five times in which Romney has used this phrase, including in the Feb. 22 debate, at last month's American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual conference, in a TV interview (MSNBC, Dec. 21), on the radio (Kilmeade & Friends, Feb. 14) and even in a Washington Post interview (Feb. 10).

Considering that Syria shares no border with Iran — Iraq and Turkey are in the way — and that Iran has about 1,500 miles of coastline along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, leading to the Arabian Sea, the reader wanted to know: What's Romney talking about?

The Facts

This is the explanation provided by the Romney campaign:  "It is generally recognized that Syria offers Iran strategic basing/staging access to the Mediterranean as well as to terrorist proxies in the Levant.  This is a large reason why Iran invests so much in Syria."

The campaign also noted that the Boston Globe had looked into this statement at the time of the Arizona debate.

The Globe noted that "given that Iran borders the sea, it seems to be an odd claim that Syria is Iran's route to the sea." The newspaper noted that Iran is able to reach the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. But it said that "Romney's comments are more accurate than they first seem," citing a news report that Iran was building an army base in Syria and quoting an expert on the importance of Syria to Iran.

We also checked with other experts, many of whom confessed to being puzzled by Romney's comments. Tehran certainly uses Syria to supply the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, but that has little to do with the water. The relationship with Syria could also effectively allow Iran to project its power to the Mediterranean and the border with Israel.

But does that really mean, "a route to the sea"?

The Pinocchio Test

Like many governors (or first-term senators), Romney has little foreign policy experience. If Romney is elected president, he will quickly learn that words have consequences. Precision in language is especially important in diplomacy, and here Romney used a phrase that left people befuddled as to his intent and meaning, especially since he did not even make a distinction between the Mediterranean and Arabian seas.

The fact that Romney has used this confusing phrase at least five times suggested that the term was not an accident. But the Romney campaign's explanation is not especially satisfying.

Still, at this point, we don't think this is worthy of a Pinocchio rating — unless we create a category for weird language. We welcome readers to help us watch if Romney says this again.

[DGuller]

Explaining what carriers and submarines are was a little dickish, IMO, but it was amusing.

[Neil]

Wait, so Obama was shit-talking battleships?

Well, that excerpt wasn't so bad.  It seems that CNN feels that it'll hurt Obama in Virginia though.

[CountDeMoney]

Wait, so Obama was shit-talking battleships?

No, my flanneled fruitcake friend, he was dissing Mittens playing "Battleship" the game re: the scale of the Navy.

Well, that excerpt wasn't so bad.  It seems that CNN feels that it'll hurt Obama in Virginia though.

Doubtful.  Shipbuilding in Virginia isn't as big as the cyber defense community in Northern Virginia anyway.   NoVa's bigger than Newport News.

Besides, unlike Dubya, Obama doesn't punish states for voting against him.  WITHER GROTON

[Kleves]

Explaining what carriers and submarines are was a little dickish, IMO, but it was amusing.

It was amusing, but it was also a bullshit answer. Obama didn't say that a smaller navy was commensurate with our current naval commitments, or that our naval goals would be scaled back so that we could scale back our commitments as well, or anything actually substantive. Instead he offered an attack-line that probably poll-tested well.

Generally, I think the debate moderators did a poor job calling both Romney and Obama on their bullshit.

[Neil]

Wait, so Obama was shit-talking battleships?

No, my flanneled fruitcake friend, he was dissing Mittens playing "Battleship" the game re: the scale of the Navy.

He should have clarified that then.  Said something about how a navy is only as good as their supply of  battleships.

Well, that excerpt wasn't so bad.  It seems that CNN feels that it'll hurt Obama in Virginia though.

Doubtful.  Shipbuilding in Virginia isn't as big as the cyber defense community in Northern Virginia anyway.   NoVa's bigger than Newport News.

Besides, unlike Dubya, Obama doesn't punish states for voting against him.  WITHER GROTON

Will the cyber people break for Obama?  Besides, US cyber-defence is useless anyways.  If you guys were worth anything, China would be a smoking cyber-ruin by now.

[CountDeMoney]

Will the cyber people break for Obama?  Besides, US cyber-defence is useless anyways.  If you guys were worth anything, China would be a smoking cyber-ruin by now.

It's pretty tight down there, but I think NoVa's will break for Obama:  tons of frigging Federal employees and Federal contractors.  I don't believe they'll vote for the CEO that will downsize them.
Romney's been hitting it very hard with advertising, how the sequestration will kill all their jobs.  Pretty ironical from the guy that wants to eviscerate the federal employee population.

Besides, NoVa's not as "homogenous" as the southern, more rural parts of the state.  Lots of Michelle Obamas and other minorities.  That part of it isn't Old Dixie anymore.

But Otto's down in Frednecksburg, he's at the southernmost tip of NoVa, he can speak of it better.

[Jacob]

Reading forum threads about presidential debates is one of my favourite things about American elections.

[Razgovory]

Apparently Romney's statements about the navy are not true anyway.  The number of ships bottomed out in 2005 and has since increased.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't know, but we have some process now for electronic surveillance of people abroad (which, as a general rule, happens without telling them). Seems like a much stronger version would be needed for killing people abroad, as opposed to listening in on them. Instead we have nothing.

Based on the article you posted you have something, its just that the government isnt making that something public at the present time.

It's an internal (and unexplained!) process, though, without any judicial oversight and incredibly high stakes. I think it sets a terrible precedent.

I completely agree with Count.