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A Mellower Romney?
Rice told about 300 donors. “The only thing that people dislike more than unilateral American leadership is no American leadership at all.”
Romney’s “retreat” in Park City Utah for his 700 biggest donors featured Condi Rice, who reportedly electrified the crowd and received two standing ovations during her passionate keynote speech defending a return to a George W. Bush-style foreign policy while trashing Obama
by Philip Giraldi
The American Conservative – Anyone who is nurturing the belief that Mitt Romney is only talking tough re his foreign policy so he can get elected and that he will somehow mellow after November should consider some recent developments.
Romney’s “retreat” in Park City Utah for his 700 biggest donors featured Condi Rice, who reportedly electrified the crowd and received two standing ovations during her passionate keynote speech defending a return to a George W. Bush-style foreign policy while trashing Obama for not being aggressive enough towards enemies like Iran and China. She indicted the president for failing to maintain America’s position as the “world leader,” a theme that comes straight out of the Romney play book.
Romney also told 100 donors at a breakout session on U.S.-Israel relations that “he had just been briefed by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, speaking about the situation in Syria, the elections in Egypt and the effort to isolate Iran…” Bill Kristol, Michael Chertoff, and former Senator Norm Coleman also were invited guests who spoke at the meeting. One might reasonably be disturbed to learn that a presidential candidate is getting advice on sensitive foreign-policy issues in direct meetings with an ambassador whose country has a clear interest in creating certain perceptions, but apparently no one in Park City Utah was upset by Romney’s revelation.
Romney to Jewish donors: ‘I get Israeli briefings’
By Ron Kampeas · June 24, 2012
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mitt Romney in Jerusalem last year. Photo by GPOWASHINGTON (JTA) — Mitt Romney told donors attending his campaign’s Utah retreat that he is briefed on the Middle East by Israeli government officials.
About 50 of the 700 donors who attended the retreat over the weekend in Park City were Jewish, according to one in attendance.
Many of them attended a breakout session last Friday afternoon on the U.S.-Israel relationship, although between half and three-fourths of the 100 donors attending the session were not Jewish.
Romney dropped in on the session and said he had just been briefed by the Israeli ambassador, Michael Oren, speaking about the situation in Syria, the elections in Egypt and the effort to isolate Iran, among other issues.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said he has such conversations with Israeli officials to be kept up to date on the region.
Such briefings are not an unusual once it becomes clear who the major party candidates are.
Romney also spoke about where he believed he and Obama differed on Iran; Romney said he would be doing more to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The United States is one of the major power in talks with Iran to make its suspected nuclear weapons program more transparent, and the Obama administration also is encouraging the international community to intensify sanctions.
The U.S. also has made representations to Israel to dial back threats of military action, although Obama administration officials have said that all options will be used to keep Iran from acquiring a bomb. Republicans have said that making clear such threats is the likeliest avenue to an Iranian retreat on the matter.
Addressing the U.S.-Israel session were William Kristol, a founder of the Emergency Committee for Israel that recently ran ads accusing Obama of not doing enough to stop Iran; Michael Chertoff, the Bush administration Homeland Security secretary, who is Jewish; and Norm Coleman, the former U.S. senator from Minnesota, who is also Jewish.
To attend the retreat, donors either had to have donated $50,000 to the campaign or raised $250,000.
GOP stars such as tactician Karl Rove, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen Jon Thune (R-S.D.) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, were in attendance, a sign of a unified front following a rough primaries campaign.
There was kosher food on hand and a Shabbat dinner for Jewish attendees.
Park City was the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics, the event that Romney turned into a success after early signs of a possible fiasco. His leadership there sent him to national prominence.
Philip Giraldi, Executive Director of Council for the National Interest (CNI), is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served 18 years in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in Barcelona from 1989 to 1992, and designated as the Agency’s senior officer for Olympic Games support. Dr. Giraldi holds an MA and PhD from the University of London. He speaks Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish.
Short URL: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/?p=211583
Posted by Phillip Giraldi on Jul 6 2012, With 0 Reads, Filed under Americas, Asia, China, Editors' Picks, Europe, Global, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Syria, United Kingdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Most people are just too ignorant and stupid to believe what they see with their own eyes and will only believe what they are told by the “authority” which they have been taught to believe is their protector, advisor and guide, their Government, tribal and religious leaders.
Sheep following the bell, making the proper responses to the appropriate Pavlovian cues.
In my mother’s Church, they used to tinkle a small bell, You could get my Aunt Rose to genuflect in her sleep simply by tinkling a small bell!
Of course Ron Paul is “unelektable,” because the media tells you the truth about him. Didn’t they say so in the NYT and on the TV when he last spoke out?
http://www.hangthebankers.com/elektable-ron-paul-short-film/
http://www.hangthebankers.com/elektable-ron-paul-short-film/
When someone like Rice, makes a comment that if the US does not lead ( in the Security Council)we will see “regional; players folllowing their own agendas”.
By that statement, the absolutely naive can assume that she is saying that the USA, (of course) does not have its own agenda.
Now while there is one single living voter in the US that believes that statement for one second, the US will continue to slip down the slippery slope to the end of empire because it is going to take all Americans, or at least the great majority, to turn around this kind of blind acceptance reflecting the values that have become the norm in Washington.
We all know that won’t happen, Probably 40% have been corrupted, therefore unable to make a rational decision in the interests of their country; 20% probably are so comfortable that they just want to leave things the way they are and the remainder couldn’t care less.
Apathy reigns supreme.
If one wants to be frightened, listen to this woman. She favours a return to the Bush thinking…lies causing wars like Iraq, sanctions killing a million or more and after that is over, they go on to the next. Afghanistan, the drug capital of the world under the military protection of the US. Then a year later, after “winning the war” and “bringing US style democracy” to the people, back to the what it has always been…..tribal wars, war lords, Taliban rule and mayhem. Thanks America, you have done well. Afghanistan will be worse off than it has ever been in its history. They now have had the touch of the USA, God help them. Reminds one of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua and on it goes. They also had the advantage of US “help”, and US values.
Romney of course, has been primed for a war with Iran by the Israelis, singularly the most despised race of people in the world today. They are what they have always been, selfish, corrupt, inhumane and why not? If you make a country like the US, on its last legs financially and morally, conform to your wishes, there will be a big payoff. It has already happened.
What the world is relying on is some stirring in the belly of the average American, who lauded the old days when a Congressman was honest, gave all his efforts for his country and acted without the influences of devious groups like AIPAC, who have been allowed to grow like a cancer.
When we see the climate of OWS appear in every city in the US as unemployment rockets to 25%, probably realistically 15% right now and the elected representatives selling their souls to a hated foreign country, then it may be too late. It may be too late now.
China in the meantime, through great achievements in development and foreign earnings, based on a dictatorial system of government, stands on the other side of the fence, just waiting, waiting, waiting.
They have already estimated a time period of probably 15 years before they can add pressure to the screws to bring America to its knees.
There is nothing more certain than this. Either Romney or Obama will just contribute to this result. They can’t help themselves, both prostrating themselves before their new master.
So if any person today is impressed with the academic arguments of Condoleezza Rice, finding anything of virtue, search out all that happened to America during her tenure and identify one thing that has been of benefit to the USA.
Just one.
Sadly so true.
Pepe Escobar sums it in his recent oped…
“If this is a measure of the level of intellectual debate prevalent in the revolving door between academia, punditry and policymaking, US elites can’t help seeing the future as worse than the Black Death.”
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2012/07/07/iran-wont-crack/