Associated Press
On Afghanistan, these two aren't on the same page.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) talked with ABC's Jake Tapper yesterday via satellite from Afghanistan, and one exchange, in particular, stood out for me.
TAPPER: Let's turn now to Afghanistan, where you're sitting right now. The big news is that Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has confirmed that the United States, the Afghan government, are in three-way talks with the Taliban. Are those talks a mistake?
MCCAIN: No, I think it's important to have talks wherever you can.
This is not at all an unusual position for the senator to take. On the contrary, the consensus among most national security and foreign policy experts is that talks with the Taliban are unavoidable, and may even be a prerequisite to a successful U.S. policy in Afghanistan. It was David Petraeus, in his capacity as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan (before his transition to the CIA), who helped push for these talks in the first place.
What makes McCain's response noteworthy, though, isn't that he agrees with the Obama administration, but rather, that he disagrees with Mitt Romney -- the Republican presidential candidate McCain has enthusiastically endorsed.
The former governor, who has no background in foreign policy or national security, recently proclaimed: "The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers. The right course is to recognize they're the enemy of the United States."
It's a position that isolates Romney to a surprising degree. For example, Romney also rejects the position held by James Shinn, who happens to be Romney's top foreign policy advisor on Afghanistan, and who has said direct talks with the Taliban is "the only way in which this war is likely to end."
Mitchell Reiss, a well-known academic, diplomat, and State Department veteran, is another leading Romney advisor on international affairs. Reiss also backed U.S. talks with the Taliban, only to see his candidate take the opposite position.
Taken together, Romney disagrees with McCain, President Obama, U.S. military leaders, and the people Romney hired to help him understand foreign policy. That doesn't necessarily make Romney wrong -- just because a policy enjoys a consensus doesn't make it right -- but he hasn't been able to explain in any depth why Taliban talks are a mistake.
It also ties into a larger pattern of confusion for Romney. Earlier this month, he condemned the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan based on a rationale that quickly fell apart.
This keeps happening to the former governor. Just recently, Romney flip-flopped on Iraq and couldn't answer a question about an al Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabab, controlling significant territory in Somalia. His take on Iran is gibberish; his call for a trade war with China is nuts; and he's under the false impression that there are "insurgents" in Iran.
Worse, Romney has struggled in this area for quite some time.
Remember the time Romney told ABC News he would "set a deadline for bringing the troops home" from Iraq -- but only if it's a secret deadline? How about the time Romney, more than four years into the war in Iraq, said it's "entirely possible" that Saddam Hussein hid weapons of mass destruction in Syria prior to the 2003 invasion? Or the time Romney pretended "Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood" were all the same thing? How about my personal favorite: the time Romney made the bizarre assertion that IAEA weapons inspectors were not allowed entry into Saddam Hussein's Iraq?
More recently, Romney tried to trash the New START nuclear treaty in an op-ed, prompting Fred Kaplan to respond, "In 35 years of following debates over nuclear arms control, I have never seen anything quite as shabby, misleading and -- let's not mince words -- thoroughly ignorant as Mitt Romney's attack on the New START treaty."
He's even picked a fight over President Obama's strike on Osama bin Laden, ignoring the fact that Romney took an entirely passive attitude towards the al Qaeda leader, saying "it's not worth moving heaven and earth" to get the terrorist responsible for 9/11. Around the same time, Romney said he would not order a strike into Pakistan to get bin Laden, rejecting Obama's willingness "to enter an ally of ours" to target the terrorist leader.
Given that this guy's experience in international affairs is limited to Swiss bank accounts and stashing cash in the Caymans, Romney's efforts to overcome this deficiency in his resume aren't going over well.
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The only area in which Mitt Romney seems less informed than economic policy is foreign affairs - and that's going some distance since he obviously knows nothing about the economy.
Repeated non-partisan surveys and thoughtful news articles alike show conclusively that the main reason the Taliban enjoys any support among people in Afghanistan is because US and NATO troops are seen as foreign invaders who are killing locals. Since the Taliban had no widespread popularity when they ran the country, it isn't too much of a leap to think that once America leaves its support in the countryside will disappear.
I wonder if Romney did as poor a job listening to knowledgeable advisors when he ran Bain as he is doing now?
It's so darn hard to be a demagogue these days. I think Romney should start taking two positions on everything, one for idiots and one for relatively sane people. "I have two positions on talking to the Taliban. One is for idiots - we can't negotiate with the Taliban because they kill Americans. Obama wants to negotiate with the Taliban because he is one; I want to kill them. If you are unmoved by bigotry, however, and would like to hear a rational response, then I say wholeheartedly and in all sincerity that we must negotiate with the Taliban. You can tell how mainstream the idea and how much support it has among foreign policy experts from the fact that even Obama supports it. Yes, that's right - the idea is so simple that even President TelePrompter can grasp it. Negotiating with the Taliban is something any president would do, just like assassinating bin Laden."
"That doesn't necessarily make Romney wrong --" sure it does.
No, it doesn't. If disagreeing with the consensus view makes Romney wrong, then disagreeing with Romney's view makes the consensus wrong. The mere fact of disagreement proves nothing either way. Steve is correct: what Romney needs to do is to provide a supporting reason for his insistence that a negotiated an ending to the Afghan war is wrong, particularly when we've had negotiated endings to wars in the past.
Romney is pandering to the hawks in his party. His positions would be quite different if he were president and facing an unending war in a country that was and still is a failed state. National security and budgetary constraints would force Romney to accept what the military has already prescribed to end the war. The hawks have already moved on to Iran so letting Afghanistan go will not be a big issue.
I'm not so sure that Romney would flip-flop once in office. I'm most scared that a guy like him lacking credibility with his base will feel all the more bound to all the stupid positions he's been taking now on a range of issues, and obligated to see them through.
Nation building has become a corner stone of the Republican party. The party has been beating the drums for war. Just listen to any of their candidates they are all war mongers at any cost. A vote for these people is a vote to kill more innocent women and children .
The Republicans are opposed to nation building here, but not other countries. There is an argument for patriotism in these politics. But Dems can't seem to get the message out.
Mitt,Mitt,Mitt-you and Santorum are the Taliban that threatens us the most here at home. You are right though the American Taliban is our enemy.
From the Underbelly:
Knight-Jadczyk, Laura (2011-02-14). High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions and the Process of Alien Abduction (Kindle Locations 13584-13590). Red Pill Press. Kindle Edition.
key word: "Programming." Like a mindless machine. Of the population. By our government. I find it amusing to be debating a complete fabrication used to die cast people like little idiot tools. drool, drool, drool....
Way to do your job, Prez, and perpetuate pathology. Kudos. And more on its way. Perhaps with Iran? Psychopaths LOVE causing suffering, don't they?! Yum, yum ... tasty. Right Bush?
Although I'm not a fan of Ronald Reagan, he did give voice to some very wise words occasionally, such as when he stated was already obvious to many of us: He stopped stereotyping Russia as an "evil empire" after he "Started talking to each other, instead of about each other."