USA Politics

I can't believe how people from outside the US can support Mitt Romney... The only thing he wants regarding foreign policy is WAR WAR WAR and more war. And then there are people that hate Obama because he has been pacifier than other presidents... The US would need a war in their own soil to know war isn't the best for the world.
 
So, in a close race, doesn't it usually come down on the side of the incumbent? Other than Bush/Gore, I can't think of too many recent elections that have been all that close. Maybe I'm just crazy. It seems as if there is a 10-ish% of the [voting] population that just doesn't know and is going to make up their minds as they are standing looking at the punch card. How bout that, after all the stuff that's been done and said, and money spent, its going to come down to someone's mood when they look at the voting card.
 
Obama has won 2 debates, Romney 1. Sorry, Obama is right, because a nuclear Iran isn't a threat to the USA at all. It's a threat to Israel, which, last time I checked, isn't a state.

Also, Romney's foreign policy is very similar to Obama's. Beh. It's all bullshit anyway.
 
I think it is 2-1 Obama in debates, however if you look at this like an NHL game. Romney scored 5 goals in the first, and Obama won the other two periods 2-1. I am not sure how reliable the insta polls are, my guess is moderatly at best. But the CNN one for example had Obama winning this debate by 8, but Romney won the "change your vote" by 1.

Like the second debate, I do not see this one as much of a game changer, the momentum still seems to be with Romney, the question is: is it enough to overtake Obama in Ohio. Guess we will see in a few weeks.

On an ad related note, I spent 4 days in Colorado earlier in the month. 5 of 6 ads were political (Presidential Race, plus 2 Congressional races) ... feel very sorry for them.

Where I live there is one race for the Texas Senate that is generating some ads that are pretty disgusting on both sides (one person is for rape and another bilks millions from taxpayers).

Today I saw my very first ad for the US Senate race. Ted Cruz aired a positive ad, not sure why he bothered since the opposition is putting up nothing. I imagine it is a "reminder, there is a Sentate race this year" ad.
 
There you go, "It's their route to the sea...." REALLY? hmm, there's two seas bordering Iran and there is a little country known to us as Iraq between Iran and Syria...
 
Not really sure what he was trying to say there with the route to the sea, maybe the Mediterranean (does Iran lease ports from Syria ... I do not know) ... not sure. Not sure that is that big of a deal.
 
The Washington Post Fact checked this

Mitt Romney repeated his contention that Syria is Iran’s route to the sea. This is a puzzling claim, 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 Fact Checker column has looked into this before.
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.
Click to expand...
 
Just seen your last post. Don't know about a base being built there, either way it was a dumb statement. Last night was definately Romney's worst debate performance. He didn't even go after Obama over the embassy fiasco when he had the chance.
 
Whatever point he was trying to make, he could have said it better for sure. I think he probably attacked too much in debate 2 and over compensated in this debate by easing off too much. It is generally harder though to attack on Foreign than Domestic Policy ... especially when their positions are reasonably similar on most issues,
 
Well, Romney isn't that wrong. Iran's access to the sea is far from ideal. It's main ports, Abadan, Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, are all inside the Persian Gulf. The catch with that is that the only way out of the Persian Gulf is the very narrow Strait of Hormuz, which is internationally disputed, and can simply be locked up by American or Arab ships. The Iranian shore along the Gulf of Oman is full of reefs and hardly navigable, and there is no port of note there - not to mention it happens to be one of the most remote parts of Iran and one of the most desolate areas of the world. But even if Iranian ships make it out of the Persian Gulf, in order to access the Mediterranean, they have to cross two further bottlenecks, the Bab al Mandab, which just so happens to have American ships harboured in Aden, and the Suez Canal, which anybody with a big ship can lock up if convenient.
 
So Romney -- a Harvard-educated guy who ran a state and a private equity firm, and has accomplished quite a bit in his life -- is not a moron. What a stunner.
 
LooseCannon said:
a nuclear Iran isn't a threat to the USA at all
Click to expand...

LC is a smart guy, but that was not a smart statement. Of COURSE it is a threat. Not because Iran will declare war on the US and launch ICBMs. That wouldn't happen. But, I doubt Iran will have any compunction about arming "unofficial" militants and terrorists with small nuclear devices to be used against the countries of which Iran is not overly fond--such as the USA and, yes, Israel. Those would be a threat to everyone in the world. Plus, Israel is more strategically important to the USA than, say, North Dakota. (That's a joke, but not by much.)
 
The thing is, the US should try a diplomatic solution, not the approach of Israel of attacking like mad mans Iran in a "pre-emptive" strike. Then that logic could be use to attack any country that is a "possible threat" to "the US".
 
When you say 'small nuclear devices', you mean like in the movie Peacemaker? (right, Clooney?) I've always worried about something like that... a small dirty bomb, as opposed to a missile strike. Missiles can be knocked down by jet fighters or AA missiles (right? I really don't know, but that makes sense in my head). Its the small nuke that someone gets across the Mexican border into California and up to L.A. that is scary, because the only real defense is the border.... Again, that is just what it seems like to me. I know that my view of things like that is very tainted by movies and 24.
 
It takes two for a diplomatic solution ... I do not see Iran as the being too open to compromise. At some point it will take a change of leadership in Iran and get us to the point where we can actually have an Embassy there again at some point.
 
lol no terrorist would ever use Mexico as a way of getting a bomb into the US. It's easier to make one inside... In Mexico there are many things that could make the operation go wrong, and the border is very well protected, the only ones that get illegal stuff inside the US are drug cartels and those would never risk that much to get a bomb to a major consuming area.
 
I love how the US use countries like if they were merely tools... wasnt Irak an ally to the US and they supported them in the 80's in their war against Iran? Wasn't the Nazi Germany an ally to the Western Powers against the USSR before WW2?
 
The West was not aligned with Nazi Germany against the USSR... France and GB made efforts to re-establish the WWI alliance with Russia, but Germany was able to conclude a pact first, as they were able to gve the USSR territory the West could not.

As for Iraq v Iran ... they went to war for their own reasons, on the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" theory, the US did send arms to Iraq ... of course this was not long after Iran stormed our embassy, killed the Ambassador,made a series of threats to Israel, etc. The people running Iran are quite dangerous and I am not sure of the logic behind blaming the US for this.
 
Please, Nazis received a lot of help from the Western Powers before they became anti-west, they saw them as a way of blocking communism from reaching to western Europe. Later they saw they were also a big menace to them so they had to have war. And if the US is being hated in other countries, that's because the US have done things that made that people begin to not-like them. Though hating too much is wrong, but I just say that the US is seen as the bully in most countries.
 
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