Exclusive: Mitt
Romney gave a rousing speech about how his foreign policy would be much
more muscular than President Obama’s. But Romney displayed again his
proclivity to lie on specifics and distort the broader reality, too,
writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
While it’s true that all politicians play games with the facts, it is
actually rare for a politician to be an inveterate liar. But Mitt
Romney is one of that rare breed on matters both big and small. And with
some polls showing his surge toward victory on Nov. 6, his dishonesty
may soon become an issue for the entire world.
Romney’s foreign policy speech on Monday was another example of his
tendency to lie on minor stuff as well as weighty issues. For instance,
he claimed that President Barack Obama “has not signed one new free
trade agreement in the past four years” though Obama secured passage of
agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and signed them in
October 2011.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. (Photo credit: mittromney.com)
Romney apologists suggest that the Republican presidential nominee
was hanging his truthiness on the word “new” since negotiations on the
agreements began late in George W. Bush’s presidency. But the work was
completed by Obama and he pushed the deals through Congress despite
resistance from some of his own supporters in labor unions.
So, by any normal use of the English language, Obama had signed new trade agreements, but Romney simply stated the opposite.
Romney also accused Obama of staying “silent” in the face of street
protests in Iran over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in
2009. But Obama wasn’t “silent.” He did speak out, with his comments
becoming increasingly harsh as more images of violence emerged.
“The United States and the international community have been appalled
and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few
days,” the President said on June 23, 2009. He added that he strongly
condemned “these unjust actions.”
If Romney wished to criticize Obama for not condemning Iran in even
stronger terms or for not using his harshest language immediately that
might be one thing, but to say, the President was “silent” is just a
lie.
More broadly, Romney’s depiction of U.S. foreign policy as weak and
feckless under Obama is almost the inverse from the truth. For instance,
Obama helped organize an international military force to wage war in
Libya, enabling rebels to overthrow longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi,
but Romney acts as if that never happened.
Instead, Romney lays every foreign policy problem at Obama’s door and
credits others with every accomplishment, including the killings of
Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.
On that topic, Romney said: “America can take pride in the blows that
our military and intelligence professionals have inflicted on Al-Qaeda
in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the killing of Osama bin Laden.”
But Romney gives no credit to Obama for ordering these strikes
and taking criticism from many on the Left for his aggressive use of
drone attacks.
The Palestine Flip-Flop
Another jaw-dropping example of Romney’s dishonesty was his sudden
embrace of negotiations leading to a Palestinian state after he was
recorded in his infamous “47 percent speech” last May as deeming such
talks hopeless.
“I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for
political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of
Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there’s just no way,” Romney
told a group of wealthy donors. “The Palestinians have no interest
whatsoever in establishing peace and that the pathway to peace is almost
unthinkable to accomplish.”
As for what the U.S. policy would be in a Romney administration, he said, “we kick the ball down the field.”
However, on Monday, Romney declared: “I will recommit America to the
goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side
in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”
And again, all the blame for the impasse is placed on Obama: “On this
vital issue, the President has failed, and what should be a negotiation
process has devolved into a series of heated disputes at the United
Nations. In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the
Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew.”
And then, there’s the traditional hypocrisy that you get from both
parties but most notably from the Republicans, preaching the value of
liberty and democracy but advocating ever closer ties with the
oppressive monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
Romney declared about Obama’s approach to the Arab Spring that “the
greater tragedy of it all is that we are missing an historic opportunity
to win new friends who share our values in the Middle East — friends
who are fighting for their own futures against the very same violent
extremists, and evil tyrants, and angry mobs who seek to harm us.”
However, Romney then added, “I will deepen our critical cooperation with our partners in the Gulf.”
Neocon Revival
Besides the lies and misrepresentations in the speech, there were
some genuine policy differences expressed by the Republican presidential
nominee. For instance, he vowed to expand the U.S. military and to
deploy it more aggressively around the globe.
Romney also repeated his pledge to yoke U.S. foreign policy to
Israel’s desires. “The world must never see any daylight between our two
nations,” he said.
And Romney renewed his belligerence against Russia, which he had
previously deemed “without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe.” In his
speech on Monday, Romney said, “I will implement effective missile
defenses to protect against threats. And on this, there will be no
flexibility with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.”
Despite the Depression-level economic crisis gripping Europe, Romney
also announced that he “will call on our NATO allies to keep the
greatest military alliance in history strong by honoring their
commitment to each devote 2 percent of their GDP to security spending.
Today, only 3 of the 28 NATO nations meet this benchmark.”
One might regard Romney’s neoconservative revival as delusional in a
variety of ways – further driving the United States toward bankruptcy
even as U.S. interventionism in the Muslim world would surely make
matters worse – but it is Romney’s reliance on systematic lying that
perhaps should be more troubling to American voters.
Romney has long been known as a serial flip-flopper who changes
positions to fit the political season, but his pervasive mendacity has
been a concern since the Republican primaries when his GOP rivals
complained about him misrepresenting their positions and reinventing his
own. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “
Mitt Romney: Professional Liar.”]
That pattern has continued into the general election campaign, with
Romney telling extraordinary whoppers on the campaign trail and even
during last Wednesday’s presidential debate, such as when he claimed his
health-care plan covered people with pre-existing conditions when it
doesn’t. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “
Mitt Romney as Eddie Haskell.”]
Strategic Lying
One reason that I criticized Romney’s debate performance – though
many other Americans, including many Democrats, disagreed with my
assessment – was that I felt his lying and his squirrely behavior were
more important than Obama’s sluggishness. Telling lies while waving your
arms shouldn’t trump telling the truth in a moderate tone.
Indeed, as a journalist, I simply cannot abide politicians who lie
systematically, who don’t just trim the truth once in a while but make
falsehoods a strategic part of their politics and policies.
When I arrived in Washington in 1977 as a reporter for the Associated
Press, the nation had just emerged from the Vietnam War and the
Watergate scandal. To reassure the country that the government could be
honest, President Jimmy Carter promised never to lie to the American
people.
But then came the Reagan administration with its concept of
“perception management,” i.e., the manipulation of the public’s fears
and prejudices for the purpose of lining up the people behind new
foreign adventures. A chief “public diplomacy” goal of the
administration was to cure the American people of “the Vietnam
Syndrome.”
Thus, minor threats, like peasant uprisings in Central America, were
portrayed as part of a grand Soviet strategy to invade the United States
through Texas. The strength of the Soviet Union was itself exaggerated
to justify a massive U.S. military build-up. Today’s neocons cut their
teeth of such distortions and lies.
Post 9/11, with George W. Bush in the White House, this neocon
strategy of fear-mongering led the United States into the debacle of the
Iraq War (in pursuit of imaginary weapons of mass destruction).
Now, less than a year after U.S. military forces left Iraq — and with
a withdrawal from Afghanistan finally underway — the latest polls
suggest that the American voters are shifting toward the election of
another neocon President who promises more soaring rhetoric about U.S.
“exceptionalism” and more interventionism abroad.
It’s almost as if many Americans like being lied to.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra storie
s in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
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