Mitt Romney wants to live in “a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.” And based on yesterday’s much ballyhooed foreign policy speech, there is only one why to make sure that happens: War, all day, everyday.
Like many on the right, Romney believes that American exceptionalism is defined solely by our ability to kick everyone else’s asses. Even worse, he believes that the reason the U.S. is in the mess that we are in in the Middle East is because we haven’t been kicking ass in the kind of exceptional way we did in World War II and, well, that’s about it. (In case you’ve forgotten: WWI was a failure that only led to another war, the Korean war is still going on, Vietnam was a disaster, the Persian Gulf War produced a sequel, that sequel was a long hard slog, and the Afghanistan War is still claiming American lives. Our record is exceptional all right, exceptionally shitty.)
In his foreign policy speech, Romney threatens Iran, China, and Russia, letting each know in so many ways that they’re Ben Stiller to his Robert De Niro. He’s got his eyes on them, and they are not and can never be in his circle of trust. That honor belongs to Israel and Israel alone. And if Iran, China, and Russia step out of line, he’ll fockerize them and fockerize them good.
And when Mitt’s not threatening the Three Big Bads, he’s promising to wage war on behalf of all of our Facebook friends in the Middle East — or at least those who will one day be our followers, that is if we help them overthrow the governments that are keeping them from turning their nations into proper Islamic republics that, you know, elect hard-line Muslim fundamentalists who hate America’s military presence in the Middle East and inspire their countrymen to launch suicide attacks and build jerry—rigged IEDs.
And he wants to ramp up the production of American war ships and beef up our presence in the Persian Gulf and the eastern half of the Mediterranean and force the other members of NATO to militarize, all in the name of keeping the Middle East in check.
Romney even goes as far as proclaim that the people of the Middle East want us to do all of this. We don’t want to bomb their cities, invade their homes, kill their children, and piss all over their holy books. No. They want us to. It’s not us. It’s them.
In fact, they are desperately waiting for us to take them by the hand and beat them into submission. Then and only then, will they know that all is right with the world. America is once again on top and they are on the bottom taking it up the ass.
But first, these desperate people in the Middle East — nay, the rest of the world — want the U.S. to take care of itself first. They want us to show them that we still have faith in ourselves — that we have the will and the wisdom to revive our stagnant economy, to roll back our unsustainable debt, to reform our government, and to reverse the catastrophic cuts now threatening our national defense. That is the single most fucking important thing on their minds.
And why do they want this? Well, it’s because we are the greatest, most exceptional nation to ever exist, and the white man’s burden of running the world has fallen to us. If we don’t do it, someone else will, and then the world will become a much darker place.
In Romney’s world, America is a torch of decency and hope, but I can’t think of anything more hopeless than a foreign policy that advocates a never-ending war in the Middle East and I can’t think of anything more indecent then holding the rest of the world hostage at gun point.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No newspaper subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations from downtown to North Charleston to Johns Island to Summerville to Mount Pleasant.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.