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Denis Poroy / Reuters
Mitt Romney, center, war veteran Nick Popaditch, left, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., applaud during a Memorial Day event at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center in San Diego on Monday.
SAN DIEGO-- Mitt Romney took advantage of one of his largest crowds of the campaign season on Memorial Day to warn of the dangers of a shrinking U.S. military in a dangerous world.
Echoing portions of his stump speech in which he cites the threat of a resurgent Russia, a nuclear Iran and a rising China as obstacles to an "American Century," Romney closed his speech at this Memorial Day tribute to veterans with a political message about a choice between divergent military philosophies this November.
"We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow the pathway of Europe. To shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs. And they of course rely on the strength of America and they hope for the best. Were we to follow that kind of course, there would be no one that could stand to protect us," Romney told an audience his campaign said numbered roughly 5000 people.
"The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world. We choose that course. We choose that course for America not just so that we can win wars, but so we can prevent wars."
President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney both marked Memorial Day with speeches and politics wasn't far below the surface. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.
Regular rally trappings like pro-Romney signage were absent at this event, which took on a more solemn character than a traditional campaign stop. Romney did not mention or attack the President in his remarks today, which were instead focused on saluting military veterans and their families, including his predecessor in the role of Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, who joined him on stage Monday.
"We're a nation that has been formed and preserved by heroes," Romney said. "John McCain is one of them."
Obama honors fallen troops on Memorial Day
McCain, for his part, also praised Romney, calling him "fully qualified to be commander in chief."
The two men and their pro-military message were warmly received here under the blazing midday sunlight. San Diego is home to the US Navy's Pacific Fleet, and Naval Base San Diego is the largest such military community on the West Coast.
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Rumsfeld said it best:
"As you know, you go to an illegal oil war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
And he was Secretary of Defense at the time. If was his job to make sure we had the Army we wanted. He had had two years to get the Army ready and failed to do his job. Scumbucket.
As the facts become more and more apparent Mitten$ will never be our next President. 6 houses, 11 cars, gardeners for every house, leaving Massachusetts in horrible debt, 47th out of 50 states in jobs creation, and on and on. Those are facts. The facts are that he is totally out of his league and out of touch with our middle class. You know the middle class? The ones who have paid the way for this coutnry for years. Romney wants to cut medicare, social security, education, etc. No way. No how.
Well the only problem with your saying is Obama and Mittens are twins. So you should of listed both of them in you comment. They are all about destroying are liberties and making us a socialist country (which we are basically now).
The US used chemical weapons and cluster bombs in Iraq.. Really humane.
Study after study has shown the American military of tomorrow will have to be smaller, quicker, and more mobile, aligned with the best technology on the planet. We do not need to beef up our forces, or does he have a plan to pay for that without escalating the GOP war on the middle class?
Rod - I agree. Romney knows this. It's a freaking speech. Obama would say some BS too.
And you know it.
I wanted to Honor the people that lost there lives due to wars , and there families , that gave us the choices we have today , gifts of freedom .
We as a Nation have due to our Strenth , showed that we can help start / finish wars as a price, loose a lot in lives of our soldiers, completely distroy our way of life in the process high debt ( too much money wasted . less $ for local communities ). I am proud when I see good from our military , but now is a time to regroup , think about healing soldiers . Investing in the US , Shrink the money the military uses and show we can rebuild our towns, schools , roads , commerce - and that shows as much strenth and more that having a super large military without killing the nation from within. I look at the rants from negtitive people about China / Russia - completely off track - they know it would be the downfall of the world .
The thing stands out the most is how negleted we have made our roads , cities, schools , police /health care , old and young , rich and poor . WHO cares if we have the largest miltary if we cant send somone educated to use the equipment , or drive our roads to the bases .
OUR downfall isnt China /Russia / ME - its greed , the poor /rich / middle class / all of us have forgot to invest in ourself ( USA) we try - by bashing ideas that are not growing us as a nation , look at congress , look at the posts , look at bashing old president and possibly a new president .
All so negitive , and that scares me , a war - I am sure - takes issues ( debt) and puts it on the back burner - we focus foward - bigest problem - and continue forward - IT may be me - but look back at the last war - HOW much did it take away from really looking at the problems of the back burner boiling over. ( banks , gas $$, housing collaps , cities over budget ) is that how WH/congress deal with the problems now - make a larger one to have us focus on that.
Sorry about my rant , But didnt attack anyone * ok congress/WH* my views are mine , but not at the expense of " people with same or differnt backgrounds"
I hope you enjoyed (being with family, as much as possible) the reason we have this day , remembering all of the sacrfices we as a nation made , now and in the past .
Answer this question. What will you do when the military is weakened and China or Russia or any number of adversaries decides the time is right to push the envelope? Send them hugs and kisses? Say please stop? To think that there are no nations that would take advantage of a weak U.S. is ludicrous and dangerous.
We don't have to weaken our military if we just pull our boys and girls home and let other countries pay to defend themselves. To indicate reduced spending is an equation for a weak military is ludicrous.
LL
So if you don't spend money on your military it will reamin strong and powerful? That is ludicrous.
Ross: It's time to try and learn something about world affairs! The United States defense budget is EQUAL to the rest of the world's defense budgets all together! Further, the economies of Russia and China are weak even though you want to make them superpowers. Neither is that. China has 1 billion three hundred million people; the United States does not even have 300 million people. Can you even grasp what it costs the Chinese to CLOTHE their military let alone produce the weapons necessary to arm them?
The Chinese learned a great deal from the American Viet Nam experience. The military questions and answers are in technology---research, development, and EDUCATION!
What country since 1945 has sent its military to one brush fire after another across the planet??!?? Do you see Russian and Chinese governments doing that? American taxpayers have been footing the bills; our underclass kids have been doing the fighting and dying; and right wing, fear mongering, conspiracy theorists see a Muslim, or a Chinese, or a Russian behind every tree and sand dune. Hell, it's not enough that our taxpayers are funding the largest military budget on earth the right wing wants more and more and more. To do what, for crying out loud? If I see the Russians or the Chinese or some Muslim country start pouring the amount of money into their defense budgets that we do, then I'll start getting concerned. The fact is no country is doing that and hasn't been for years.
I am aware of World affairs thank you very much. 911 didn't require a lot of money. Time is pretty much all it required. Fact is in the history of man the weak do not survive at least not as well as the strong.
Ross: I agree, the strong dominate the weak in the history of humankind. Given the economic and military power of the American Republic today, who is our enemy? When I see other countries starting to spend enormous amounts of money on their defense budgets, then I'll start to be concerned. But, like I say, that isn't happening and hasn't happened in years. I'm not suggesting for a moment that we need to eliminate the military or cut it to a point where we no longer can protect ourselves. I am saying since our military budget equals that of the rest of the world put together, we need to do some serious trimming.
First off this is not an either or question. Why do we need to spend our hard earned money to supply 63 bases in Germany? Japan can defend itself and so can S. Korea so we don't need bases there. After all we're buying all their products they can use the proceeds in taxes to defend themselves instead of making an economy to rival ours.
Pull our boys and girls home and stop spending money on weapons that even the military doesn't want. Weapons they don't want, try the fang-dangled new landing craft for Marines. When do you think will be the next time our Marines will be storming the beaches of Tripoli, Okinawa, or Normandy? Not any time real soon. Helicopter maybe but not landing craft. Yet we are building them and Congress refuses to defund it because the craft are being made in the home district of an influential Congressman.
Only a Democratic administration would have the guts to ask for defunding but then only if there is a majority in both houses. What a shame we have a republican House of Reps.
LL
I have one question for Mr Romney. How many of our brave military personnel have died because of senseless wars that REPUBLICAN president Bush got us into. You talk about a dwindling military. I don't want any military persons family to think that I don't respect what they have done for their country. I myself was in one of those kind of wars, Viet Namn. I came back to our country a hated person, by my own countryman, I refuse to let that happen to the young men fighting for our country now. I do think that the wars that we fight should be for a good reason and Iraq war was not for a good reason. President Bush had his own agenda, and I can't respect that. I, like the men fighting today do what we have to because we were and are in the military, be it right or wrong. We elect politicians to make the right decisions for us and sometimes they do have their own agendas and our military personnel die. I want to thank ALL millitary personnel for their service, be it right or wrong. I wish I had a better way to put this, but I have lived it and still live with it, I have no other or better way to put it. God be with you all.
Bush's agenda = kill the man that tried to kill my Daddy.
The military numbers were not all that important to the Bush administration. Anybody that gave an accurate estimate about the manpower needed for success in Iraq lost their job.
Our wars are more about defending wealth and/or oil and less about defending this country. In fact our war in Afghanistan, a country that definitely had it coming, was neglected so long as to make it a waste of effort, money and lives. Any chance, no matter how remote, to makeover the region was squandered long ago.
Shrinking the military is not nearly as perilous as having this pathological liar creep as our President. He's a joke, and what foreign leader would respect that creep.
Obama/Biden/Pelosi-2012
Big military? You betcha! Nothing like a little war now and again to fill the coffers of our friends like Halliburton and other contractors. And if a few folks give their lives? Well, we've always got Memorial Day to say thanks to them, play taps, shed a few tears, and then go right back to ignoring them and their post traumatic problems. Yep, I'm going to vote for my friend Mitt cause with him in the White House, we can all have all of this to continue to look forward to.
BTW, it won't be my sons or daughters that pay the ultimate sacrifice. After all we have an all volunteer military and my 1% kids don't join in the same percentages as you 99% do. That is how they think.
LL
yes, heaven forbid that the military industrial complex and all those contractors should lose out on all those gov't contracts....
God bless our troops -- not the war profiteers!
One president said "beware of the military industrial complex"...and that was Eisenhower who was a Republican.
Excellent visuals to have soon-to-be-President Romney attending a Memorial Day event with war hero John McCain. Excellent speech as well.
Newt Gingrich of all people gave a great defense of Romney's role at Bain capital attacks, and pushed Bob McDonnell as a great VP choice.
The Romney campaign is on a roll !
But a good ball always rolls downhill.
LL
To all you people with your heads in the sand......we must have a strong military, plain and simple. Do I think we should be fighting all these wars...of course not. You lead the World from strength, not weakness. Forget the politics....we must remain strong, period !
We don't have to weaken our military if we just pull our boys and girls home and let other countries pay to defend themselves. To indicate reduced spending is an equation for a weak military is ludicrous.
Strong in debt. The best and modern military with borrowed money from China. That is how Great Britain and the Soviet Union collapsed.
So MItt vows to cut taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy, and to significantly increase the defense budget ... all while reducing the federal deficit.
Romney must be using the same creative accounting methods that helped him to make huge profits for himself and his co-investors ... buying and selling businesses, laying off thousands of workers, and hiding earnings in offshore accounts when he was running Bain.
Naw. That's the other Mitt Romney. The one who strapped his dog to the top of his car until the poor animal defecated down his windshield thus obstructing his view. That's not the Mitt Romny running for president.
Mitt Romney is as phoney as ever. And who does John McCain think he is , the poster boy for the military. Doesn't he know he can only milk that POW cow for so long. The whole thing reeks of phoniness.
Well we had the largest military in the world in 2000 and that neither prevented a war nor has helped us win the current one. We certainly have the strongest and best trained military in the world - none other comes even close. But to suggest that there is a direct link between size of military budget and effectiveness is foolish. I always find it interesting that the same politicians who scream about efficiency and "right-sizing" government and spending money wisely are the same ones who back away from questioning any military expenditure. It seems few politicians are strong enough to risk being called weak.
ROMNEY supported GOP LIE = Iraq WMDs =4,500 dead, 200,000 injured U.S. soldiers + cost $2TRILLION. Obama voted no. U pik prez = U decide how many soldiers will die.
This is what we'll get if Romney is elected more military industrial complex, more war profiteering and the expansion of the American empirical military dominance around the world. More of the same tactics that have made the world a more dangerous place.
"Social Needs" are an endlessly increasing money pit unless we start taking responsibility for our own actions. Government cannot and need not do everything for us. Simply because it is incapable of doing so. Remember, for the last 3 years the US Senate has willfully failed to pass a budget. The US Post Office is in financial trouble because our clueless elected bureaucrats are willfully running it into the ground. Bureaucrats cannot run anything efficiently, this is what they do, waste our money. I'm all for a strong military, if it is financially efficiently run.
The military is not financially efficiently run. Even Secretary Gates, respected by both parties, said it should be cut. Watch movie " Iraq for Sale " online and u will agree:
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6621486727392146155
No, I will not vote for Mr. Romney or any other Republican. I actually did in the past and am not sorry. Today is a brand new ball game from my point of view.
We don't need to increase the military. Defense spending is great for rich Republicans who are tied to defense contractors, but I am not one of them. I've also seen ro been part of twelve wars since I was born, both here and abroad. If we need a military, then reinstate the draft with less holes for certain people to squirm out of.
Social values, Republican style, aren't my choice either. Attending a house of worship proves nothing to me, because I'm more interested in how you conduct your life and how much you understand the people around you, on all levels.
And as a woman. I have nothing in common with Republican men. Slavery and Uncle Tomism don't sit well with me. Nor does a bunch of tired old men telling me how to live my life, only makes me yearn for a way to neuter the bunch.
We need to pull in our bases from all over the world and let Europe, Japan, south korea, and the rest of the free loader countries take care of themselves. We need to make a Fortress America warning Hostile Nations that any attack on us will unleash more Nukes than the world has ever seen before, and mean it.
Did he mention the peril of him losing campaign contributions from defense suppliers?
Hey, Romney, feel free to throw some of your millions in the military pot!