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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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Mitt following the teapublican playbook to the word I see... massive military, invade/bomb countries, outsource everything, overtax the poor/middle class while decreasing tax burden on their wealthy puppet masters. Sadly they are counting on American's not having a very good memory and to not notice the stench still lingering from eight years of W following the exact same plan. People, it isn't that difficult!!! Mittens has already said he is running on an updated version of the Bush policies - we all know where that ended up!!!
Ahh yes, the ole W plan, you mean the one Obama has been going by since he became president? Spending keeps going up, debt keeps going up, they keep killing people around the world, and yet you idiots sit here and argue about Republicans and Democrats as if there is 10 cents worth of difference between the 2.
@Moose - no, sorry to bust your bubble but Obama's spending budget has been smaller than any President over the last 30 years or so. The big ticket items that are crushing our budget right now are the Bush tax cuts, unfunded prescription loopholes, and two unfunded wars!
Hey Mitt and McCain:
Let's try paying off the $3.7 trillion we still owe on the wars since 9/11 before we go increasing the DOD budget again.
FYI - The TOTAL cost of Iraq and Afghanistan COMBINED was about $1.1 trillion from the time the conflicts started to the time Bush left office. Your quote of $3.7 trillion has been de-bunked over and over - unless you are counting the money Obama has spent as well. Even then, I don't believe the amount is as high as you claim. The GAO has the actual numbers, if you're interested.
Tammy, what he is probably referring to is DOD spending since the wars started. Since we have military bases in just about every freaking country in the world, the military spends large amounts of money whether we are at war or not, so it is hard to say.
Moose, hate to point this out but prior to Dubwa the US was downsizing all over the world. They closed lots of bases overseas. Once the wall came down we no longer needed to be affraid of and enemy that really wasn't there.
I'll vote for anyone who will force the Mexicans in my American neighborhood to take down their Mexican flags on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day.
That is where we should be using our military. On our borders.
If only Washington would listen to Americans.
It would unfair to Romney if we cut down our military, Bush got to start 2 Wars! So should Romney!
Idiots. We expanded our military to serve the needs of fighting the 2 wars, now that we are drawing down from the wars, makes only sense to reduce the size of the military. I mean, it makes sense only if you are not a Republican, spend more money, bigger debt, makes them look patriotic right! Wrong.
I am glad that Mitt is finally getting his message out. It will help President Obama win in a landslide.
It's apparent that Mitt Romney yellow,coward,draft dodging Chickenhawk has embraced the Neocon way. Like his mentor Cheney he was too busy to serve,so he swerved! How many of his sons have served? None you say! How many family members saved? None you say! Being a vet I can't stand yellow draft dodging Chickenhawks! Every major war since the Revolution I've had a family member serve! The military can be streamlined to make it more efficient. But Romneys contractors buddies would make less profit of course,and that's unacceptable to Mitt!
Excuse me --- Has your idol, Obama, served in the military? If he hasn't, then you have no room to complain about Romney as it is not a requirement to run for the office of President. If it had been, obama would have been dis-qualigied fron the get-go, as would have Clinton (now there was a draft dodger! I mean, he went to college to get out of it!)
"Clinton - now there was draft dodger...he went to college"...
You mean like Romney did?
Interesting Tammy;
Clinton got a college deferment - that is bad!
Romney gets a college deferment - that is good!
They were both "draft eligible"...with deferments
Obama was never part of a draft!
b dune don't try to confuse tammy with facts. gop education you know.
oh and tammy lets not forget:
Cheney's Five Draft Deferments During the Vietnam Era
but you are ok with that right? hypocricy much?
Romney is too dumb to realize that today with the high tec weapons we do not need a massive giant military and besides that there will be plenty of volunteers if a war becomes really necessary. I can't hardly believe this idiot is running for president. Now with Trump by his side showing everybody his ignoramous he is bound to lose the election. When i see idiots like Trump and Romney saying the stupid things that they say it makes me very proud of my redneck high school diploma for they are suppose to be far more educated than i but i really have my doubts now.
Two shining examples of yellow neocon chicken hawks,Cheney and Romney They love to start wars,but would never serve because they're cowards.
Listen to this ideologically isolated chicken-hawk rattle the "feckless" sabers of his campaign at your own peril. Even Colin Powell said last week that Romney's foreign policy advisory team is over half comprised of Bush-43 team neo-con members and that, as far the General could discern, all of his advisors---100%--- believed the Iraq War was correct. We have a chance to reverse the course of neo-con economic and political self-destruction...stay the course on Obama.
FYI: Not that it matters to the factual truth and reasoning of my comments---but I'm a USAF veteran...Vietnam era.
If Romney is so worried about the Military, maybe he can increase the taxes on his billionaire buddies to pay for it. And if China is such a threat, why do we buy everything from them ?
Don't worry. The Republicans would never go to war against China. It would hurt Wal-Mart.
Better yet, how about those private investors paying for the next one. You know, those rich guys that are offering up monies to help get the economy going again.
He wants a big military , but he doesn't think the wealthy have to pay for it . Let's see how he can build the military with more tax cuts . Bush tried and failed so will he . Tax cuts and big military are mutually exclusive . So mister tough talk Mitt put your money where your mouth is .
Here we go again. IN 2000, we elected one draft dodging Republican "war hawk" and that ended up getting us a ten year war in Iraq from which we're still trying extricate ourselves; now along comes Mitt Romney, another guy who never served, telling us how necessary it is for America to increase military spending, using the rationale that if America doesn't continue to lead, we'll be the same as Europe whose simply paid lip service to the problem areas of the world and lets America foot the bill, both in money and blood. I shudder to think where we'll be in four years if we let this peacenik (when he was young enough to be serving) gain the White House and start a repeat of the saber rattling G.W. Bush gave us back when he was in office!
And before that, we elected a draft-dodging philanderer. Your point is?
the rather obvious point is that romney is sounding a lot like bush and bush was a military disaster, unlike clinton.
your point is, well, not a point. :)
Tammy--What did Romney do during the Vietnam War? Oh, that's right. He supported the war, dodged the draft and went to Paris.
Tammy for past two decades every elected president has had a deferment. The only problem is, is that those who started the never ending wars were the ones who went AWOL for a year and the other could have written a book on how to get deferments the easy way until the draft is over. Dub-ya and Cheney. The best draft dodgers America ever produced but the most willing to send our young men and women to be killed, maimed and forgotten to fight their Military Industrial Complex backed wars.
Romney is a draft dodger just like a lot of the little rich boys that ran as fast as they could to get married when i went to the army in 67. The rule at that time was if you were married you could get moved off the draft list.There were more weddings that year in the county i live in than ever before. I even had the county books looked at a few years ago to prove it. Romney fits right in the draft dodger catagory.
As does Clinton.
except the article isn't about clinton calling for more military, is it?
That's a great argument tammy; your guy sucks, went to france and played missionary, had 5 sons that the thought never occured to him to maybe have one of the brats serve their country in another area besides riding around in an rv trying to get him elected and all you can come with is clinton did it to. now that's impressive......
I do not support Romney for President. Yet, I feel shame (as an American) that the presumptive nominee for President of the United States would use this solemn day to brazenly campaign by promoting even more defense spending.
We already have the power to destroy all life on our planet 10 times over. U.S. military spending is 7 times that of China(our nearest competitor in defense spending) and approximately 50% of all of the world combined. We have approximately 900 military bases in over 125 nations (though some of them are minimal). That does not include the destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers scattered through-out the seas of the world. I think the word "over-kill" is insufficient to describe our military spending as it is today.
Romney and his ilk promote even more defense spending as they insist on policing the world and waging preemptive wars for the first time in our history. All of this as they insist that we can no longer afford to feed hungry American children or care for our elderly.
We were warned by our 34th President(who served as one our greatest generals during WW2) of the dangers of indulging the mighty military industrial complex. We ignored his dire warning for most of the next 50 years. We face the consequences of our actions today with massive debt and a severely struggling economy. War is as extremely profitable for the privileged few as it is extremely costly to the average American citizen. This madness must stop now before the U.S.A. faces the same fate as the old U.S.S.R. by following in her footsteps.
I'm more ashamed that the foot-in-mouth, draft-dodger, Biden spoke at West Point.
One of Joe Biden's two sons served our military in Iraq. None of Mitt Romney's five sons served in our military. Biden has a personal stake in our military endeavors along with many other Americans (with loved ones serving in the military). Romney has none.
I for one am sick of this childish mentality of "America is number one" number one for what? As far as I'm concerned we have drones and we have nukes. I'm sick to death of America always coming to the rescue. Fighting wars that have nothing to do with us (Iraq) and policing the worlds villains. America is always on a war footing and it is zapping our strength in other areas, truth be told America cannot afford to cut it's military. It's tentacles spread into every aspect of our economy. Can you imagine the layoffs and bankruptcies that would result in major cuts to the military? The American Taliban Party would have to tell their friends that the profits they make off of the military are over. If Europe wants a missle shield let'em build it themselves. Iran? Please give me a break. Excuses, excuses that's all you get, imagine for one second all that could be done with even a quarter of the military budget helping in other areas. NATO, UN bye bye, two institutions that are no longer relevant. Our military cannot do everything, it did us no good on 9/11 we weren't attack by a nation. When the America Taliban Party held the US congress hostage over the debt limit and demanded cuts during a time when we didn't need to shock the economy more than it already was they agreed to sever cuts if the committee didn't come up with cuts, they didn't and the cuts are coming and now the American Taliban Party are trying to stop the cuts to the military that they agreed to in the first place. Talk about grandstanding. I simply don't think America needs a military the size of ours anymore.
If we could put a man on the moon you think we could keep Americans safe by mining the US Mexico border.
The real enemy we should have been watching out for was touting how patriotic they are while the whole time they are doing everything they can to destroy our country from the inside. I remember saying the words "defend against all enemies foreign and domestic". It's about time someone reminds them they work for us. Vote the GOP out of existence.
It's no surprise to me that Rompey turned this solemn day into a political rally for his election. What a draft dodging pig!
It'll be interesting to see if this shrinkage will reflect on our service acadamies as well.
So am I supposed to believe that if our troops aren't in Afghanistan somehow we're going to be less safe?
How does spending a million dollars on a cruise missile make me any safer when the people who attacked us on 9/11 went at us with box cutters?
I heard the the total amount of gang bangers in the United States constitute the 15th largest army in the world. Do you include these guys in your figures??
Its nice to see someone who hid from the military praise it while taking a swing at President Obama. Only in America!!
OBAMA's military experience is getting gay with a GI Joe doll when he was a kid.
and yet he's been more effective than bush in fighting actual enemies that actually attacked us.
if only bush had played with dolls instead of starting stupid wars we'd be better off. :)
PS - your 12 year old friends probably think you are very clever with your gay comments. :)
dup post
and romney's military experience is to tell vets his sons served their country by riding around in an rv trying to get him elected president. you really should put some thought into the stupid crap you say.
Redundancy is the most sincerest form of flattery.
vermont -
Then why have more of our military died under Obama's 'leadership'?
Vermont guy: I live in Illinois. Obama did nothing for Americans here, like he's doing nothing for Americans there in the WH!
tammy: "more military died under obama's leadership"? well, that's nicely vague, so I have no answer to you. Many more people died in, oh, WW2, so what does "number of deaths" mean? Does that mean we had really poor leadership in ww2?
reading: your post about illinois and obama is unproven and also uselessly vague.
try again?
just looked...just under 5000 americans died in the unneccesary iraq war. In afghanistan, more have died under obama, but unlike iraq, afgahanistan at least had an actual enemy involved there (al quada) that actually attacked us.
in any case, the number of deaths under obama is less than bush.
try again again? :)
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.
or romoney can take a third path which is more likely. N Korea: starve the people take away social programs and give it all to the military. romoney's name should have been dick. he's all for the military as long as the poor and middle class pay for it and his silver spoon brats don't have to serve. sacrifice to romoney is only for other people. as a Veteran he is a POS. Oh and I support our President and I am a Vet
But North Korea doesn't have a problem with illegals. I wonder why?
OMG we just started having illegal immigrants on Jan 21st 2009. thanks for clearing that up dumb*** did you just think they all waited at the border and made a rush? really? don't answer that your gop education will tell on you.
America will neverhave to worry about the cowards in the Romney family having to serve inthe military. Like Father like sons. We have a better chance of MRS Romney having the guts to serve. We may have to buy her a Cadillac Hummer to drive but she appears to have more guts than her cowardly sons and their father,and he wants to be be President. What a joke ,his chance of getting elected are non existant.
spot on ed.
This Guy is not in touch with the real world.If he gets into office he will be the one that will make a profit off of war and kill a hell of a lot of Americans. Shut this fool down. He is not for America ,He is for profit .
I guess you don't live in a Spanish speaking country like Chicago.
Reading5X5, please take it somewhere else. No one here cares that your wife ran off with an illegal alien.
@Mountain Man
He just joined and is nothing more then a worthless troll. They've been flooding the Vine lately. None of them are very bright.
Eldon, I don't disagree with your comment. But I would like to point out that Mitt's a flipper. So I'd expect at most, only 50% of what he says he doesn't mean, and it wouldn't happen if he were elected.
Unfortunately, we don't know WHICH 50% wont happen...and that's the dangerous part...that no one knows where Mitt really stands, even Mitt himself.
Romney will be the next president of the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obama will be sent back to Chicago or where ever he claims he comes from.
ADIOS OBAMA!!!!!!!
No he won't. His shallow personality, his willingness to change his beliefs and policies to pander, and his penchant for uttering stupid ideas, e.g., "I like being able to fire people," will show that he's just part of the corporate takeover of American life, and not a genuine public servant. He's nothing more than a cruel parody of a real politician, lacking any solid political beliefs, a person who follows rather than leads.
ADIOS OBSERVER!!!!