Free speech folks

In regard to foreign policy, I don't think Romney is the sharpest tool in the bag. Neither is the current U.S. President.

However, absent from this discussion are:

1. The imporantance of free speech above all.
2. And, a bulling Chinese communist leadership which is affecting Pacific rim security.

I did wonder about this:

And of course we should be encouraging the positive forces unleashed by the Arab Spring.

What "positive" forces? Those that make government sponsored religious extremism even more efficient in the finest traditions of fascism?

If an uprising is unwilling to produce a country that can exercise free speech above all else, the effort is not worth backing by the U.S.

At any price.

Even if the current U.S. Secretary of State has little concept of the notion.

Some comments on a Romney Navy

Defense News has some information of what a Romney Navy could look like if it were ever to happen.

Here is what I think of it:

OK:

-Begin a frigate program
-More Super Hornets
-Increase the number of destroyers
-Reserve carrier air wing
-Cut flag ranks (hopefully)


Not OK:

-Continue Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
-..."no intention to cancel it" (LCS)
-Increase in amphibs
-"Missle defense ship"
-"Essential" to keep F-35 in production

How will it be paid for? Well, the only way I can see is to kill off things that contribute nothing to the defense of the nation.

"The bureaucracy itself has almost doubled what it was during the Reagan administration. The Navy is half the size it was, the Air Force is half the size, the Army is half the size."