[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
And now we’re in the 21st century and we need more special forces and other types including as Obama said submarines and aircraft carriers. [/quote]
Well, sure, and Romney wants to fund them more than Obama. That’s easy.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
And now we’re in the 21st century and we need more special forces and other types including as Obama said submarines and aircraft carriers. [/quote]
Well, sure, and Romney wants to fund them more than Obama. That’s easy.[/quote]
What I’ve gathered is Romney wants more conventional forces. If what you say is true, Romney did a very poor job illustrating that.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Yup, twitter will blow up with #bayonets tomorrow, but it is a small thing. Jobs making ships is a big thing.[/quote]
Good point. Creating jobs through building naval ships? Who wouldn’t get behind that as a plank?
Yawnfest of a debate. So far a slight edge to Obama, perhaps just because he’s already had 4 years of experience in foreign affairs and he peppers his warbling with references to presidential ‘insider’ stuff, but little substance. And a slight loss for Romney is as good as a win.
[quote]NealRaymond2 wrote:
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
Am I the only one who finds it absolutely fascinating that countries are (nearly 60 years later) still trying to make a nuclear weapon?..and having trouble doing so at that…
Where the US did it an an era of less technology, resources, and basicaly on a time constraint.[/quote]
Just speculating:
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Maybe there are certain tricks to it that are not widely known, that the US happened to discover in 1945?
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Or maybe the hard thing in 2012 is not making a nuclear weapon; maybe the hard thing is making it in such a way that nobody can really be sure that is what you are doing until you are just about finished?
[/quote]
Look at it this way, the US spent what was back then a completely ridiculous amount of money and assembled what amounts to a lot of the greatest scientific minds of that era in order to make the first nuclear weapons. A country like Iran does not have access right now to that kind of brain power, let alone the money to pay them or properly fund a project like that, or access to the resources to create a weapon. It also does not help that a lot of people with the capability of actually designing and building a nuclear weapon just plain do not want to. If you take a look into the people involved in the Manhattan project, they were almost to a person wracked with guilt for the rest of their entire lives over the fact that they made a tragedy like Hiroshima possible, and a lot of us flat out will have nothing to do with creating weapons like that.
The Bin Laden appeals to emotion are fucking horrible. I’m sure it lights the fire of fanboys though. The same kids that shouted how horrible America was for going to war 4 years ago…
Basic research is very interesting as majority of the time it is done for scientific endeavour and not because it is driven for the market. Studying lou gherigs disease or ALS has little return for a company as opposed to viagra.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
What I’ve gathered is Romney wants more conventional forces. If what you say is true, Romney did a very poor job illustrating that. [/quote]
I’m pretty sure Romney said he wanted to spend more money on the military, and didn’t indicate he was for more spending on convenstional military, and less on special forces - I heard he wanted to add to military spending.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
The Bin Laden appeals to emotion are fucking horrible. I’m sure it lights the fire of fanboys though. The same kids that shouted how horrible America was for going to war 4 years ago…[/quote]
I thought most dems and even many liberals were for going to war in Afghanistan?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Yup, twitter will blow up with #bayonets tomorrow, but it is a small thing. Jobs making ships is a big thing.[/quote]
Good point. Creating jobs through building naval ships? Who wouldn’t get behind that as a plank?[/quote]
Raytheon is big around here.
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Obama Bin Laden, LOL. [/quote]yeah I caught that =] Agreed with everybody. Pretty boring.
I remain absolutely aghast that Obama continues to try and blame Bush.
[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
Basic research is very interesting as majority of the time it is done for scientific endeavour and not because it is driven for the market. Studying lou gherigs disease or ALS has little return for a company as opposed to viagra. [/quote]
Never mind
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
The Bin Laden appeals to emotion are fucking horrible. I’m sure it lights the fire of fanboys though. The same kids that shouted how horrible America was for going to war 4 years ago…[/quote]
I thought most dems and even many liberals were for going to war in Afghanistan?[/quote]
Pretty sure “bring our boys home” was a major part of the obama 08 run. Then he escalated one of them and followed the time lines in place from the administration before.
They always do that fake laugh thing when they shake hands. All elections have it and it is weird and creepy.
Romney’s Performance- Somewhere between mediocre and ok.
Obama’s- between fair and good
Overall effect- Romney did what he needed to do which is not looking scary as far as foreign policy is concerned. The debate won’t kill Romney’s momentum, but I do think it might slow it by a tiny bit. Only time will tell.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
I remain absolutely aghast that Obama continues to try and blame Bush.[/quote]
He will ride that horse until it croaks.
On reflection:
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A tie, basically. Romney was more aggressive than I expected, and effectively dulled Obama’s attacks. I didn’t think that would be a smart move, but I think ROmney did better than expected on that.
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Obama made a mistake, I think, in letting Romney keep bringing it back to domestic policy. Of course Romney would do this - I am surprised Obama was less resistant. Obama should have kept the topic on foreign policy.
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Obama wanted to attack Romney, and he did, but I don’t think it helped him much. Romney parried pretty well.
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I think Obama was far better in the second debate.
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Romney was unspectacular, but ok. He is not fluid enough, though, and continues to waste time and get distracted by trying to talk over the moderator about responses.
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Romney did very well on the China question.
fairly even, Romney did well coming across as more moderate.
A wash. I’ll argue that Romney came off looking more Presidential. Obama dipped into condescension if you asked me. Obama to Romney, “I’m glad you recognize Al Qaeda as a threat.” Huh? Something like “We have these things called submarines and battleships…” That’s our President?