In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, former Central Intelligence Agency clandestine operations chief Jose Rodriguez defended his department’s use of torture methods when questioning terrorist suspects.

Rodriguez, who had tapes of the interrogations destroyed, was unapologetic. He told 60 Minutes:

We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days. But we did the right thing for the right reason. And the right reason was to protect the homeland and to protect American lives. So yes, I had no qualms. [...]

If there was going to be another attack against the U.S., we would have blood on our hands because we would not have been able to extract that information from [a terrorist suspect]. So we started to talk about an alternative set of interrogation procedures.

Watch a clip:

Rodriguez compared so-called stress positions — such as making detainees hold their hands above their heads — and sleep-deprivation to going to the gym and having jetlag, respectively. He cited the interrogations of alleged Al Qaeda terrorists Abu Zubaydeh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. “This program was about instilling a sense of hopelessness and despair on the terrorist, on the detainee, so that he would conclude on his own that he was better off cooperating with us,” he said.

But others — including military and law enforcement officials and politicians — have said that interrogations are most effective when interrogators stick to the script laid out on interrogations in the Army Field Manual, which is informed by decades of military experience. Anti-torture advocates note that the interrogation techniques employed during the Bush administration go against American values, endanger U.S. troops who might facing reciprocal treatment, and often lead to false information because subjects of harsh interrogations will say anything to get the sessions to end.

When confronted by CBS’s Leslie Stahl with the FBI’s contention that Abu Zubaydeh gave up his most useful information before harsh interrogations, Rodriguez said, “It’s not true.” Asked about a CIA inspector general’s report stating that the guidelines — or lack thereof — led to “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented” techniques, Rodriguez said, “Well our own inspector general in many cases did very sloppy work. That report is flawed in many different ways.” Told by Stahl that she’d heard information gained from Abu Zubayded through waterboarding led the U.S. on wild goose chases, Rodriguez fired back, “Bullshit. He gave us a road map that allowed us to capture a bunch of Al Qaeda senior leaders.” Still-secret documentation of the claims makes sorting out the disputes difficult.

But former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan said in an interview with CNN that “the examples that they are mentioning as the successes of EITs absolutely were not produced by EITs.” He said the information gleaned from Abu Zubaydeh that pointed to Khalid Sheik Muhammad’s central role in the 9/11 attacks came before waterboarding on Abu Zubaydeh began.

When the debate over harsh interrogations reignited after Osama Bin Laden’s killing, numerous former interrogators, officials who oversaw interrogations, military officials, and national security experts stated that the techniques were not as effective as traditional interrogation techniques and, furthermore, hurt U.S. interests by putting a bad face forward.

Even sometime Bush administration ally Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote, “Ultimately, this is more than a utilitarian debate. This is a moral debate. It is about who we are.”

Mitt Romney and his allies have been attacking President Obama for his campaign’s recent video ad, highlighting both his decision to order the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and Romney’s statement in 2007 that he would not have taken similar action given the chance. Romney now says he would have done the same as Obama. “Of course [I would have]. Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” Romney said today.

A reporter asked Obama about the criticism and Romney’s newest statement today during a White House press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. While Obama said it’s “entirely appropriate” to “remember what we as a country accomplished” in getting bin Laden, the President advised that people look at what Romney said in 2007 and ask him why he now says something different:

OBAMA: As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assumed that people meant what they said when they said it, that’s been at least my practice. I said that we’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggested they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.

Watch it:

Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates — a Republican and a holdover from the Bush administration — said last year Obama’s decision to get bin Laden was a “gutsy call,” adding, “This is one of the most courageous calls — decisions — that I think I’ve ever seen a president make.”

A former Israeli prime minister joined the growing chorus of top former officials to criticize the Netanyahu government’s hawkish approach to Iran, urging that time remained to broker a diplomatic deal and that heated rhetoric and historical comparisons could paint Israel into a corner.

Ehud Olmert, who left office in 2009 under a corruption scandal, told a conference in New York on Sunday:

There is enough time to try different avenues of pressure to change the balance of power with Iran without the need for a direct military confrontation with Iran.

He went even further in interviews with news media, warning off an Israeli attack. Olmert told Israel’s Channel 10:

There is no reason at this time not to talk about a military effort, but definitely not to initiate an Israeli military strike.

In an interview with the New York Times, he echoed concerns of Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, retired Israeli brigadier general Shlomo Brom, and his successor atop the Kadima opposition party Tzipi Livni that the Israeli government’s rhetoric on Iran was getting too heated. Olmert, who eschewed comparisons between Iran and Nazi Germany, said:

They talk too much, they talk too loud. They are creating an atmosphere and a momentum that may go out of their control.

At the conference in New York, the former top military officer in Israel, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, said the Israelis “still have time” before they need to launch an attack and called for “crippling sanctions and much more severe sanctions.” His successor at the top military post Gen. Benny Gantz last week echoed reported Israeli and American intelligence estimates and said Iran “hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile” and build a bomb.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to end the West’s crisis with Iran.

In 2007, Mitt Romney injected himself into the Democratic primary campaign and criticized Barack Obama for vowing to go after “high-value intelligence targets” in Pakistan with or without permission. Romney said “I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours.” Here was the August 4, 2007 headline from Reuters:

In April 2007, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” Last May, President Obama ordered the raid that killed bin Laden and last week, the Obama campaign produced a video highlighting the president’s decision, while noting Romney’s 2007 comments.

The Romney campaign attacked the ad, claiming it was trying to “divide” the country.” And this morning on CBS’s The Early Show, the Romney campaign got an unexpected supporter, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington:

HUFFINGTON: I agree completely — I agree with the Romney campaign. I think that using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing the great news that we had a year ago in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney might not have done it, which is the message. … I don’t think there should be an ad about that. … [T]o turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do. It’s the same thing that Hillary Clinton did with the 3 a.m. call. You know, you are not ready to be commander-in-chief. [...]

HOST: In a campaign aren’t you supposed to tout the accomplishments of what you’ve done?

HUFFINGTON: But this is not just what this ad did, does. What the ad does is questions, if we’re talking about the same ad. … It quotes a snippet from Romney in ’07 and uses that to imply that Romney would not have been decisive. There’s no way to know whether Romney would have been as decisive. And to actually speculate that he wouldn’t be is to me not the way to run campaigns on either side.

Watch the clip:

Huffington doesn’t seem to think it’s fair to speculate what Romney would have done as president based on what Romney said he would (or in this case wouldn’t) do. But the ad is stating two basic facts. One, that Obama ordered the raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader and two, that Romney said in 2007 that he wouldn’t have done the same. So is it really “despicable” to wonder whether a President Romney would have ordered the raid on bin Laden given that he said he wouldn’t do it while campaigning for president?

Yesterday in Dearborn, Michigan, noted anti-Muslim activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer hosted a conference promising to advocate for “human rights” in one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States. Geller, writing on her blog on Sunday, warned, “We will meet fierce resistance by Islamic supremacists who will do anything, say anything to impose the sharia and whitewash the oppression, subjugation and slaughter of women under Islamic law.”

But surprisingly, Muslim women found themselves denied entry to the conference and, after patiently waiting in the corridor after being told to wait, were removed from the Hyatt Hotel by the Dearborn Police Department and Hyatt security.

Several of the young women commented that they shared a similar appearance with Jessica Mokdad, the young women who Geller and Spencer claim was murdered in an “honor killing” (a conclusion not shared by Mokdad’s family or Michigan prosecutors).

ThinkProgress attempted to attend the event and was turned away, and eventually removed from the Hyatt by the police, along with the young women. One of the women commented, “I tried emailing [Pamela Geller to register] and I literally couldn’t get any kind of response back.” That comment seems to contradict Geller’s claim that she wants to help Muslim women and that the conference was in defense of the human rights of Muslim women.

Another woman who tried to attend the conference told ThinkProgress:

Coming in, I was asking where the human rights conference is. [Hyatt Security and Dearborn Police] were like, ‘what are you talking about?’ I’m like, ‘the human rights conference on the second floor.’ They were like, ‘the anti-Islam conference?’ That’s what they’re calling it now.

And another woman expressed surprise that Geller, who has asked to hear from more Muslim voices on human rights issues, was denying Muslims access to her event. “I watched an interview with her [...] and she said, ‘Where are the Muslims?’ Well, we’re here!” Watch it (police arrive to escort the women off the Hyatt premises at 3:58):

Pamela Geller emailed ThinkProgress, “They didn’t register. We’ve been announcing for weeks that only registered attendees would be admitted.”

Geller and Spencer play prominent roles in the Islamophobia “echo chamber,” as detailed in the Center for American Progress’s report “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

The former head of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet reportedly lacks faith in Israel’s leadership and worries that attacking Iran’s nuclear program may spur the Islamic Republic to acquire a nuclear weapon, according to Army Radio. Yuval Diskin made the comments to the Majdi Forum in Israel on Friday night.

According to the Jerusalem Post (with slightly differing translations from Yedioth Ahronoth), Diskin referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense chief Ehud Barak as “our two messiahs,” going on to lambast the country’s leadership:

(T)hey are not fit to hold the steering-wheel of power. I have no faith in the current leadership in Israel and its ability to conduct a war. …

[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, serious questions remain about the efficacy of strike — like Diskin’s — and its potential consequences. Leaving “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapons push — one that neither American nor Israeli intelligence think Iran has decided on — the Obama administration, for the meantime, has pursued a dual-track of pressure and diplomacy aimed at yielding a negotiated resolution to the crisis.

Diskin’s not alone in his assessments — other analysts think attacking now could very well convince the Iranian leadership that they need a weapon for deterrence. The former Shin Bet chief is also joined by a bevy of other current and former top-ranking Israeli security officials. At the Huffington Post, Joel Rubin, the Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, offers a rundown:

In one of the most astounding public breaks by the Israeli national security establishment with a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu’s own military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has stated that Iran’s leadership is rational. Gantz is not alone.

In the past several months, as Netanyahu has ramped up his rhetoric on Iran, senior Israeli national security leaders from the military and intelligence communities have pushed back. In addition to Gantz, the current head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Pardo has stated that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. And many more retired military and intelligence leaders echo the same sentiment.

After Gantz’s public comments, Barak made a speech restating a harder Israeli line and adding that “chance(s) appears to be low” for a breakthrough during the upcoming talks between Iran and Western powers in late May. (HT: Ori Nir)

President Obama announced today at Ft. Stewart in Georgia that he will sign an executive order to protect veterans, members of the military and their families from deceptive and predatory marketing practices by some for-profit higher educational institutions.

Mitt Romney’s campaign tried to get out front of the news today by issuing press releases suggesting that the president hasn’t done enough for the nation’s veterans. Campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul said:

“Under President Obama, all Americans have suffered from one of the worst job markets in recorded history — and our nation’s veterans have been among the hardest hit. With more than twelve percent of our most recent veterans struggling to find work and nearly a million veterans unemployed, it’s clear that we need to do more to grow our economy and ensure that those who fight for America can find a job when they return home.”

Saul didn’t expand on the “do more” part of her critique. The other press release titled “Mitt Romney Will Give Veterans A Chance to Find Good Jobs” links to a page on the campaign website that makes no mention of any plan for veterans.

And it appears that no plan exists on Romney’s campaign website to address various issues affecting the U.S. military — for example, veterans’ health care and unemployment or, as Obama addressed today, servicemembers’ education. The “Issues” page lists 23 separate issues Mitt Romney has apparently chosen to focus on during his presidential campaign and none is “Veterans” or “Military.”

It seems like the only outline of any plan Romney has for veterans is to, as he said in a speech to the VFW last August, use “billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency and bureaucracy from the defense budget” and “spend it to ensure that veterans have the care they deserve.” He mentioned no specifics.

Romney announced a Veterans Policy Advisory group back in October to “help to formulate policies that will ensure America keeps its commitments” to veterans but it is unclear what those policies are.

Romney has even praised President Obama’s veterans initiative to encourage companies to hire veterans, saying last November that “it’s a good idea.”

On Veterans Day last year, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee did float a plan to privatize the veterans health care system but he was forced to back away from the proposal after swift condemnation from veterans groups.

Romney has also said he supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal. That budget “would cut $11 billion from veterans spending.”

ThinkProgress asked the Romney campaign if the former Massachusetts governor has a detailed plan to address veterans issues but it did not respond before this post was published.

On the substance, it doesn’t seem like the Romney campaign has been paying much attention to what the Obama has been doing. CAP’s Lawrence Korb and Alex Rothman noted in February that “President Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment” while urging Congress to pass the president’s $6 billion vets jobs corps program. Last month, Obama announced a housing plan to help military vets who were victims of illegal foreclosures and First Lady Michelle Obama said earlier this month that companies had pledged 15,000 jobs for military spouses as part of the administration’s “Joining Forces” program.

Despite progress, there is more to be done. The unemployment rate for veterans was at 7.5 percent in March. The jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan war vets during the same month stood at 10.3 percent, “slightly better than in March 2011.”

Vice President Joe Biden’s speech critiquing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s foreign policy positions has received a range of responses. Dan Senor, a Romney adviser who served as the spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, commented that Biden offered a “fantasy narrative” of President Obama’s accomplishments. Another Romney foreign policy adviser, Pierre Prosper, charged that, under the Obama administration, “The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia” — of which the latter dissolved nearly 20 years ago after the fall of the U.S.S.R.

But the strangest criticism came from former U.N. ambassador John Bolton who claimed that a laugh-line in Biden’s speech showed that New York University (NYU) students, where the speech was delivered, don’t believe the president is strong on foreign policy. Bolton explained to Fox News’ Greta Van Sustern:

BOLTON: But I thought the best part of it was at one point, trying to appropriate yet another Republican president, Biden said, ‘you have to speak softly and carry a big stick.’ And then he said, ‘I promise you, President Obama has a big stick.’ And the audience broke out laughing, which is some measure of their belief about how assertive Obama is on behalf of our interests internationally.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes, it’s — apparently, that’s also going to — that’s made a couple — a lot of — a lot of jokes, too, on the Internet. It is — apparently, that is something that’s not going to go away, at least for a while, for Vice President Biden, that remark.

BOLTON: Yet another one.

Watch it:

It’s unclear if the NYU audience was laughing at, or with, Biden. The Vice President maintained a dead-pan expression during the brief outbreak of laughter.

Indeed, Van Susteren is correct that the “big stick” comment has generated a great deal of attention, although not all of it negative, on the internet. CBS, ABC, NBC and The Huffington Post all published articles with headlines incorporating the statement “Obama ‘has a big stick,’” in the minutes and hours after the speech was delivered.

The fact that Bolton interpreted the laughter as a critical response to the administration’s foreign policy doctrine is bizarre considering the former U.N. ambassador’s penchant for bellicose rhetoric when describing his domination-focused foreign policy positions. Last summer, Bolton opined that the U.S. “should be squeezing and disciplining Moscow, not caressing it.”

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), speaking on the House floor this week, singled out the top U.S. intelligence official and compared the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who is best known acquiescing to Hitler’s demand to expand the Third Reich into what was then Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Pompeo specifically addressed Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. In January, Clapper related during Hill testimony an assessment on whether Iran had made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. “We don’t believe [Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei] has made that decision yet,” Clapper said. By saying “we,” Clapper was not speaking for himself, but for the bureaucracies that he leads and coordinates between, collectively known as the U.S. intelligence community.

But that didn’t stop Pompeo from taking a wildly overwrought shot at Clapper on the floor of the House:

Our president’s intelligence chief has said that the Iranians have not yet decided to build a bomb. To me, these words are reminiscent to those of Neville Chamberlain, who doubted that the Nazi command had finalized its decision to invade all of Europe, both East and West. The threat was either ignored or considered too irrational to be possible by a timorous and distracted world bent on avoiding conflict.

Watch the video:

Pompeo’s attack on Clapper — a Vietnam veteran who made a career in intelligence — seems a thinly-veiled call to military action against Iran, albeit one based on a persistent and flimsy counter-factual about World War II history and preventative wars.

War hawks frequently make Chamberlain comparisons, it seems, to those who express any reluctance whatsoever to go to war. Those who so much as urge caution get charged with “appeasement,” as President Obama has been. Likewise, hawks laud Winston Churchill — though that historic analogy, too, is imperfect for their purposes.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The Obama administration vows to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility, but the efficacy and consequences of a strike raise serious questions, leading the U.S. to pursue, for the meantime, a pressure track aimed at a negotiated resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis.

One wonders if Pompeo would make his shocking comparison with Chamberlain for Israeli intelligence officials, who’ve also reportedly concluded Iran hasn’t decided to build a nuclear bomb.

On a campaign call just ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy speech today, top foreign policy advisers to presumtive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney attacked the Obama administration’s Iran policy. While emphatically denying that the Romney campaign was threatening Iran with an attack, his advisers Dan Senor and Alex Wong admonished the administration for an honest discourse about what the potential consequences of an attack would be.

Asked by a reporter about Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s comments last week that the Obama administration-led U.N. sanctions program on Iran have been “effective,” the Romney advisers said:

DAN SENOR: (T)he administration has gone out of its way to convey that the military option is not serious. I mean, just look at the things Secretary [of Defense Leon] Panetta has said over the last year, whether it was at the Halifax conference, whether it was the Saban conference at Brookings… He went out of his way to talk about how disastrous military action against Iran would be for the United States, for the global economy, for the region. …

ALEX WONG: The administration has repeatedly talked down the military option and the effectiveness and the (inaudible) of the military option by the united states and Israel.

Listen to a clip of the call here:

Romney’s advisers offer, at best, misleading interpretations of Obama administration policies and statements; at worst, they make claims unsupported by the facts. For example, far from “project[ing] to the world that the military option against Iran is off the table,” Obama has said again and again that all options remain “on the table” to deal with a potential Iranian nuclear weapons program. A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, though U.S. and Israeli intelligence have not concluded that Iran has made a decision to pursue a weapon.

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Today on a press call with Mitt Romney’s campaign foreign policy advisers, former Navy Secretary during the Reagan administration and now Romney adviser John Lehman claimed that American allied military leaders around the world are telling him that under President Obama, the United States is no longer leading in world affairs. As one piece of evidence, Lehman cited the Obama administration’s policies in combating piracy:

LEHMAN: I think the biggest concern when I talk to my former counterparts and current military leaders in — among our allies in Europe and the Pacific is, the theme that they — I keep hearing from them is, Why is the United States under Obama abdicating leadership or keeping stability in the world? … And they see our abdication of leadership in for instance dealing with the pirates. We were not in a leadership position and that’s opened up a very attractive opportunity for the Russians and even the Chinese have two ships out there.

Listen to the clip:

Absent in Lehman’s argument of course is the fact that, according to data released just this week, sea piracy worldwide has declined 28 percent in the first quarter of the year and, as the AP reported, “attacks fell sharply in Somalia’s waters thanks to international naval patrols.” And which country has a “large” naval presence there? The United States.

“When the Obama administration came to office the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia was snowballing out of control,” Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro said recently at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, “through the collective effort of the United States, the international community, and the private sector, we are now seeing signs of clear progress.” Shapiro continued:

The numbers clearly demonstrate this. In 2011, the number of successful pirate attacks fell by nearly half. As a result, there has been a significant drop in the numbers of ships and crew held hostage. In January 2011, pirates held 31 ships and 710 hostages. In early March of 2012 pirates held eight ships and 213 hostages – a roughly 70 percent decline. This is still way too many, but it is clear advances are being made.

“The Obama administration has pursued a strategy that seeks to leverage all elements of U.S. power” to combat piracy, Shapiro added, which comprises an integrated multi-dimensional approach that includes diplomatic engagement, expanding security at sea, preventing attacks and debilitating piracy networks.

Also absent from Lehman’s argument? Obama’s order in 2009 for a successful Navy SEALS operation to take out pirates holding an American ship captain hostage, nor his most recent order for U.S. special ops forces to rescue an American and a Danish hostages from pirate-affiliate kidnappers.

Vice President Joe Biden hit back at the Romney campaign’s foreign policy positions today in remarks delivered at New York University. In a wide ranging speech reviewing the Obama administration’s foreign policy, Biden criticized Romney’s “Cold War mindset” on national defense and slammed the presumptive Republican nominee for his “go it alone” foreign policy positions.

But Biden’s harshest reprimand of Romney was saved for the former Massachusetts governor’s critique of President Obama’s Iran policy. Romney has swung between essentially endorsing the Obama administration’s policy of diplomacy plus pressure — via sanctions — to calling for outright military action against Iran. Biden said:

Here’s what he says. He says we need “crippling sanctions,” apparently unaware that through President Obama’s leadership we produced just that, crippling sanctions. He emphasizes the need for “a credible military option” and “a regular presence of aircraft carrier groups” in the region, apparently ignorant of the fact that’s exactly what our policy is and what we’re doing.

Biden singled out Romney’s criticisms of the White House’s Iran-policy as “counterproductive” and promoting “loose talk of war” that could ultimately hurt the international sanctions regime engineered by the administration:

I think it’s fair to say the only step we could take that we aren’t already taking is to launch a war against Iran. If that’s what governor Romney means by a “very different policy” then he should tell the American people. He should say so. Otherwise the governor’s tough talk about military action is just that, talk. And I would add, counterproductive talk. Folks, loose talk about a war has incredibly negative consequences in our efforts to end Iran’s nuclear quest. And let me tell you why, because it unsettles world oil markets. It drives up oil prices. When oil prices go up, Iran’s coffers fill up, undermining the effect of the sanctions that are already in place. This type of Romney Talk is just not smart.

Watch it:

Romney’s foreign policy advisers — in a press call before Biden’s speech — seemed to inadvertently validate Biden’s charge of the Romney campaign’s “Cold War mindset.” Romney foreign policy adviser Pierre Prosper claimed that, under the Obama administration, “The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia” — of which the latter dissolved nearly 20 years ago after the fall of the U.S.S.R. And on the same call, another adviser, former Reagan Navy Secretary John Lehman, warned of a the threat from “the Soviets” in the Arctic region.