Mitt Romney has been attacking President Obama for a comment he made to Russian President Dimitry Medvedev that he’d be more “flexible” on issues like missile defense after this year’s presidential election. Romney called the comments “very, very troubling,” because Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe.” While some of Obama’s political opponents are piling on, House Speaker John Boehner tried to rein in the attacks. “While the president is overseas I think it’s appropriate that people not be critical of him or our country,” he said.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who attacked then-senator Obama for political gain while he was abroad during the 2008 presidential campaign — is choosing to ignore the Republican House Speaker on national security grounds. “I respectfully disagree with Speaker Boehner,” McCain said on Fox News this morning, because, he said, “this is a very serious issue.” And when asked if he thinks, as Romney does, that Russia is America’s “number one foe,” the Arizona senator wouldn’t go that far: “I think in many respects”:

MCCAIN: I understand John Boehner’s point and I respect that but this is a very serious issue. No matter where the president is, if he makes a statement that I think could endanger the United States national security interests, I have to respond no matter where the president of the United States is. [...] All I can say is I respectfully disagree with Speaker Boehner. [...]

KILMEADE: Do you think they [Russia] are our geopolitical foe?

MCCAIN: I think in many respects, look at what they’re doing in Syria right now, they’re supplying arms and equipment to Bashar Assad while he slaughters and massacres his own people. Look at — they continue to prop up North Korea…and obviously now there is a president for life.

Watch the clip:

This isn’t the first time McCain has differed with Romney on a foreign policy issue. The former Massachusetts governor said that under no condition should the United States negotiate with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan. However, McCain recently disagreed. “I think it’s important to have talks wherever you can,” he said.

Medvedev also criticized Romney yesterday. “I always get very cautious when I see a country resort to phrasings such as ‘No. 1 enemy.’ It is very reminiscent of Hollywood in a certain period of history,” the Russian president said, adding, “My other advice is to check their clocks from time to time. It is 2012, not the mid-1970s.”

McCain saw Medvedev’s comment as meaning that Russia is in the tank for Obama. “They obviously want president Obama reelected, that’s pretty clear,” McCain told the Hill newspaper.

More than seventy retired military officers wrote a letter to Congress urging that the body not cut the budget for non-military means of executing U.S. foreign policy. The letter, written under the auspices of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s (USGLC) national security advisory group, spoke out against “disproportionate cuts” that would cut civilian programs while boosting military spending, calling on Congress to ensure that “civilian programs have the resources needed to maintain the hard-fought gains of our military.”

The letter (PDF) defending the so-called international affairs budget that covers non-military spending went on:

Development and diplomacy keep us safer by addressing threats in the most dangerous corners of the world and by preventing conflicts before they occur. The State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other civilian-led programs are especially critical at a time when we are asking them to take on greater responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Addressing today’s challenges with civilian tools costs far less than it does to send in the military in dollars and, more importantly, in terms of the risks to the lives of our men and women in uniform. At just over one percent of federal spending, the International Affairs Budget is a strong return on our investment.

The letter comes just a week after Republican Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a budget that called for the international affairs spending to be slashed by 11 percent, or $6 billion, while boosting military spending by at least $8 billion. Ryan’s budget document took shots at the administration, noting in one section that Obama “has chosen to subordinate national security strategy to his other spending priorities.” Speaking to U.S. News and World Report, Russell Rumbaugh, a former senior Senate Budget Committee aide now with the Stimson Center, said:

This reflects more an ideological statement than any real discussion about what the international budget levels should be.

An Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran summed up the Republican plan: “They cut every tool in the president’s toolbox that isn’t a gun,” said Michael Breen, who works with the Truman National Security Project, recounting how it was a foreign language-enabled diplomat — not their own weapons — that once helped him and fellow soliders get out a jam.

The ostensible aspirations of the Ryan plan, meanwhile, are shared by the USGLC letter signatories, who wrote that they “recognize that we must reduce our nation’s debt.” Yet, with non-military spending such a relatively small piece of the pie and capable of a “strong return” on the investment, the ex-military leaders urged Congress to “support a strong and effective International Affairs Budget and oppose disproportionate cuts to this vital account.”

The burning of Qurans by American soldiers at a base in Afghanistan and a U.S. soldier’s killing spree that ended up killing 16 Afghan civilians has escalated tensions in the war-torn country. Afghan security forces are now turning their guns on their U.S. and NATO counterparts with increased frequency. Just yesterday an Afghan soldier killed two British troops and an American soldier was killed at an Afghan police checkpoint.

An alarming statistic accompanies the grim news. CNN’s Security Clearance blog notes that one-third of U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan so far this year have come at the hands of Afghan security forces:

One third of all American troop deaths in Afghanistan this year has been at the hands of Afghan security forces. [...]

So far this year, 16 of the 46 American service members killed in Afghanistan have died in what are euphemistically called “green on blue” attacks: Afghan troops who have turned their weapons on allied forces.

Gen. John Allen, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, said yesterday that the attacks should be expected to continue, calling them a “a characteristic of counterinsurgency.” “We experienced these in Iraq. We experienced them in Vietnam,” Allen said, adding, “On any occasion where you’re dealing with an insurgency and where you’re also growing an indigenous force … the enemy’s going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operations.”

Allen also said new procedures are being put in place to reduce the “green on blue” incidents. “[Afghans have] worked very closely within the national director of security to place counterintelligence operatives inside their schools, inside their recruiting centers, and inside the ranks, the idea being to spot and assess the potential emergence of an individual who could be an extremist or, in fact, a Taliban infiltrator,” he said.

There are a few staples at nearly any conservative conference, whether in Des Moines or Dallas or Denver. Americana songs, often written by liberal musicians, roar as speakers enter and exit the stage. When asked why they are there, attendees explain that they “want their country back.” And “no weapons allowed” signs are plastered on the outside doors.

This last element is surprising, considering the conservative philosophy on guns. This thinking holds that the public is actually safer if everyone is allowed to carry guns because armed, law-abiding citizens would dissuade criminals from committing violence. Yet in conservative events across the country, from the Americans For Prosperity (AFP) convention in Milwaukee last weekend to Allen West town halls in south Florida, attendees are instructed to leave their weapons at home.

One AFP official explained to ThinkProgress the thinking behind the weapons ban:

My guess is we wanted to keep it safe.

Indeed, as this comment suggests, there must be room in the debate over guns to implement commonsense regulations for public safety.

The question remains though. If conservatives really do believe that guns keep us safe, then why are they consistently banning them from conservative events?

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to make hay about a comment President Obama made to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this week that he needs some “space” on the missile defense issue until after the election this year. Russia “is without question our number one geopolitical foe,” Romney said, calling Obama’s comment “very, very troubling.”

Politico reports that Medvedev shot back at Romney today at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea:

“I always get very cautious when I see a country resort to phrasings such as ‘No. 1 enemy.’ It is very reminiscent of Hollywood in a certain period of history,” Medvedev said, through a translator, at the nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea. [...]

“My other advice is to check their clocks from time to time,” Medvedev said Tuesday. “It is 2012, not the mid-1970s. No matter what party a candidate represents, he has to take the current state of affairs into account.”

Obama also adressed the issue today, saying that what he told Medvedev wasn’t anything new. “I think everybody understands — if they don’t, they haven’t been listening to my speeches — that I want to reduce nuclear stockpiles,” Obama said, adding, “And one of the barriers to doing that is building trust and cooperation around missile defense issues. And so this is not a matter of hiding the ball.”

Nevertheless, it seems Romney — who could use a distraction from his own issues — isn’t going to let the matter die. “I don’t think he can recover from it, to tell you the truth,” he said on a radio show yesterday.

President Obama has fallen under attack from the Republican National Committee and the GOP presidential candidates after a live microphone picked up a private conversation in which he asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for “space” and “patience” on the missile defense issue until after November’s election.

Today, Obama hit back at his critics. “I think everybody understands — if they don’t, they haven’t been listening to my speeches — that I want to reduce nuclear stockpiles,” Obama said today. “And one of the barriers to doing that is building trust and cooperation around missile defense issues. And so this is not a matter of hiding the ball,” said Obama, in remarks delivered on the final day of the nuclear security summit in South Korea.

Obama took on his critics’ charges that his comments to Medvedev showed weakness on nuclear security and pointed to the political realities of the campaign season as severely limiting his ability to move forward on major policy initiatives, telling reporters:

[T]he only way I get this stuff done is if I’m consulting with the Pentagon, with Congress, if I’ve got bipartisan support, and frankly, the current environment is not conducive to those kinds of thoughtful consultations.

I think the stories you guys have been writing over the last 24 hours [about the open mic incident] is pretty good evidence of that.

Yet the GOP will try to make something out of Obama’s rather innocuous comments. Hours after Obama’s exchange with Medvedev, the Republican National Committee produced a new video asking “what else is on Obama’s agenda after the election that he isn’t telling you?” and Mitt Romney said of Obama and his open mic comments, “I don’t think he can recover from it, to tell you the truth.”

An open mic caught President Obama assuring Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at a nuclear summit in Seoul, South Korea today that he will have “more flexibility” to deal with issues such as missile defense after the presidential election and asked Medvedev to give him some “space” until the election is over.

On CNN this afternoon, Mitt Romney pounced on Obama’s statement. “This is a president who is telling us one thing and doing something else and is planning on doing something even more frightening,” the former Massachusetts governor said, calling the comments “very, very troubling” because Russia “is without question our number one geopolitical foe.” Host Wolf Blitzer followed up:

BLITZER: You think Russia is a bigger foe right now than say Iran or China or North Korea? Is that what you’re suggesting governor?

ROMNEY: Well I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors. Of course the greatest threat the world faces is a nuclear armed Iran and a nuclear North Korea is troubling enough. But when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the UN looking for ways to stop them … and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors, it is always Russia, typically with China alongside.

So in terms of a geopolitical foe a nation that is on the Security Council that has the heft of the Security Council and is of course a massive nuclear power, Russia is the geopolitical foe and the idea that our president is planning on doing something with them that he’s not willing to tell the American people before the election is something I find very, very alarming.

Watch the clip:

It’s unclear what Romney means by “geopolitical” foe in this context, as he did not cast any perceived Russian threat in a geographical sense.

Full transcript:

Read more

Speaking on a panel at J Street’s “Making History” conference yesterday, retired Israeli brigadier general Shlomo Brom, former director of strategic planning for the Israeli Defense Forces General Staff, complained that the debate on Iran’s nuclear program and whether to use military force is frenzied and beset with false claims. “The discourse is plagued with emotions … and with a lot of disinformation,” he said.

As evidence, Brom singled out the use of holocaust metaphors to describe the Iranian threat and the fact that there is little discussion about the “political ramifications” of an attack on Iran. “I’m not so concerned about the miltiary reprocussions of a military attack,” he said, adding that he was more worried that an Israeli-initiated attack on Iran would damage the Jewish state’s relationship with the U.S. “The United States will have no choice but to be dragged into this conflict,” he said.

The Associated Press reported this month that many Israelis agree with Brom, saying the Holocaust imagery when discussing the Iran theat cheapens its memory and unnecessarily escalates tensions, particularly when President Obama is urging restraint. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni called Holocaust imagery when referring to the Iranian threat “hysterical.” Dan Halutz, a former Israeli military chief, said the Holocaust comparison was “out of place.”

However, that does not mean the Iranian nuclear program does not constitute a threat. In a recent speech, Obama warned that an Iranian bomb posed a threat to the U.S. and its allies, as well as the international non-proliferation regime. But at this point the Obama administration believes that a diplomatic end to the crisis is “best and most permanent way” to end the standoff.

More to Brom’s point, pundits and politicians regularly peddle the unconfirmed claim that Iran currently has a nuclear weapons program, but neither the IAEA, nor U.S. and Israeli intelligence — while warning that evidence suggests Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapons program — believe this to be the case.

As Brom noted, the Iran debate is also shrouded in hyperbole. GOP Presidential contender Rick Santorum accused Obama of purposely allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) once falsely claimed that Iran said it wants to launch a nuclear weapons strike against the United States.

Obama said last year that the sanctions on Iran he worked to put in place are having an “enormous bite” and he recently warned that this kind of rhetoric and misinformation damages the “broad international coalition” his administration built to confront Iran through diplomacy.

Shaima Alawadi will return to Iraq having left nearly 20 years ago to seek a better life in America, according to the Iraqi government.

The 32-year-old Iraqi-American mother of five died over the weekend from wounds inflicted during a beating last week in her suburban San Diego, CA home. Her daughter found the body with a note nearby reading, “Go back to your country, you terrorist.” A note found the week before and ignored as a prank, according to family friends, similarly read: “You’re a terrorist. You should move back to your country.” Alawadi wore a hijab, a scarf covering her head in keeping with traditional Islamic custom. Police are investigating whether the killing constituted a hate crime.

Today, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari requested that Alawadi’s body be returned to Iraq for burial: “The government has ordered to transport her body from California to Baghdad,” he said during a press conference in Baghdad, refusing further questions.

A local imam from Dearborn, MI, where Alawadi previously lived, said she was the daughter of an Iraqi Shia cleric. The Detroit Free Press reported:

The body of Alawadi, a U.S. citizen, is currently being prepared to be flown to Iraq for her funeral, said Al-Husainy. Her father, Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, is a Shia cleric in Iraq, whose government will pay for shipping expenses of the body, he said.

Shaima Alawadi left Iraq in 1993 because of Saddam Hussein’s crackdown on the country’s majority Shia population after an uprising in 1991.

Suehaila Amen, a 33-year-old in Michigan who runs a Lebanese-American Heritage Club there, said the killing raised fears among Muslim-American populations:

This is something that’s really scary. For a woman like myself who wears a hijab, you’re an open target. You’re always looking over your shoulder because of how you’re dressed and because someone might have skewed perceptions of the community.

A social media campaign sought to show solidarity and alleviate fears by encouraging users to post pictures of themselves in hijab. “There should not be an outfit that screams ‘kill me!’ Hoodie or hijab, this needs to stop,” the Facebook page says.

A paranoid Rick Santorum campaign ad, “Obamaville,” briefly replaces a picture of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad with President Barack Obama’s face, as the narrator talks about a “sworn American enemy”:

VOICEOVER: Every day, the residents of this town must come to grips with reality that a rogue nation and sworn American enemy has become a nuclear threat.

Watch a ThinkProgress analysis of the “sworn American enemy” appearance of Obama in the “Obamaville” ad:

After this subliminal editing was noted by Politico, the Santorum campaign professed confusion about Obama’s appearance.

“Obviously I’m not trying to say anything about Obama and Ahmadinejad,” Rick Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said.

“The intent was to show that there will be a constant threat back and forth between the United States if they have nuclear capability,” John Brabender, the media consultant who made the video, claimed.

“Despite their sanctimonious protestations to the contrary,” liberal blogger Digby comments, “that quick cut in the ad that juxtaposes Ahmadinejad and Obama is a very creepy, underhanded trick.” She continued:

“The Republicans love to do this. (Recall the famous RATS ad.) But this one is especially low because it’s obviously aimed at the none-too-bright right wingers who believe that Obama is a Muslim usurper — which is just another racist dog-whistle with a little xenophobia and religious intolerance thrown in for good measure.”

In the wake of the senseless killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida, another possible hate crime in California underscored the chasm between American values of equality and non-discrimination and incidents of intolerance.

A 32-year-old Iraqi victim of a brutal beating in her San Diego, California, home died yesterday when, with doctors’ expectations that she would not survive, her family removed her from life support. Shaima Alawadi’s family thinks the beating constitutes a hate crime, and police acknowledge the possibility.

Alawadi, a mother of five children aged 8 to 17, immigrated to the U.S. from Iraq in 1993. On Wednesday, her eldest daughter, Fatima al-Himidi, found Aalwadi “drowning in her own blood.” Al-Himidi said her mother was beaten with a tire iron. The daughter told San Diego’s KUSI television news that a note near her mother read, “Go back to your country, you terrorist.” (Another report said the note read, “Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.”)

“We’re not the terrorists,” al-Himidi said, speaking to the news camera, her voice shaky with emotion. “You are, whoever did it.”

Watch the KUSI news report:

Fatima al Hamidi also told KUSI that the family had gotten another similar, threatening note earlier this month, but that her mother dismissed it as a prank by neighborhood kids. No report was filed with the police.

A family friend, Sura Alzaidy, said the al-Himidi and Alawadi family had only returned to San Diego — into their new home — three weeks ago after an unspecified period of time living in Michigan. Speaking with the San Diego Union-Tribune, she described Alawadi as a “respectful modest muhajiba,” denoting that Alawadi covered her hair with a scarf in keeping with traditional Muslim customs.

Police spokesman Lt. Mark Coit said the investigation, in its early stages, was still broad, but did not rule out that the murder was a hate crime:

A hate crime is one of the possibilities, and we will be looking at that. We don’t want to focus on only one issue and miss something else.

He added that the killing appeared to be an “isolated incident.”

The family friend Alzaidy told the San Diego paper that her father and Alawadi’s husband, al-Himidi, worked together for the U.S. Army:

Alzaidy said her father and Alawadi’s husband had previously worked together in San Diego as private contractors for the U.S. Army, serving as cultural advisers to train soldiers who were going to be deployed to the Middle East.

Neighbors said the al-Himidi-Alawadi family left Iraq because they were “running away from war, running away from problems.”

Yesterday, former top President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal lamenting that the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden was regarded as an “epic achievement,” and stating that “Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation.” “Even President Bill Clinton says in the film ‘that’s the call I would have made.’” Only, as ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Bush explicitly did not do what Obama did: take the decision to strike at bin Laden.

As for the selective and misleading Clinton quote, the Wall Street Journal was forced to acknowledge it, updating the online version of the article and appending this note:

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this column included an incomplete quote from Bill Clinton in the last paragraph.

Indeed, Clinton actually said, “I hope that’s the call I would have made.” But Rove’s politically-motivated deceitfulness went even farther than that. Among the various and gracious laudatory statements by former Bush officials about the raid that killed bin Laden were several from Karl Rove himself.

Speaking to Politico for an article published just the day after the raid, Rove said his first reaction was “elation.” The Politico article goes on:

“President Obama did a remarkable job of leadership. It was a very tough decision” to opt for a special operations assault rather than dropping a precision bomb, Rove said.

In his first email exchange with the former president, Rove said Bush wrote: “Great day for justice.”

Furthermore, Media Matters points out that Rove, also the day after the raid, tweeted, “Justice has been done to Osama bin Laden: all Americans are proud of our military, intel & Presidents Bush, Obama. USA! USA!” Here’s the tweet:

To recap: Rove experienced “elation” and thought Obama did a “remarkable job” in making a “tough decision” in ordering the raid to get bin Laden. But now it seems for Rove, politics trumps conviction.