“They want to bring down the West, particularly us,” Romney declared. “And they’ve come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent.” ~The Boston Globe

The Globe story tries to make the statements cited in it into something rather more sinister and manipulative than I think they actually are.  No doubt, these candidates want to demagogue terrorism and they are trying their best to do that, but the quotes the article cites do not give the impression so much of deliberate obfuscation as simple ignorance and confusion on the part of the speakers. 

McCain would probably love to conflate the fight against Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq even more than he and his ilk have already done, but here he is simply trying to be as frightening and demagogic as possible.  It isn’t bad enough that “they” or “the terrorists” will follow us home, but it has to be Bin Laden himself.  Maybe McCain doesn’t know that Bin Laden is in Pakistan, or perhaps he has forgotten (he is getting up there in years, and he might also be suffering from the memory loss syndrome afflicting so many in the party these days).  Giuliani is not some masterful manipulator when he talks about how “they” have followed us home to Fort Dix (quick, great and amazing terrorism and national security expert, tell us where were the Fort Dix plotters from!)–he simply knows that there were some Muslim plotters, there are Muslims in Iraq and, just like that, it is proven that “they” have come to America.  As I have mentioned before, this language of “following us home” might give someone the impression that Al Qaeda members are like lost puppies, which is hardly very frightening at all.

That brings us to Romney.  You have to stop every once in a while and just marvel at the bold-faced dishonesty and cant that the man embodies with such ease.  I used to think Bill Clinton was a master of deceit, but then I saw this guy work an audience and dodge interviewers’ questions.  The clincher will be when he responds to a question about his religion by saying, “It all depends on what the meaning of ‘faith’ is, doesn’t it?”  With these performances Romney has managed to add ignorance to his list of qualifications.

I have touched on the problems with Romney’s debate and speech statements in the past, so I won’t recapitulate all of that here.  Suffice it to say that a man who rattles off the two major sects of Islam in a list with various other Islamic groups, none of which has anything to do with the other, is profoundly unfit to head the executive branch in time of war with jihadis or indeed at any time.  Someone who can look at the sectarian warfare in Iraq (or, say, Lebanon) and talk about how “they” have all “come together” against “us” is hopelessly confused about the international scene.  Someone who cannot demonstrate even the most basic understanding of the fissures and divisions in the Islamic world and the different political organisations within that world should not even be a party to the debate, much less should he be considered a viable “top-tier” candidate for a major party’s nomination.  Maybe Ron Paul needs to make a reading list for Mitt as well.