President Obama tonight:
For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents. Last month, Gaddafi’s grip of fear appeared to give way to the promise of freedom. In cities and towns across the country, Libyans took to the streets to claim their basic human rights. As one Libyan said, “For the first time we finally have hope that our nightmare of 40 years will soon be over.”
Was all this not true when Obama was embracing the Bush policy of considering Qaddafi a valuable ally against terrorism and when Obama was pouring taxpayer funds into Qaddafi-run charities?
The part that begins "Last month..."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was pretty stunned by this statement:
"We must always measure our interests against the need for action."
I always thought that the need for (military) action was supposed to BE a measure of our interests. To Obama, the need for action stands in contrast to the national interest.
I have to say that nothing in this speech clears the muddy waters of U.S. foreign policy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry to say GOPers, but the American people will love this speech.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow about this part:
"Despite the success of our efforts over the past week, I know that some Americans continue to have questions about our efforts in Libya. Gaddafi has not yet stepped down from power, and until he does, Libya will remain dangerous. Moreover, even after Gaddafi does leave power, forty years of tyranny has left Libya fractured and without strong civil institutions. The transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task. And while the United States will do our part to help, it will be a task for the international community, and – more importantly – a task for the Libyan people themselves."
That sounds a lot like nation building. Does this mean the UN will be in charge of rebuilding their civil institutions?
Good luck with that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama is right; Iraq is different.It was authorized by Congress and we got the bad guy. For as much as Obama badmouths Bush, George W. Bush could've delivered this dose of "yearning to breathe free" gibberish without a hint of irony.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI had no problem with what he said. He took long enough, but such is the case in the fog of war. To nit pick this speech is a tough thing to do, the man has his reasons and methods, and they seemed better than what I dealt with under Clinton.
Nuff said, NEXT.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNone. You are correct.
Then again, as I recall, both George W. and George H.W. Bush spoke of Saddam Hussein as a tyrant, the later using the phrase “axis of evil”. What part of that wasn't true when Reagan/Bush was lining Saddam's pockets and building his army, or when April Gillespie told Saddam on behalf of George H.W. that the U.S. could care less if he invaded Kuwait?
If we want to take a moral stand, we can attribute all parties with hypocrisy, or we chalk the discrepancies up to the realist nature of international politics. (Well, except in Gillespie’s case, which had nothing to do with realism or morality and was just total incompetence on the part of the administration and DOS?)
(Nor am I implying that our initial actions in either Iraq or Libya were initiated for realist vital national interests. They were not. The point is that both sides care about tyranny when it is political convenient.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Jason
Exactly. We can fault Obama for a lot of things, but it's silly to fault him for failing to predict the future.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course it was true. Unfortunately, foreign affairs are utterly rife with hypocrisy. There doesn't seem to be any way around it. So, yes, it's true that Qaddafi was just as evil when Obama and Bush were treating him as a friend, and it's true that Saddam was just as evil when Rumsfeld was shaking his hand, and it's true that Arafat was just as evil when Clinton was patting him on the back, and one day the Andy McCarthys of the world will realize that the Saudis were just as evil when they were holding hands and smooching with George Bush.
I wish I knew a way around this, but aside from isolationism, I don't know what that way might be.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGee, if you replace the word "libya" in the statement with "Iran" you would still have a true statement; and yet there is no talk of action against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Ayatollah Khomeini.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI've got four boys. None of them will enlist to serve the International Community; all would consider enlistment to serve their own country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWait... you actually watched it thinking he was going to say something profound. I think I speak for a majority of Americans who think he only gave this speech because he was forced to say something about sending our lads into harm's way... what is it a week after the fact? Remember, this is the same guy that believes the leader of China has the better gig. The few seconds I watched, I could only see him reading the teleprompter. Eyes left. Eyes right. Eyes center. All reading. He's the Commander-in-Newscast. Trust me, deep down, he'd rather be back on vacation in Brazil. Speaking to us is a nuisance to him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTim Williams---Great and succinct post. BO is president like a child racing a home-made go-cart with a NASCAR engine. Clueless. Thanks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGreat question!!! What about Obama's involvement in the release of Magrabe from Scotland and lying about it!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThanks Mr. McCarthy.
The Union "Sorry to say GOPers, but the American people will love this speech."
Sorry The Union: NOT THE BLACK PANTHERS!!!
Malik Shabazz's and the Black Panther's latest condemnation of the POTUS goes something like, let's see how did Mr. Shabazz put it...he called the POTUS an UNCLE TOM!!! Seriously, it is absolutely TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!! You poor lib-progressives.
What Fun!!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet us examine what wasn't true in the excerpt you quoted from tonight, Andy:
"Last month, Gaddafi’s grip of fear appeared to give way to the promise of freedom. In cities and towns across the country, Libyans took to the streets to claim their basic human rights."
From all reports, the rebels largely consist of Islamists, including al-Qaeda. Their goal is Sharia rather than freedom and human rights. It will take a total news blackout--and I don't doubt the MSM would give him one--to prevent Americans from realizing we have helped install our most vicious enemies into the offices of a neutered dictator.
Next door in Egypt, the previous freedom fighters have started to abuse and slaughter Christians and women of all faiths. Sharia has been enshrined as law.
We heard similar lies from the Administration about what was going to happen in Egypt as well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHypocrisy or non-hypocrisy notwithstanding, what is essentially true is that this action is once again a strategic blunder by one of the worst, blundering Presidents we've had in a long time. The U.S. national interest is not being served well by this action, as Libya is not now a key strategic threat to the United States. We are steadily involving ourselves in what essentially is a civil war/revolution. This will all shake out in the end as being for European oil interests above all else, and we will end up seeing a replacement regime that is far worse than the worst days of Quaddafi.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLike many politicians before him, Obama was for it before he was against it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNations are not moral agents, though their governments can and often act in ways reflecting the aspirations of their constituent peoples. The question is whether a wise foreign policy makes its national survival and other things, like access to things that satisfy real hunger, secondary to these ideals. Paying the cross-dressing tyrant of Tripoli to allow us to ship his WMD program to Oak Ridge was in our national self-interest, even if being in the same room or shaking hands with the gangster to accomplish this small victory violated our high opinion of our own aesthetics.
Undeclared war on his turf, killing his people efficiently on territory we still recognize as a sovereign nation state, confirms for the less easily-gamed tyrants elsewhere that giving up their own WMD programs may invite even the United Nations to invoke experiments like "Responsibility 2 Protect."
The Libyan Adventure does not make the world more safe, and that is the bottom line here, not whether Secretary Rice or Secretary Clinton represent worldviews "more moral" than the other.
That question may seem of great importance at Washington and New York social events or among academics discussing these things in the faculty lounge but among most nations the lack an enviable ability to extend overwhelming force the questions are existential, "to be or not to be," whether one might be crushed and killed by one's neighbors or not.
It's a rich nation, indeed, that can afford the luxury of allowing idealism to rule its foreign policy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRealist Take: It constantly amazes me how long liberals will hang on to their comfortable lies.
Reagan/Bush never built up Saddam's army.
Gillespie never told Saddam that we didn't care if he invaded Kuwait.
Grow up and learn to recognize reality. That is, if a liberal can.
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