Posted on 02/23/2011 3:03:54 AM PST by Scanian
After almost a week of escalating violent reprisals against protestors and soldiers who have joined the anti-regime forces, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and his sons have yet to quell the uprisings—and the White House has yet to take a public stand. Last night, Secretary Clinton released a statement, and pathetic as it was, it’s more than the president has offered—a president who has spent considerable energy burnishing his image for the Muslim and Arab public.
It is rumored that there are differences within the administration, but it is still unclear who could be counseling silence, or for what purpose. To be sure, the Bush administration neutered Qaddafi with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leaving him to believe he was next on Washington’s agenda. He dropped his nuclear weapons program and stopped sponsoring terrorism—but Qaddafi is not a U.S. ally, and with his treatment of his Libyan citizens he has shown he is the same old Qaddafi, a danger to his own people as well as the rest of the world.
The Obama administration would do well to exercise some moral clarity regarding a man whose personal demeanor has long symbolized the most repressively autocratic and obscurantist features of Arab political culture—a man who reportedly has now, among other things, dispatched his air force to put down the people he rules. The White House’s silence is perhaps explained by the idea that a public statement will do more harm than good.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Present.
He does not know what to say; my quess is his teleprompter is in for repairs.
Gaddafi is on his way out, regardless, and Obama feels that he has found a situation where he can safely say nothing. In reality, while Gaddafi was an awful dictator (and name me one ME ruler who isn’t), Bush had pretty much tamed him in terms of our interests and Gaddafi was busy focusing on his all-girl security force and wacky costumes.
The fact that the Islamist Qaradawi (sp?) in Egypt has issued a fatwa against Gaddafi and announced that it is the duty of Muslims to kill him and let Islam rule in Libya should tell us all we need to know. In other words, Obama supports this goal. He sees Gaddafi as being too Western and wants a genuinely Islamic, America-hating regime to take over there and everywhere in the ME. This is part of Obama’s vision of himself as the Third World Islamic Avenger.
He’s not saying anything because (a) he doesn’t have to and (b) he knows that anything he says will show him to be overtly on the side that hates America most.
I think he also genuinely wants to mess up the ME oil supply so he can shut down the US economy and “punish” us for what he perceives as our wicked ways.
Maybe 0 wants to study on Gaddafi’s “handling” of mobs and riots for a while. You never know, 0 maight be confronted with a similar situation before too long.
My bet is he would follow the Gaddafi model and win praise for it from the media.
Obama is waiting until a clear winner emerges. Then he will take the credit and declare “I was always with you”.
It might be a good idea for the UN to strip Libya of their seat on the Human Rights Committee,seeing the estimate from Italy is that they have killed up to 1000 of their own people.
I think he is a fan of Quadaffy and is hoping he remains in power.
Speaking of Italy, Libya is a former colony and is in their backyard.
I’d like to see some other NATO country take the initiative in a crisis that affects it for a change.
Valerie Jarret, in order to keep President Zero from publicly embarrassing himself again.
In other news...
I truly do not think he has the mental capacity to think this up. But, hey, maybe you know!
And to think that the guy’s nickname as a youth was “Mr. Handsome!”
Another muzzie-raised moron (Iran).
Certainly a possibility. I see his SEIU goons as his palace guard and he has shown that he has no qualms about calling them out.
I think I’ve seen that face before...
Oh, I know-—on the Post Office wall
obama can’t be bothered.
College basketball season is getting interesting.
Your comments are insightful and I fear terribly true.
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