Posted on 03/03/2011 7:04:13 PM PST by Pan_Yan
President Obama said Thursday that he had ordered plans giving the U.S. military "full capacity to act, potentially rapidly," in Libya if the situation there deteriorates.
"I don't want us hamstrung," Obama said. He cited the possibility of a humanitarian crisis, or "a situation in which defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger," or "a stalemate that over time could be bloody" if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi continues to resist international demands that he step down.
Gaddafi "has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave," the president said.
But in his first public statement on Libya since the outbreak of widespread armed conflict between opposition forces and those loyal to Gaddafi, Obama expressed several notes of caution, stressing that the United States must act only "in consultation . . . with the international community."
"The region will be watching carefully to make sure we're on the right side of history," Obama said at a White House news conference with visiting Mexican President Felipe Calderon. As with Egypt and Tunisia, he said, U.S. interests were best served if the United States was not seen as engineering or imposing a particular outcome.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’m sure we have boots on the ground already.
Worsens??? What could worsen it? Do they have unions?
If we are going to intervene it should be done on our time. The time that is best to win. Don’t wait until the whole situation is a mess.
Why do we have to be the policemen of the world. We are broke.
What no democrap is willing to admit is that Obama is having to prove the Bush Doctrine to be good foreign policy. Cue spin in 3, 2, ....
What exactly is the clear and present danger the USA faces?
Meanwhile, Obama plays nice with Iran’s Mullahs.
The only thing this clOwn signals is confusion.
It’s all ready a mess....it’s already bloody...on every point he mentioned would have to be for us to do anything. This is just political posturing plain and simple. Needs to feel he’s “a part of it all”. Idiot!
You are right. The horses have left the barn. My statement was a general one. Decisions like these should not be taken reactively, unless we are directly attacked. A real leader would have accessed the situation early on. This decision should have been made weeks ago, up or down. If it was yes, hit them hard when they least expected it, and install the Eastern rebels in Tripoli. But now it is too late. He who hesitates is lost.
The sad part is that our best course of action is to stay out of it, and Obama can't even do nothing right.
The only humanitarian crises that I care about anymore are American humanitarian crises.
Stop spending billions and trillions around the world for people how despise us with every breath they take.
"a situation in which defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger
Don't care about this anymore and don't want more American blood and treasure spent on this kind of lefty crap. There are 57+ Muslim countries around the world and some of them are VERY rich. Let them spend their blood and treasure on other Muslim countries, not the US.
"a stalemate that over time could be bloody"
This is the single most lame-brained reason that i've ever heard of for committing troops to a foreign entanglement.
ALL stalemates in civil wars are bloody. We can't step into every single civil war in the world for the rest of the lifetime of humanity because it might be bloody.
BEWARE FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS!!!
Why? Why the hell do we need to get involved in their civil war. Let them have at each other. I would rather pay $4 a gallon for gas than to lose one troop there.
Where are all of the “no war for oil” ranters.
I am sick of us intervening all over the place, spending our treasure in exchange for people who hate us in the first place.
No thanks.
I agree. I am so sick of people looking at me as if I were Atilla the Hun when I say that I don’t care if they all kill each other.
This is not about oil. We are awash in oil. Our strategic reserves are full. The fields in OK are full to overflowing. The refineries are working overtime and cannot keep up.
Let the Italians take care of Libya. Let the chinese take some of the heat.
My give a hoot is just about spent.
I believe “If the situation worsens...” Were the words he used when allowing the navy to follow those people captured by the pirates.
We all saw how much good THAT did, didn’t we now?
I just wish we had an AMERICAN President.
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