Posted on 03/01/2011 12:10:08 PM PST by mojito
According to a story in Sunday’s Washington Post, as President Obama and his advisers measured their response to the mass killing in Libya, they were mindful of the fact that diplomats in Tripoli had told them, in the words of one official, that “certain kinds of messaging from the American government could endanger the security of American citizens.”
“Overruling that kind of advice would be a very difficult and dangerous thing to do,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. “That was the debate, and frankly we erred on the side of caution, for certain, and at the cost of some criticism,” he continued. “But when you’re sitting in government and you’re told that ignoring that advice could endanger American citizens, that’s a line you don’t feel very comfortable crossing.”
The Obama administration’s position assumes that Muammar Qaddafi needs a pretext to kill Americans. He actually doesn’t. He has done so in the past, and he could just as easily do so now, regardless of what kind of “messaging” emerges from our government.
[....]
On a more fundamental level, what the Obama administration did was create quite a dangerous precedent. It has now signaled to the most malevolent regimes in the world that the way to delay (or perhaps even avoid) American condemnation, let alone American action, is to threaten the lives of American citizens. The message sent to, and surely the message received by, despots around the world is this: If you want to neuter America, threaten to harm its citizens. Mr. Obama will bend like red-hot steel pulled from a furnace.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
Isn’t it instructive that the people most at risk aren’t giving in while Obama hides in his office and bows to all the world’s dictators.
Obotula the Impotent PING!!
That’s what happens when you get caught with your pants down. We should have anticipated this problem. The middle east has been in crisis stage for several months now.
Zero doesn't give a damn about productive people.
That, and Mo has proof that zero’s a mooselimb.
Did anyone else see last night’s panel on Fox News Special Report? Steve Hayes and Charles Krauthammer were trying very hard to get Juan to understand this point. The discussion became very heated. Of course, Juan would not see any of it.
Why this surprises me, I have no idea.
i can’t believe the morons (moles?) who think that if Qaddafi is deposed that libya will become a real peaceful garden spot.
clinton/albright had us on the wrong side of the kosovo thing in the 90s and it looks like a bunch of dummys want us involved in libya.
what a bunch of bat guano.
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