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Rumsfeld: If Gadhafi Stays, U.S. Reputation Damaged, American Enemies Emboldened
ABC News ^ | 3/27/11 | Joshua Miller

Posted on 03/27/2011 11:40:08 AM PDT by Nachum

Washington - Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today that if Gadhafi remains in power in Libya, it will damage the prestige of the United States. He compared the possible scenario of Gadhafi staying in power in Tripoli to the U.S. and coalition forces not removing Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, though he refused to take a firm stand on whether U.S. military action in Libya was the correct move for the Obama administration. In an exclusive interview on "This Week" with ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, Rumsfeld said, "the fact is we are

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: damaged; gadhafi; reputation; rumsfeld
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To: Varsity Flight

???


21 posted on 03/27/2011 12:32:49 PM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: Nachum
Obama is worried about the USA reputation?? No...This is his.....I gotta go anti Muslim for a bit to prove I'm not a muzzie....

Except...bOTH THE REBELS & kADDAFI ARE MUSLIMS.

22 posted on 03/27/2011 12:33:52 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Nachum
I just don't fracking believe the world that has surrounded me. Enemies are enemies, former 'supposed friends and sympaticos' are now enemies, even some of the FR patriots here are lauding this latest foray into oblivion. WE DO NOT BELONG THERE! We do not need to be helping 'rebels' propped up and directed by Al Qaeda, we do not need to be stopping Muslims from killing Muslims. This dictator has been passable enough, even for Obama, for the last 30 years. What has made the last month any different?

I shudder to think about the next movie yet to be made about a 'Blackhawk Down'........................this is a futile embroglio populated with a cascading sequence of one USA circle-jerk after another. We don't need to be subjecting America's last best hope (its soldiers) to needless exposure like this.

23 posted on 03/27/2011 12:35:36 PM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Farmer Dean

priorities


24 posted on 03/27/2011 12:47:14 PM PDT by Varsity Flight
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To: Nachum

“Princes ought either be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so the the injury done to a Prince ought to be so severe that his vengeance cannot be feared.”

Niccolo Machiavelli


25 posted on 03/27/2011 12:51:45 PM PDT by Bean Counter (Stout Hearts!I)
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To: Nachum

Now rummie jumps on the establishment bandwagon. What a crock. What will our credibility be when al qaeda takes over libya?


26 posted on 03/27/2011 12:53:18 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Cicero

“Better if he stays than have the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda take power.”

Evil no matter which of them takes, or retakes the reins. I’d think that now that it’s confirmed that HE is thought of as quite expendable, that he will dig in, and strike out at everyone, and everything he imagines is after him. He’s probably become quite the paranoic with all of this.

This should have never happened, but it was almost guaranteed with the election of the Marxist in Chief, and the Socialist Democrats to power in 2008, who were already entrenched in the unelected positions, and bureaucracies of our government over many years.

I think we are seeing the Socialist Democrats in their Normandy invasion of our beaches, but I don’t see an Eisenhower in charge anywhere.

There might be hope.


27 posted on 03/27/2011 12:55:31 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will, they ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: Nachum
Note that if we had stayed out, and said we would not involve ourselves with an internal Libyan rebellion (as we did with Iran's failed uprising), it would not matter who won.

It was Obozo who led us to this.

28 posted on 03/27/2011 12:56:24 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
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To: PapaBear3625

But don’t you see? They want the Islamists to win. That’s why they are arming them.


29 posted on 03/27/2011 1:00:00 PM PDT by Nachum (The complete Obama list at www.nachumlist.com)
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To: Nachum
I am beginning to understand how Rumsfeld got us into Iraq. Some people have tunnel vision. Rumsfeld has Munich vision, whereby every anti-American non-nuclear dictator of an oil-producing country that we can defeat who remains standing is a Hitler in the making, and we would have to be isolationists to avoid toppling him.

I've always thought that our real problem in the run-up to WWII wasn't our refusal to attack Berlin as soon as Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. It was the fact that we had spent 1% of national output on defense (compared to at least 4% since the end of WWII) for the two decades since the end of WWI, meaning that we had the crappiest weapons of all the belligerents, with the exception of our aircraft carriers and battleships, and the smallest army (at 100,000 men), compared to the millions of troops each of the Axis powers had mobilized. That unreadiness for war (and the fact that we were fighting major industrial powers who made their own warships, artillery and tanks, not industrial pygmies like Iraq and Libya) was what cost us dearly in the initial stages of the war, not our refusal to attempt to bomb Berlin on the day after Hitler annexed the Sudetenland. In truth, even if all 100,000 of our troops had been in France during the Phony War, they would probably have accompanied British forces out of France during the Dunkirk evacuation - they were certainly beaten by Japanese troops far inferior (in terms of equipment and tactics) to the German forces that overran Western Europe like a knife through butter.

Today's America is radically different. We spend more on defense than all of our allies and adversaries put together. In this respect, we are mirroring our spending during WWII, wherein we put out more hardware than our allies and adversaries combined. If you're an industrial pygmy like Libya, every battle matters, because deterring adversaries depends less on your (laughable) capability to inflict losses than your sheer pugnacity. If you're Uncle Sam, with the best hardware and the most equipment, nobody (except a drooling retard like bin Laden, who has never and will never be able to conquer these United States) will write you off no matter how many battles you decide not to fight. We've slaughtered tens of thousands of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's time to declare an end to the punitive expeditions (and I think that's all they should have been - this nation-building* stuff was what comprised most of the $1.2T we invested there) and leave.

* Plus - we're not really building nations in America's image - we're subsidizing sharia states in Iraq and Afghanistan.

30 posted on 03/27/2011 1:03:16 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always)
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To: Nachum
The U.S. should get out of Libya and let the cards fall where they may. That would likely mean that Gaddafi remains in power. That is preferable to the Muslim Brotherhood or al-Qaida. All Obama needs to say is that "I was wrong", though that may be asking too much.

I am astounded by the series of conservatives from Rumsfeld to Bolton to Palin who are calling for Gaddafi's ouster with not a word about the Brotherhood.

Are they all so ill-informed?

31 posted on 03/27/2011 1:07:25 PM PDT by Praxeologue (io)
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To: Nachum

We could be in Obama’s LIE-BYA for years to come!


32 posted on 03/27/2011 1:07:30 PM PDT by 2harddrive
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To: Nachum
Does Rumsfeld think that if we fight shoulder to shoulder with al Quida in Libya to defeat Gadhafi that al Quida will then become our buddies and be nice to us in other parts of the world? We are on the wrong side in Libya and we should admit it and either help Gadhafi defeat the al Quida and Muslim Brotherhood backed jihadists, or just get out.
33 posted on 03/27/2011 1:13:41 PM PDT by Prokopton
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To: Nachum

Good points. Very few will fight for Ghadaffi if they know US and most of NATO wants him out, but he isn’t the type you cross and then talk it over at his tent.


34 posted on 03/27/2011 1:21:12 PM PDT by mewykwistmas
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To: Nachum

If Gadaffy Duck remains of course it is bad for Obama.

I he goes it is reported the mulim brothhood and al quada
will rule as Cairo.

So it is a lose lose for Obama even though he may view it as a win.


35 posted on 03/27/2011 1:21:19 PM PDT by Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid! (Obama:If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun (the REAL Arizona instigator))
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To: mewykwistmas
Very few will fight for Ghadaffi if they know US and most of NATO wants him out, but he isn’t the type you cross and then talk it over at his tent.

Just like how very few fought for Saddam once they knew that the US and most of NATO wanted him out? 4,400 dead GI's later, we're discovering that those "very few" can create a lot of widows and orphans stateside. Rumsfeld is an outstanding American - his problem is one that has saddled policy-makers for decades - he has Munich version, a subset of tunnel vision in which every dictator is Hitler (never mind that Hitler ruled over the No. 2 industrial power - which it had been for decades - in the world), meaning that every foreign country's security problem is also America's problem.

36 posted on 03/27/2011 1:32:19 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always)
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To: Nachum

Agreed. Not one drop of blood from our soldiers. They’ve had enough sacrificing to these ungrateful ragheads who will hate us in the end NO MATTER the outcome.


37 posted on 03/27/2011 1:39:17 PM PDT by Soothesayer9
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To: Nachum

Why exactly did we get in this mess in the 1st place?


38 posted on 03/27/2011 1:40:02 PM PDT by eak3
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To: Nachum

THIS IS NO SURPRISE!!!! Our enemies KNEW it the minute the Chicago thug was elected.


39 posted on 03/27/2011 1:45:54 PM PDT by RetiredArmy (The Lord Said It and I Believe it. Read your Bible. These are the end time events.)
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To: Nachum

The Russians and Chinese spilled the beans on this operation. They say that NATO is planning ground operations in Libya starting in mid April.


40 posted on 03/27/2011 1:46:51 PM PDT by Thunder90 (Fighting for truth and the American way... http://citizensfortruthandtheamericanway.blogspot.com/)
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