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Venimus , vidimus , et mortuus est
Exclusive: President Barack Obama on 'Fox News Sunday
WALLACE: Worst day in the White House?
OBAMA: The day we traveled up to Newtown after Sandy Hook.
WALLACE: No explanation needed there.
OBAMA: No.
WALLACE: Biggest accomplishment?
OBAMA: Saving the economy from a great depression.
WALLACE: Worst mistake?
OBAMA: Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.
...
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/04/10/exclusive-president-barack-obama-on-fox-news-sunday/
WALLACE: Worst day in the White House?
OBAMA: The day we traveled up to Newtown after Sandy Hook.
WALLACE: No explanation needed there.
OBAMA: No.
WALLACE: Biggest accomplishment?
OBAMA: Saving the economy from a great depression.
WALLACE: Worst mistake?
OBAMA: Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.
...
At the time:
In Tripoli, Clinton Pledges U.S. Help to a ‘Free Libya’
By STEVEN LEE MYERS OCT. 18, 2011
TRIPOLI, Libya — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged political and economic support for Libya’s transitional government on Tuesday, even as a senior administration official warned that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his loyalists remained “a lethal nuisance” who could stall the country’s evolution.
Mrs. Clinton, the Obama administration’s most ardent champion of the NATO-led intervention, arrived here from Malta aboard an American military jet shortly after noon and was greeted by a phalanx of uniformed fighters, part of an irregular militia that now controls Tripoli’s airport.
...
“I am proud to stand here on the soil of a free Libya,” Mrs. Clinton said at an Islamic conference center in the capital after meeting with the country’s interim leaders, including the chairman of the Transitional National Council, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil.
Mrs. Clinton raised a host of issues with Mr. Abdel-Jalil and other Libyan officials, including the consolidation of political control, the prevention of violence against Colonel Qaddafi’s supporters and the integration of myriad rebel militias into a new security structure.
“Not all of the militias have yet come on board,” said a senior official traveling with Mrs. Clinton. “More are. More still need to come.”...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/world/africa/clinton-in-libya-to-meet-leaders-and-offer-aid-package.html
By STEVEN LEE MYERS OCT. 18, 2011
TRIPOLI, Libya — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged political and economic support for Libya’s transitional government on Tuesday, even as a senior administration official warned that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his loyalists remained “a lethal nuisance” who could stall the country’s evolution.
Mrs. Clinton, the Obama administration’s most ardent champion of the NATO-led intervention, arrived here from Malta aboard an American military jet shortly after noon and was greeted by a phalanx of uniformed fighters, part of an irregular militia that now controls Tripoli’s airport.
...
“I am proud to stand here on the soil of a free Libya,” Mrs. Clinton said at an Islamic conference center in the capital after meeting with the country’s interim leaders, including the chairman of the Transitional National Council, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil.
Mrs. Clinton raised a host of issues with Mr. Abdel-Jalil and other Libyan officials, including the consolidation of political control, the prevention of violence against Colonel Qaddafi’s supporters and the integration of myriad rebel militias into a new security structure.
“Not all of the militias have yet come on board,” said a senior official traveling with Mrs. Clinton. “More are. More still need to come.”...
Hillary Defends Her Failed War in Libya
Few even noticed the weakest moment in the Democratic frontrunner’s debate.
Mike Blake / Reuters
Using contested intelligence, a powerful adviser urges a president to wage a war of choice against a dictator; makes a bellicose joke when he is killed; declares the operation a success; fails to plan for a power vacuum; and watches Islamists gain power. That describes Dick Cheney and the Iraq War—and Hillary Clinton and the war in Libya.
At Tuesday’s primary debate, Clinton was criticized not just for the Iraq War vote that cost her the 2008 election, but also for the undeclared 2011 war that she urged in Libya. The Obama Administration waged that war of choice in violation of the War Powers Resolution and despite the official opposition of the U.S. Congress. “Governor Webb has said that he would never have used military force in Libya and that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was inevitable,” Anderson Cooper told the former Secretary of State. “Should you have seen that attack coming?”
Her answer included a broad defense of the war in Libya. “Remember what was going on,” she began, repeating a version of events that some intelligence officials and human rights groups doubt. “We had a murderous dictator, Gadhafi, who had American blood on his hands ... threatening to massacre large numbers of the Libyan people. We had our closest allies in Europe burning up the phone lines begging us to help them try to prevent what they saw as a mass genocide, in their words. And we had the Arabs standing by our side saying, ‘We want you to help us deal with Gadhafi.’”
She characterized the Obama Administration’s response as “smart power at its best,” saying that while America refused to take the lead in the war, “we will provide essential, unique capabilities that we have, but the Europeans and the Arabs had to be first over the line. We did not put one single American soldier on the ground.”
She then put a positive gloss on the war’s outcome. “I'll say this for the Libyan people…” she said. “I think President Obama made the right decision at the time...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/hillary-clinton-debate-libya/410437/
Few even noticed the weakest moment in the Democratic frontrunner’s debate.
Mike Blake / Reuters
Using contested intelligence, a powerful adviser urges a president to wage a war of choice against a dictator; makes a bellicose joke when he is killed; declares the operation a success; fails to plan for a power vacuum; and watches Islamists gain power. That describes Dick Cheney and the Iraq War—and Hillary Clinton and the war in Libya.
At Tuesday’s primary debate, Clinton was criticized not just for the Iraq War vote that cost her the 2008 election, but also for the undeclared 2011 war that she urged in Libya. The Obama Administration waged that war of choice in violation of the War Powers Resolution and despite the official opposition of the U.S. Congress. “Governor Webb has said that he would never have used military force in Libya and that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was inevitable,” Anderson Cooper told the former Secretary of State. “Should you have seen that attack coming?”
Her answer included a broad defense of the war in Libya. “Remember what was going on,” she began, repeating a version of events that some intelligence officials and human rights groups doubt. “We had a murderous dictator, Gadhafi, who had American blood on his hands ... threatening to massacre large numbers of the Libyan people. We had our closest allies in Europe burning up the phone lines begging us to help them try to prevent what they saw as a mass genocide, in their words. And we had the Arabs standing by our side saying, ‘We want you to help us deal with Gadhafi.’”
She characterized the Obama Administration’s response as “smart power at its best,” saying that while America refused to take the lead in the war, “we will provide essential, unique capabilities that we have, but the Europeans and the Arabs had to be first over the line. We did not put one single American soldier on the ground.”
She then put a positive gloss on the war’s outcome. “I'll say this for the Libyan people…” she said. “I think President Obama made the right decision at the time...
Maybe I should post the "We came, We saw, He died" video. What do you think?
7 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
