Like many people, tonight I did something I don't do very often, I watched Obama speak. I don't normally listen to Obama's speeches. Why bother, every word, move and gesture will be plastered all over the Internet within minutes of him finishing. Tonight was a little bit different, ten days ago the President interrupted his Brazilian vacation just long enough to tell a Brazilian audience he'd taken America to war. Then he went back to playing soccer with the kids. Tonight, ten days later he was finially going to tell us why.
I was hoping that since he was back in the United States, tonight he might explain why taking the country to war was not a good enough reason to postpone his vacation. Needless to say I was disappointed.
I also thought he might touch on why he didn't think it was necessary to get Congressional approval.. he closest he came to that was to say he'd consulted with Congressional Leaders. Judging from the letter House Majority John Boehner sent the President, he doesn't feel there was much of a consultation. The Presidents very liberal interpretation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act was not mentioned
The President did talk about how he'd taken the lead in getting the UN Mandate, Resolution 1973 through the UN Security Council... He forgot to mention the mandate isn't a mandate at all, but a resolution that authorises, not mandates a No Fly Zone over Libya. He talked about all our NATO Allies, mentioning several by name. There were several like Germany he didn't mention, because they are refusing to take part.
He justified his haste, and indirectly not addressing either Congress or the American People beforehand this way.
"We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi -- a city nearly the size of Charlotte -- could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," Obama said. "It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing."
He likes the words, I and Me
He didn't have time to tell Congress or the American People, but he had time to push a resolution through the UN Security Council, put together a coalition, deploy Naval Forces and go on vacation.
I'll give him credit for the humanitarian reasoning, Gaddadfi is a monstrous, murdering Son of a Bitch who might very well have slaughtered thousands of his own people to make a point. Gaddadfi is a terrorist, he has attacked and killed Americans, blown up aircraft and butchered his own people. In spite of all that we're not out to kill the SOB or even remove him from power, according to Obama. Killing his grunts is acceptable, most of them are probably draftees so they don't count.
Obama also seems to have a strange idea when the use of force for humanitarian reasons is dictated,, it's all contingent on some abstract idea of American National Interests. According to Obama, we have no National Interests when it comes to bombing the stuffing's out of other dictators, who like Gaddadfi kill there own people.. so mass muders in Africa are not a big humanatarian issue
Our national interest in Libya is a Gaddadfi Massacre there would cause a flood of refugees into Egypt an Tunisia.... I guess that could upset the Arab Botherhood's plans for democracy in those countries..
I was going to embed a video of Obama's speech here at the end.. But Sarah Palin has some comments about the Presidents speech. She makes more sense...
For anyone wishing to hear the President, Click Here
