As the world listened, U.S. President Barack Obama made a strong statement on Libya and the military intervention. The President defended U.S. involvement as a responsibility after launching a scathing attack on the Libyan dictator Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.
For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant - Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world - including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents, he said.
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. It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen, he asserted, backing an earlier contention, Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world's many challenges.
To summarize, the intention of the military involvement in Libya, Obama narrated, then: in just one month, the United States has worked with our international partners to mobilize a broad coalition, secure an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevent a massacre, and establish a No Fly Zone with our allies and partners. To lend some perspective on how rapidly this military and diplomatic response came together, when people were being brutalized in Bosnia in the 1990s, it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians.
With the speech so impactful, the media launched efforts to decipher the sub text of the address while it sparked off a wave of rhetoric from the 2012 Presidential-hopefuls.
Start the slideshow to see the quotes from Barack Obama's speech followed by responses of 2012 Presidential contenders:
In defense of the military intervention keeping the American sentiment..."To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.""As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe. And no decision weighs on me more than when to deploy our men and women in uniform…. There will be times, though, when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are……In such cases, we should not be afraid to act – but the burden of action should not be America’s alone.""Moreover, we have accomplished these objectives consistent with the pledge that I made to the American people at the outset of our military operations. I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. "Verbal Assual on Gadhafi..."Last month, Gaddafi’s grip of fear appeared to give way to the promise of freedom. In cities and towns across the country, Libyans took to the streets to claim their basic human rights….Faced with this opposition, Gaddafi began attacking his people...""Ten days ago, having tried to end the violence without using force, the international community offered Gaddafi a final chance to stop his campaign of killing, or face the consequences. Rather than stand down, his forces continued their advance, bearing down on the city of Benghazi…At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice...""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. It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen."Connecting Iraq..."To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq. Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future. But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya."REUTERSRepublican Sarah Palin was quick to react against Obama's Monday night address on Libya. The former governor of Alaska dubbed the President's speech “profoundly disappointing”.“I think that was a profoundly disappointing speech because it proved that the ‘Obama Doctrine’ is still full of chaos and questions,” Palin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren after the speech.“It’s dodgy, it’s dubious. We’re not hearing from our president what is the end game here."And with Gadhafi still in power — if we are not going to oust him via killing or capturing — then there is no acceptable end state."“It’s very disappointing that we did not hear that commitment from our president — that America’s interests lie in Gadhafi being ousted, and without that being met, I have to ask why in the world [is] our military” being deployed."He’s engaging in inconsistency . . . it’s making many of distrust what it is that we are doing there in Libya, and making us wonder what is the end game,” she said. “But [also] where do we go next with all the other countries that are certainly suffering from a lot of turmoil.“The inconsistency tonight articulated by our president just made things worse,” Palin continued. “Another big question that needs to be asked is: Are we at war? I haven’t heard the president say that we are at war. And that’s why I too [don’t know] do we use the term intervention, do we use war, do we use skirmish?“What I know is: U.S. interests are not being met if Gadhafi stays in power, and if we are merely taking a back seat to the Arab League, to the United Nations, to NATO leadership, while we just put our fingers up in the air and decide what the political winds are around the world,” she said. “Not necessarily knowing and believing that the U.S. interests must come first in this.”REUTERSAlso speaking to Fox News, John Bolton launched a verbal assault on the President's Libya address reminding the country yet against why he is known as one of Obama's harshest critics."The speech was a dog's breakfast as far as I was concerned," he told Fox News."It wasn't much that was new and what was new was trivial. ... I thought it was pathetic."REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstRudy Giuliani, another Republican presidential hopeful, opined that Obama's speech only made American role in Libya "murkier.""The president's speech tonight has made things even murkier than they were before," he said on CNN."The whole purpose of this was to clarify our mission. Our mission is just internally contradictory."REUTERS/Damir SagoljPopular businessman and TV personality of 'The Apprentice' and 'Celebrity Apprentrice' fame, Donald Trump felt "frankly" that Obama was "a little bit afraid of Congress.""I really do want to know these people we're fighting for, who they are," he told CNN."They call them the rebels like they're these wonderful guys, but i hear they're aligned with Iran, I hear they may be aligned with Al Qaeda. ... And to be honest, wouldn't that be really very very sad if we're bombing all of these
things killing all of these people one way or the other and Iran ends up taking over Libya."Also, on an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Trump also raised questions on the possibility of Obama's presidency being illegal.“Why has Obama, for over 2 years, employed numerous private and government attorneys to avoid presenting a legitimate birth certificate and college records?”"To be honest with you, I want him to have a birth certificate because [otherwise] that would mean that his presidency was, I guess you'd have to say, illegal. You have to be born in the United States. I hope that he was born in the United States. I hope – but I want to get ride of the word hope, I want to know for sure – I hope that he was born in the United States and I hope this doesn't become a big issue."REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
