Obama, the president who loves Islamic Madmen

Looks like Muammar is keeping his job after all. Way to go, Barack. Way to go. Shred the country but leave the crackpot leader in place. Way to go.

Libya says ready for change, Gaddafi must stay
04 Apr 2011

* Govt offers "any changes" but says Gaddafi must stay

* Denies attacks on civilians

(Adds details, quotes)

TRIPOLI, April 4 (Reuters) - Libya is ready to hold elections and reform its political system but only its own people can decide whether leader Muammar Gaddafi can stay at the helm, a government spokesman said on Monday.

"We could have any political system, any changes: constitution, election, anything, but the leader has to lead this forward. This is our belief," said Mussa Ibrahim, when asked about the content of negotiations with the West.

"Who are you to decide what Libyans should do? Why don't they (Western powers) say: we need the Libyan people to decide whether the Libyan leader should stay or go, to decide whether to have a different political system or not.

"No one can come to Libya and say: you have to lose your leader or your system or your regime. Who are you to stay that?"

He said no conditions could be imposed on Libya from abroad, even though the country was ready to discuss proposals aimed at bringing more democracy, transparency, press freedom and anti-corruption laws.

"Don't decide our future from abroad, give us a proposal for change from within," he said.

"The leader has no official position to step down from. ... He has a symbolic significance for the Libyan people. How Libya is governed is a different matter. What kind of political system is implemented in the country is a different matter. This is a question we can talk about."

He accused some Western leaders of trying to topple Gaddafi out of personal interest or for economic gain.

"We know there are some politicians in power in the West who just have a personal problem with the leader," he said. "Others have economic interests which they think would be served better if the government collapsed."

He denied allegations that government forces were involved in any attacks against civilians, adding that Libya regretted Italy's decision to back the rebels.

"We are not attacking any civilians, I assure you. We never in this crisis attacked any civilians. ... I will not stand and speak for a government that kills civilians. Who do you think we are, monsters?"

Assad -- The Mysterious "They" are at it again

Hillary Clinton said a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was out to bring down her husband with its lies. Then Monica Lewinsky's blue dress with its stains appeared. Gaddafi says outside agitators including al-Qaeda were behind the unrest in Libya. Now Bashir Assad is getting in on the game.

Sure, there's a grain of truth in the claims made by all of them. So what? The basic issue is the fact that the opposition was right. Bill Clinton's transgressions were insignificant compared with the evil of Gaddafi and Assad. But they all play the game of Escape the same way. Blame some invisible group of people whose existence cannot be proved or disproved.

If Obama wanted to be the final catalyst for change in the Islamic world, he should stand by the rebelling populations and urge them on, letting the tyrants and despots running the troubled countries know that their time is up and the threat of US support for the rebels is real, and therefore, the leaders should go now, and go peacefully, or else.

Instead, our hapless muslim-in-chief president told Gaddafi that all he had to do to stop the NATO attacks on his forces was to stop killing Libyan citizens. Worse, he told Gaddafi that NO US ground troops would enter Libya.

For a tyrant on the run, what better news is there? Now he knows he can hunker down in the desert and wait for the storm to blow over. The best we can hope for is that one of our planes or a NATO jet fires a lucky shot that hits Gaddafi. But even if that happens, there's no guarantee his loyal troops will reveal his death.

Syrian president blames protests on 'conspirators'

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian President Bashar Assad blamed a wave of protests on "conspirators" who are trying to destroy the country, giving his first address to the nation Wednesday since the demonstrations erupted nearly two weeks ago.

As he entered Parliament for the speech, legislators chanted "God, Syria and Bashar only!" and "Our souls, our blood we sacrifice for you Bashar."

The speech is seen as a crucial test for his leadership and one that may determine Syria's future.

Assad said security forces were given "clear instructions" not to harm citizens during the protests.

Human rights groups say more than 60 people have been killed since March 18 in a crackdown on the protests.

The coming days will be key to determining whether Assad's concessions will quiet the protest movement, which started after security forces arrested several teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in the impoverished city of Daraa in the south.

Assad also is expected to announce constitutional amendments and sweeping reforms, including an end to nearly 50 years of widely despised state of emergency laws that give the regime a free hand to arrest people without charges. On Tuesday, Assad fired his Cabinet in another move designed to pacify the anti-government protesters.

Jimmy Carter Redux -- The Wilting of Obama

When the opportunity to change the world for the better is dropped into the lap of a president, what should he do? Seize the historic moment to make the world a better place? Or dither? Obama has chosen dithering.

Has he had an emotional breakdown? According to news reports, rather than wrestle with world problems and direct them toward outcomes that are good for everyone except some brutal dictators, he's going to Rio. Has his desire to duck the biggest revolutionary change the world is likely to see for many many years evidence that he's had enough of being president?

After saying he thought it would be easier to be the president of China, it looks as though he's fed up and willing to concede the next election even before America goes to the polls. That's good.

The Collapse of Internationalism The Obama foreign-policy team utterly fails its first real-world test in Libya.

By DANIEL HENNINGER

Not the 28 members of NATO, not the 15-member U.N. Security Council, not the 22 nations of the Arab League could save Libya's rebels from being obliterated by the mad and murderous Moammar Gadhafi. The world has just watched the collapse of internationalism.

The world's self-professed keepers of international order, from Brussels to Turtle Bay, huffed and puffed, talked and threatened. And they failed. Utterly.

But what we've watched is not merely the failure of the gauzy notion of "internationalism." It's more specific than that. What has collapsed here is the modern Democratic Party's new foreign-policy establishment.

Barack Obama is the first Democratic president to assemble a foreign-policy team made up entirely of intellectuals who for years have developed a counter-thesis to the policies of presidents extending back to John F. Kennedy. We are in a "post-American world," they have argued, in which the U.S. is obliged to pursue its interests in concert with the rest of the world's powers, never alone.

The uprisings against autocracies in 10 separate Middle Eastern countries, a crisis inherited from no one, was their real-world test. In Egypt, they fumbled. In Libya, they have failed.

The poster boy for this internationalist view is White House deputy Ben Rhodes, who told a reporter last week: "This is the Obama conception of the U.S. role in the world—to work through multilateral organizations and bilateral relationships to make sure that the steps we are taking are amplified."

Days later, bemused Libyan rebel spokesman Essam Gheriani remarked in Benghazi: "Everyone here is puzzled as to how many casualties the international community judges to be enough for them to help. Maybe we should start committing suicide to reach the required number."

Mr. Rhodes' view isn't just briefingspeak. The new Democratic theory of the proper U.S. role in the world was articulated in a July 2008 document, "Strategic Leadership: Framework for a 21st Century National Security Strategy." It described itself as "an intellectual and policy blueprint for the next administration."

Its authors included James B. Steinberg, who is now Mr. Obama's deputy secretary of state; Ivo Daalder, now U.S. ambassador to NATO; and Anne-Marie Slaughter, until a month ago the State Department's director of policy planning. Susan Rice, who is now our ambassador to the United Nations, wrote the preface.

Their blueprint, a tour of the world's regions, counsels constant multilateral cooperation, institution-building and consultation. While it admits U.S. preeminence, it is largely a meditation on the limits of American power and authority. This is the document's final, summarizing sentence: "And such [U.S.] leadership recognizes that in a world in which power has diffused, our interests are best protected and advanced when others step up and at times lead alongside or even ahead of us."

In the Middle East, no one has stepped up, no one is leading alongside and our allies are in the rear, accomplishing nothing while they wait for . . . America.

This was a test case, and what we have seen is that a world in which the U.S. doesn't unmistakably lead is a world that spins its wheels, and eventually the wheels start to come off. When the U.S. instructs the Saudis not to intervene in Bahrain, and the Saudi army does precisely the opposite, the wheels are coming off the international order.

In an op-ed piece for the New York Times this week, "Fiddling While Libya Burns," the recently departed State Department planner Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote a cri de coeur on behalf of doing something for Libya. "The United States and Europe are temporizing on a no-flight zone," she wrote. It was a remarkable call to action—until the final two paragraphs. She concludes that the U.S. "should ask the Security Council to authorize a no-flight zone," (by asking Russia and China to abstain). If that works, then with the Arab League, we "should assemble an international coalition to impose the no-flight zone." Finally, failing all that, we should work with the Arab League to give the Libyan opposition "any assistance it requests."

But Benghazi will be dead by the time this calibration grinds down to Ms. Slaughter's bottom line. After Mr. Obama met with his national security team Tuesday, with Gadhafi one demolished town from Benghazi, the White House said, "The President instructed his team to continue to fully engage in the discussions at the United Nations, NATO and with partners and organizations in the region." Barack Obama is following their blueprint to a tee.

In a better world, James Steinberg, Ivo Daalder and Susan Rice would join Ms. Slaughter in resigning and calling for action to save Benghazi from outside the government. Being inside is manifestly useless. They are defaulting the U.S. into a dangerous irrelevance.

Libyan rebel commander Mohammed Abdallah, in bombed-out Ajdabiya, put the spike into them Tuesday: "The hands of the international community are covered in blood." But the "international community" was never much more than a academic abstraction, and blood, as always, can be washed off.

Obama to Gadhafi -- Please, Please, Please Leave

The Arab world and its despotic regimes have been collapsing and toppling since the start of the year. This is earth-shaking. But our muslim-in-chief president has stayed away from the most dramatic upheaval in a century? Longer? In less than two months well over 100 million abused muslims may set themselves free from their tyrannical leaders, no thanks to the supposed leader of the free world, Obama.

He's been AWOL since the revolutions began, seemingly unwilling to help those millions and millions of muslims who have been screaming for democracy and freedom. However, now that Gadhafi has ordered his loyal supporters to kill Libyans, Obama decided he was ready to say something. But to whom? It's unlikely the people of Libya are plugged into the wide world of global communications, especially the communications sent out from Washington. And who would expect Gadhafi, who dresses like Michael Jackson, to care what Obama has to say about giving up control?

With a few cruise missiles fired from a US Navy ship in our Mediterranean fleet, the Libyan nut would change his mind. But without the threat of his own death before him, he's going to kill as many Libyans as it takes to hang onto his control of the country and people he's abused for the last 42 years.

Enough is enough. Obama could become the leader of a much larger free world, if only he had the nerve to assist people who are desperate for some much needed help. It's tought to fight tanks and armed soldiers with rocks.

Obama says Gadhafi must leave Libya 'now'

WASHINGTON – Ratcheting up the pressure, President Barack Obama on Saturday said Moammar Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and urged the Libyan leader to leave power immediately.

It was the first time Obama has called for Gadhafi to step down, coming after days of bloodshed in Libya. Gadhafi has vowed to fight to the end to keep his four-decade grip on power in the North African country.

"When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," the White House said in a statement, summarizing Obama's telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Until now, U.S. officials have held back from such a pronouncement, insisting it is for the Libyan people to decide who their leader should be.

Obama commented a day after the administration froze all Libyan assets in the U.S. that belong to Gadhafi, his government and four of his children. The U.S. also closed its embassy in Libya and suspended the limited defense trade between the countries.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced further sanctions Saturday, revoking visas for senior Libyan officials and their immediate family members. She said applications from these people for travel to the United States would be rejected.

Gadhafi "should go without further bloodshed and violence," Clinton said in a separate statement.

Obama has been conferring with world leaders about the unrest in Libya. The administration is hoping that the world speaks with a single voice against Gadhafi's violent crackdown on protesters, and Obama is sending Clinton to Geneva on Sunday to coordinate with foreign policy chiefs from several countries.

The U.N. Security Council met urgently Saturday to debate new sanctions against Libya but disagreed over a proposal to refer Gadhafi and his top lieutenants to an international war crimes tribunal.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants immediate action to protect Libyan civilians. The U.N. chief was due in Washington on Monday for talks with Obama at the White House.

The administration had been facing increasing pressure to more forcefully condemn Gadhafi and explicitly call for his ouster, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy has done. Witnesses in Libya said Gadhafi is arming civilian supporters to set up checkpoints and roving patrols in Tripoli, the capital.

The U.S. held back, but its tone shifted sharply on Friday after Americans in Libya were evacuated to safety by ferry and a chartered airplane.

Shortly after, Obama signed an executive order outlining financial penalties designed to pressure Gadhafi's government into halting the violence. The order said that the instability in Libya constituted an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security and foreign policy.

A nonviolent revolt against Gadhafi's government began Feb. 15 amid a wave of uprisings in the Arab world. Most of Libya's eastern half is under the control of rebels. Witnesses say Gadhafi's government has responded by shooting at protesters in numerous cities.