potential possibility that he could end up staying in power, though, isolated which brings us to the quote, exit strategy, from where we re going. i want to play a sound bite earlier today from general michael hayden, the former cia director, and what happens after gadhafi leaves if he leaves. here s what he had to say. the only way to get to phase 2 is if he leaves. how do you take a society that s had four decades of the destruction of all elements of civil society and try to construct a meaningful government out of that? we take an operational and an ethical responsibility for the final outcome here that wasn t ours two weeks ago. professor, who builds this nation? that seems to be what he s asking. and also let me just add one thing, let s be honest. most of us don t know exactly what s going on in libya
with the covergirl exact eyelights collection. green eyes here s the look for you. blues, hazels, and browns have their look too. individualeyes! with exact eyelights from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. we are four hours from president obama s speech to the nation on libya. the president is expected to explain the mission to find the exit strategy and look ahead to the united states future in the region. he was asked about it on an appearance earlier today. take a listen. with respect to libya, i am going to be addressing this issue tonight. and i have already discussed it on several occasions. our involvement in is going to be limited, both in time and in scope. you can watch the speech live beginning at 7:30 eastern time here on msnbc. so stick around for that. we ll take you to japan. new video shows the devastation of the tsunami there. the seven-minute youtube video
taxpayers. so far the president got international support and other countries are stepping forward. that s what we needed to see. is anything short here of 100% clearly defined description of what we are doing in libya and operation there and the exit strategy specifically? anything short of that, is that acceptable to you? well, i mean, i think the president has to lay out the strategies here. he has to explain to the american people why we are joining the international community and, yes, he has to explain what the endgame is about. there s been at least some confusion as to whether this is regime change or not. i think the president will be very clear tonight to say this is not about regime change. it s about protecting civilian population in libya. let s talk about another major issue that you re having to face and debate on the hill, that is the budget. we ve had these short-term extensions that have been passed or discussed. is there enough political will here with leader b
cease-fire that ushers him out over a period of a year. what i m saying is seen as her rhettic cal by some people. a lot scholars and strategists saying he must go, and that is an essential requirement of the mission. i m not fully on board, but i would acknowledge, to make sure you marginalize him, that s a hard task, unless you can see him gone. so this is where the administration s going to have to difficulty with the exit strategy. i simpympathize with him but it not going to make the speech easy to give. what does this mean for the region? i think a lot of things still are important in the region. and you mentioned syria or mr. todd mentioned syria earlier in his report about dennis mcdonough s brief and bahrain and yemen are important. you have four countries that are sort of crucial now. libya by itselves a small country in terms of population, its cultural should the united states become involved here? well, we are involve in all of them. the question is what kind of
goes war. it s called a military intervention, a military strike, it s called united nations security council enforcement. but they re not calling it a war. are there other cases in history where you ve had congress throwing such a fit over the u.n. security council making a resolution, the united states supporting that resolution, and our lawmakers going, now, wait a minute, you have to ask us about this? not at this stage. we haven t really seen this kind of objection at this stage. this is purely political objection at this stage. does the president need to get up there tonight and truly lay out, here s the goal, if we achieve this goal, we ve accomplished and we re out of there, and here s how we get out of there? heegs not going to be able to give a so-called exit strategy, especially because he has cast this as a humanitarian mission. that s the way he s described it from the start. he s saying it s to avoid a bloodbath. they have done that. they have avoided the bloodbat