Page 554 - Imperative News Today

Worst hour was that when we had our hostage held in lebanon, he caved. he gave arms to iran. i mean, he wasnt even successful in springing the hostage. even reagan was when you are faced with a hostage and we are a civilized society, we care about every individual, we will strike the enemy who seizes a hostage. but you cant because you dont want to endanger the lives of the hostage. and thats why its a dilemma that every president has faced and no one has ever had a good answer to. >> bill: thom...

Spent a lot of time, effort and money into converting him in an ally in the fight against al qaeda and we dont want to give that up. push him out, what do you get? similarly, in bahrain, the family suppressing the sunni royal family suppressing the shiite majority quite brutally are nice enough to host the u.s. navys 5th fleet which allows us to patrol shipping lanes of the persian gulf and counter iranian influence. so, you know, we cant do it there. so theres a political component as well, and...

Push him out, what do you get? similarly, in bahrain, the family suppressing the sunni royal family suppressing the shiite majority quite brutally are nice enough to host the u.s. navys 5th fleet which allows us to patrol shipping lanes of the persian gulf and counter iranian influence. so, you know, we cant do it there. so theres a political component as well, and i guess you factor that into the question of what is possible, what is doable. now, is this mission doable, is this mission possible...

That its imperative when he returns for latin america he sit down with his advisers and figure out what the chess board looks like in the middle east, figures out where hes going to go and then talks to the country. >> hes got to address the nation from the oval office. >> he does. >> hes got to look into the camera and explain why hes decided to put young men and women into battle, into harms way. and explain the difference between the limited u.n. objectives and the much broader u.s. objective...

States over the course of the last decade if in six months gadhafi is still in power? can he then stand up and say i defeated the united states? >> well, i think it is a problem because theres this great drama under way for two months in the arab world. nearly every country in ferment and transformation, this is the only place where the united states has now intervened militarily. and if we dont win, if gadhafi doesnt leave, then i think its going to be a difficult blow for us and it may very we...

Were trying to impress. its not as if ahmadinejad or kim jong-il will say, wait, obama waited for arab league permission, lets call him up for brunch. im not really sure whose favor were trying to curry here the argument is he didnt want to have a unilateral american-led to deal with gadhafi which would have laid accusation against america of attack on an islamic nation. >> an accusation from whom, thats my point, martin. with all due respect, so what? i dont know why a unilateral action is such...

>> i think that was a mistake, wolf. he did not consult the congress fully. i think that was a mistake, as well. this all come together quickly and has a real sense of improvisation. it hopefully its going to work. but when the president comes back from latin america, its imperative that he sit down with congress and then address the american people about what he is trying to spell out. we shouldnt have to stitch it together from different statements from different people. >> wolf, i was talking...

>> well, of course, it may well be, suzanne, what they may be privately hoping, gadhafi just falls just under the weight of things. you know, when reagan attacked in 1986 you just had that piece preceding this, when the u.s. attacked in 1986, we somehow had bombs fall on the libyan compound where gadhafi supposedly lived and it did kill, allegedly killed and adopted daughter. some dispute about that. gadhafi did seem to behave himself more. i dont think it was a totally coincidental that theres ...

Will be a few days. president bush thought it would be short lived as well in iraq, as you remember. >> absolutely. we have this moral imperative to engage in kind of a militarized humanitarianism. theres kind of a progressive imperialism and i think the president is saying, oh, ok, this is where the neo-conservatives and the obama people meet in the middle. >> let me tell you what house speaker john boehner said similar to this. heres his statement from this weekend. the united states has a mor...

Being here. >> thank you for having me. >> ali: i would imagine as a rabbi you have a deep-seated interest in the u.s. getting involved early when civilians are being killed somewhere, like in libya, yet, polls show that most mrns do not share your opinion and wish that the u.s. werent getting involved militarily. >> i think the word involvement obviously has different meanings for different people. as a coalition, most people would welcome it. were afraid of it, america has a response one place...