Speaking out against Muammar al-Qaddafi for the first time, President Obama said on Saturday the Libyan leader needs to “leave now,” having lost the legitimacy to rule.
In a White House statement on Obama’s telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama took his most direct position yet on the escalating violence in Libya.
“The president stated that 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,” it said.
Obama’s stance comes after he signed an executive order Friday freezing assets held by Qaddafi and four of his children in the United States. The Treasury Department said the sanctions against Qaddafi, three of his sons and a daughter also apply to the Libyan government.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced further sanctions Saturday, revoking visas for senior Libyan officials and their immediate family members. She said future applications from those blacklisted for travel to the United States would be rejected.
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14 Responses
Its about time. Where’s has obama been the whole time. Gafdafi is a terrorist and cold bloodied murderer he’s no different then Saddam Hussein, he should be put in Gitmo and triad.
The Arab “friends” of Obama are turning out to be nuts! These are the people he apologized to for the former American administrations misunderstandings and treatment!
Funny how oybama is good at telling other dictators when its time to leave but he hasn’t gotten the message from us in the USA.
What took him so long? With Mubarak he did it instantly, then he said he didn’t mean right away, then he said he did, then he said he didn’t, then he finally admitted he was confused, and has less understanding of the mid east than michelle bachman or W.
He should take some of his own advice …
no, he didn’t say it about Mubarak “instantly”-just a fact.
“mark”-he’s not a dictator so there’s no message for him to get; perhaps you need a course in 5th grade civics
An article in today’s NY Times makes clear that he was waiting until all the American citizens were out of Lybia and couldn’t be taken as hostages, a very prudent move both for the Americans and their families, as well as for US interests. In the meantime there was intense diplomatic activity behind the scenes to line up international support for strong action against the dictator.
O’Bama received millions of dollars in small donations that originated in all sorts of Arab countries. Could it be that they in fact all came from Qaddafi?
Take a look at:
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=267361#ixzz1EsndUR7m
As a side point, about 15 years ago David Bedein uncovered that Peace Now was being finance by Qaddafi by way of an American, Quaker peace foundation. Qaddafi is an old hand at undermining his enemies.
Aryeh Zelasko
Beit Shemesh
Correction to my previous post: the article was in today’s Washington Post, not the NYT.
There is nothing that President Obama can do that does not draw unfounded criticism from his opponents.
No. 3 cannot acknowledge that President Obama has told dictator Quaddafi what no previous president has told him: get out, your time is up. No. 3 suggests (implausibly, in my view) that President Obama should realize that the American people are telling Mr. Obama the same thing. No. 3 fails to recognize that we in the US are blessed with a very effective and reliable – not to mention peaceful and democratic – method of telling our presidents when it is time to leave, called, “elections.” (We also have a very haphazard method of telling our presidents when to go, called term limits, but that is another issue.) No. 3 and I will have to wait patiently for the US “time to go” device to tell us what the people think about President Obama, but I am confident that No. 3 is wrong about the message the US electorate will send in November 2012 with respect to Mr. Obama’s performance as president.
American people to dear leader Obumbo: time for you to leave now, and move in into your little Kenyan shack.
It only took several thousand ppl massacred for Obama to make his declaration. The British and French condemned Qaddafi, while their citizens were in the country, interesting hmm?
It is impossible to tell who will win the elections. No one in 07 in their right mind would have predicted Obama would win the Dem primary in, and no one predicted in late 08 the GOP would sweep in 10. It depends on the GOP candidate, economy and numerous other factors. No one has a crystal ball.
to all the ridiculous comments above
i suppose all the comments were made because the commenters are so informed of [1] all the information available to the obama adminstration prior to obama’s comment and [2] i assume all the commenters .
Also i suppose the commenters are aware of all the various discussion that took place at the highest levels with Americas 30 intelligence agencies and the all the foreign intelligence agencies that communicated with the obama admin.
the commenters are likely even more knowledgable than the obama admin of the intelligence provided regarding the situation.
“Also i suppose the commenters are aware of all the various discussion that took place at the highest levels with Americas 30 intelligence agencies and the all the foreign intelligence agencies that communicated with the obama admin.
the commenters are likely even more knowledgable than the obama admin of the intelligence provided regarding the situation.”
Right so according to you always trust the Government, they always know more than us. The war in Iraq, WMDs, the surge in Afghanistan were great decisions because the Government knows more than us, right?
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