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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Led Into War By A President Who Can't Be Trusted

ricans will have a hard time supporting President Obama's war in Libya -- because the United States is already fighting two wars, because the president never publicly made the case for involvement, because Congress never authorized the war, and because there are no identifiable American interests.

But just as important, for those Americans paying close attention, is the growing realization that the president can't be trusted. His assurances that America's military role in Libya will be limited in scope and duration carry little weight after the lies and evasions of his top aides. Not even a week into our war on Libya, the White House has already peppered Americans with a handful of falsehoods, equivocations and misleading statements.

On Tuesday, for instance, Obama was asked by Spanish-language Univision about an "exit strategy" from Libya. "The exit strategy," Obama said, "will be executed this week -- in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will still be in a support role. We will be supplying jamming, intelligence and other assets unique to us."

It depends on what the meaning of "exit" is, I guess. ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper responded to Obama's word games: "Planes in the air? Ships in the Mediterranean? Intelligence being provided? Doesn't sound like an exit strategy at all." But it was a typical Obama play of redefining words to mean something they have never meant before.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also falsely downplayed our role in this war. "We did not lead this," Clinton said of Operation Odyssey Dawn. But Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sure made it sound like we did: "In these early days, the operation will be under the operational command of Gen. Carter Ham. ... And the commander of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn ... is Adm. Sam Locklear."

Gortney had his own moment of prevarication, speaking Saturday of "over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from both U.S. and British ships and submarines. ..." Turns out the Brits had fired two of those missiles. That's like talking about the time the NBA's Michael Jordan (69 points) and John Paxson (two points) poured in 71.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

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