That was the big question we asked yesterday. As Ted Koppel asked on Meet the Press on Sunday,
The question hasn’t yet been answered as to why it is that Libya, of all countries in that region, has won the humanitarian defense sweepstakes of 2011. We have seen many countries, both in that region and throughout the world, where civilian loss and civilian suffering has been much, much greater. Congo for the past 12 years, we’ve lost about five million people. Sudan, three million people, never any talk of military intervention. Take a look at what’s going on in the Ivory Coast today. Secretary Clinton was talking about the number of refugees that might have come out of a Gadhafi attack on Benghazi. You’ve got 700,000 refugees in the Ivory Coast right now–close to a million, in fact. Why, why Libya? Hasn’t been answered.
President Obama attempted to answer that question in last night’s speech. If you missed it, you can read it here, or watch it here:
I watched the speech, and am as confused as ever. I agree that it would be wrong to sit idly by as Kaddafy annihilated innocent civilians. But I still believe it’s wrong to spend billions of American taxpayer dollars bombing and protecting (sic) Libya, while millions of Americans are in desperate need of assistance, while budgets and services here at home are being slashed, and while we’re being told that we’re too broke to take care of our own.
To help me figure it out, I’ll be joined today by the National Journal’s Michael Hirsch. His response to the president’s speech was this piece entitled “Obama: The No-Doctrine President.”
We’ll listen back to some excerpts too, and I’ll take your calls at 866-87-RANDI to get your thoughts.
We’ll also check in with Greg Mitchell, whos been live-blogging WikiLeaks for The Nation .. today is Day #122! He’s now written two books on WikiLeaks – the new one, Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences was just released last week. Coincidentally, PBS’ ‘Frontline’ has a segment scheduled for tonight, which Greg also wrote about today.
And Jason Leopold – deputy managing editor at Truthout – will join in to tell us about the possible manslaughter charges for BP executives over the 11 people who died during the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Of course, there will be lots of time for you to weigh in on any of these stories at 866-877-2634…