Replies

>>Glen Doherty, was part of a cohort working in Libya finding and destroying shoulder-fired rocket launchers. Who better than an American who had “gone native” to point them in the right direction?

If Obama hadn’t enabled the “rebels”, those weapons wouldn’t be out “in the wild”, would they? And we wouldn’t be so worried about that.

>>Gaddafi’s and Assad’s regimes killed Americans, and would do so again when in a position to do so. It is strange to see arguments here that we shouldn’t lift a finger to get rid of them.

While that is true, it is also true that Gaddafi coughed up his WMD program during Bush’s Administration, a fact you seem to have missed given the very light MSM coverage. You need to be on FR more, clearly. Gaddafi is a guy who “got it” once he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, gave up his WMDs, and we threw that away for ARAB SPRING! DEMOCRACY! Kumbayah nonsense.

Do you really think that was prudent, from a Realpolitik standpoint? If so, why?

As far as Assad, I’m not sure why you bring him into this discussion. Though my attitude is there are no “good guys” involved there, either, at least we don’t have an embassy at stake.

Yes, I know Qaddafi had given up his WMD and the presumed Lockerbie assassin, in return for a truce with the West. The most responsible of his kids had even gotten his MBA here and was developing a free trade and touristic zone with Western capital.

But when he engaged in a scorched earth policy against a big swath of his own people, it would have been difficult for the U.S. and our Mediterranean allies to do nothing in the face of the massacres and the flood of refugees that would ensue.

I brought up Syria because as in Libya, there is a brutal tyrant but one who keeps the Islamists down.

In the Moslem world particularly, there are no good solutions. Every choice involves a trade-off. No one can foresee all the consequences. And our power to change things there is very limited.

We didn't create the Arab Spring. The question was how to try to channel it.

I see Christopher Stevens as one who championed our country's interests in the civilian sphere. We should not politicize his life or death.