White House Flag At Half Mast - Photocredit (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
President Obama delivered his weekly radio address this afternoon paying tribute to the four Americans killed in the Libyan Consulate, denouncing violence, and promising to seek justice for the perpetrators, reports The Christian Science Monitor.
"Without people like them, America could not sustain the freedoms we enjoy, the security we demand, and the leadership that the entire world counts on," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
"This tragic attack takes place at a time of turmoil and protest in many different countries," he said. "I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom. And we reject the denigration of any religion – including Islam."
But, he added: "Yet there is never any justification for violence. There is no religion that condones the targeting of innocent men and women." ...
"We will not waver in their pursuit," he said. "And we will never allow anyone to shake the resolve of the United States of America."
And, as I reported here Friday, in
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton Honor the Fallen Diplomats and Soldiers, President Obama said:
"Justice will come to those who harm Americans," Obama said, repeating a vow that he and top administration officials have made all week.
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It seems sort of slow here past 1:00 a.m., on a Saturday, so I do not know if anyone else is awake, but for anyone blogging rather than out playing, I thought you might like to know President Obama is on the case acting presidential, as he always does. Meanwhile, for the opposing "non-presidential view," Mitt Romney continued trying to exploit these tragic international incidents, by accusing President Obama of "weak international leadership," which I am starting to find tedious.
Anyone paying the slightest attention to President Obama's style knows he does not indulge in infantile saber rattling. He assigns our military and intelligence assets missions and directives, and closely monitors progress. Just as we suddenly heard that Osama bin Laden was dead, if it is possible to identify the perpetrators in the Libyan Consulate murders, rest assured they will be brought to justice. But, unlike some previous Republican administrations, our President is not going to invade a country not connected to the crimes, for some other reason, or like Romney grandstand for political purposes.
Our President has drones surveilling Libya, an FBI investigation team on site, and a small army of intelligence officers looking for the evidence and professionally assessing the facts, and identifying possible bases where al Qaeda operatives, or their sympathizers, thought perhaps to have been involved, may be hiding. Two additional US Naval warships have been quietly deployed off the coast of Libya.
My understanding is that once we are absolutely sure of the facts, we are hoping to let the primary actions serving justice to be carried out by the Libyan government, and tribal chiefs in the wisest, and most surgically precise way to minimize collateral damage and possible repercussions. I don't know if anyone knows yet whether this was a planned attack of terrorists, or an unfortunate act of spontaneous mob chaos where a fire set "just" to burn the building, grew out of control, or perhaps, some combination of both. I trust our investigators, and our President, to do the best possible investigation to discover the facts and take the appropriate actions. Although, it wouldn't be surprising if some of the suspected al-Qaeda bases in remote areas such as Yemen suddenly disappear, as well, as part of ongoing anti-terrorist operations, possibly without comment.
And, Mitt Romney will again look like the damn fool that he is. After demonstrating courage and resolve in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, and wiping out nearly all of the top 200 al-Qaeda leadership on our most wanted list of a few years back, with predator drone strikes, and perhaps classified special forces raids we do not even know about, one thing we know about President Obama is that he is not weak when it comes to international resolve in protecting our national security interests.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and their clueless band of minions who appear to have zero skills, credibility, or understanding of foreign policy, military strategies, and our internation diplomatic goals and methods, have not established any credibility on these topics, and provided us no reason to place in them an equivalent level of such trust. If in some terrible error of judgement American voters were to elect Romney and Ryan and such a tragic event occurred, the crisis would be compounded by uncertainty if their actions and deliberations, behind the scenes were distorted by inappropriate political distortions.
That Mitt Romney, of all people would assert that President Obama is weak on such maters is an absurd exercise in Rovian "opposite-speak" that is laughable, and also demonstrates how little attention he is paying to details of our foreign policy and military matters. Romney is a fellow that can not even visit London for a feel good trip to the Olympics without insulting an entire nation and one of our closes allies.
Mitt Romney should be quite, watch, listen, and learn, rather than make a further fool of himself with his pompous political posturing, and craven attempts to exploit these international tragedies to further his own crass, and all consuming political ambition.