Please make up your mind, Mr. President. You can’t vacillate when
spending America’s human and fiscal resources in yet another foreign
country without good reason. You said that Libyan leader Gaddafi has got
to go. Many of us heard that as your call to action and agreed, “Okay,
you’re right. He’s an evil dictator who kills his own innocent people,
so enforce a no-fly zone so he can’t continue an aerial slaughter.” But
then you said our mission in Libya isn’t to oust Gaddafi after all. (Or
vice versa on the order or your statements. Between you and your
advisers the public has been given so many conflicting statements on why
we’re intervening in Libya that I apologize if I can’t keep up with the
timing and rationale of your murky foreign policy positions.)
At this point, to avoid further mission creep and involvement in a
third war – one we certainly can’t afford – you need to step up and
justify our Libyan involvement, or Americans are going to demand you
pull out. Simply put, what are we doing there? You’ve put us in a
strategic no man’s land. If Gaddafi’s got to go, then tell NATO our
continued participation hinges on this: We strike hard and Gaddafi will
be gone. If, as you and your spokesmen suggest, we’re not to tell Libya
what to do when it comes to that country’s leadership, and if you can’t
explain to Americans why we’re willing to protect Libyan resources and
civilians but not Syria’s, Yemen’s, Bahrain’s, Egypt’s, Israel’s, etc.,
then there is no justification for U.S. human and fiscal resources to be
spent.
I would also ask you to better explain your thinking on Libya. We
can’t afford any actions that don’t take care of crucial U.S. needs and
meet our own interests at this point. You are the Commander in Chief, so
please explain what you believe is our “interest” there and not
elsewhere.
Mr. President, your hesitation and vacillation in the Middle East
breed uncertainty. It’s symptomatic of the puzzling way you govern. See,
uncertainty is one of the factors over which you have control, and I
would think you’d want to eliminate that additional element that helps
breed problems like higher oil prices. Higher oil means exorbitant gas
prices weighing down our economy. Consistency and strength – and
greater domestic energy production – will help fix higher gas prices and
help heal the economy. But only with leadership. These sorts of
problems don’t fix themselves.
It’s unbelievable to me that you spent last week in campaign mode,
gallivanting around the country to start raising the billion dollars for
your reelection bid that is still 19 months away “while Rome burns.”
Our economy is in the tank; jobs are as scarce as ever; you’re asking
Congress to let you incur even more unsustainable, immoral,
freedom-stealing government debt; and many of our brave men and women in
uniform are shaking their heads in disbelief over your befuddled
military directions. Yet instead of working with Congress and a wise
multitude of advisers to fix some problems, you choose all this
campaigning, already? As was recently asked: When do you ever just “roll
up your sleeves, unplug the teleprompter” and do the job of governing
and administrating for which voters hired you?
I know, I know, granted you will be even busier very soon. After all,
golf season kicks into high gear shortly. NBA and NHL brackets await.
Summer vacations and that all-consuming campaign whistle stop tour will
no doubt slam you. But I would ask, while the rest of us are also busy
working, saving, planning ahead, fighting to protect our Constitution,
and trying to keep up with where and why you’re spending our Department
of Defense funds – I’d ask that you find time to tell Americans the
truth about the state of our union and what you are doing to find
solutions to our challenges. Please start with explaining Libya.
- Sarah Palin