The Wrong Message

The last superpower, the sole remaining military power with global reach in terms of being able to project force, sits back and allows her citizens and US flagged vessels to become hostage to maritime terrorists at the same time that America sits idle as hundreds of innocent Libyan freedom seekers are slaughtered on their own streets. And what does the Obama administration do as guiltless blood is spilled? It sits and waits. Our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did say a few words on the Qaddafi crisis but not the right words. Clinton said the United States "joins" other nations in deploring the violence in Libya. "Joins" is not "leads", and I do not recall ever hearing an American Secretary of State abdicate moral responsibility in favor of the weakness of multilateralism in such a pronounced way with such a poor semantic choice. In affairs of state, words matter and America conveying an image of weakness at this moment is a danger to the world.