Poll Position: How should Obama respond to embassy attacks?
The big story this week was the series of attacks on U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa: from Libya, where our ambassador was killed, to Egypt, Yemen and, today, Tunisia and Sudan. In Libya, the government is cooperating with the investigation into the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The responses from the other countries have been mixed, but they have been rather tepid on the whole.
How should Obama respond to the attacks on our embassies?
- Cut foreign aid (255 Votes)
- Pursue the killers in Libya; otherwise, lie low (173 Votes)
- Stop issuing travel visas for people from those countries (130 Votes)
- Bomb 'em (108 Votes)
- Economic sanctions (106 Votes)
- Too soon to say (102 Votes)
- Cut diplomatic ties (91 Votes)
- Increase foreign aid (5 Votes)
Total Voters: 517
Loading ...President Obama made a mistake Wednesday evening when he said of the Egyptian government, which has been in place less than three months, “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.” It was a mistake because the White House on Thursday had to walk back the statement; later Thursday, the State Department had to walk back the walk back, clarifying that Egypt retains the official designation of Major Non-NATO Ally it has held since 1989.
But this post isn’t about criticizing Obama for shooting first and aiming later. (OK, maybe it’s a little bit about that.) It’s really about the question most of us have been pondering since the attacks in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of 9/11: What is the proper response?
Some of you took my first post on the subject to imply a military action is needed. As I tried to make clear in the comments, that’s not the case. Things would have to spiral much further out of control before we were talking about military action.
Unless, of course, you include drone flights and a possible targeted strike on the terrorists responsible for the ambassador’s death, which the Obama administration appears to be considering at the very least.
Otherwise, there are a range of options here. We could pull our diplomats from their capitals. We could expel their diplomats from Washington. We cut cut or eliminate foreign aid to these countries. We could, I suppose, increase our foreign aid to them and use it to promote and educate them about our laws and values (such as freedom of expression). We could officially remove them from our list of allies. We could stop issuing travel visas from their country to ours. We could impose some form of economic sanctions. Or we could essentially do nothing more than pursue the people who killed Stevens and the other Americans.
What should Obama’s response entail? That’s this week’s Poll Position question. Answer in the nearby poll — NOTE: unlike most of my polls, you can select more than one answer in this one — and the comments thread below.
– By Kyle Wingfield
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
949 comments Add your comment
cc
September 16th, 2012
8:16 pm
JamVet@7:56 pm:
Oh, please accept my apology, Sir/Ma’am! It did not know that it wasn’t permissible to laugh at WORDS and the way that the words are phrased! In the future, I will seek your wise and learned counsel before laughing.
@@
September 16th, 2012
8:30 pm
OMG!!!!! They killed Kenny!!!!!!
AGAIN!!!!
(ISH)
cc
September 16th, 2012
8:43 pm
@@ @8:30 pm:
Please don’t post anything funny again; I don’t have permission to laugh!
RW-(the original)
September 16th, 2012
9:24 pm
I leave you with Iowahawk and I concur.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/247383954649411584
Goodnight
Liberal Pariah
September 16th, 2012
9:39 pm
According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing–known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)–in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff.
Think about that – the week before the anniversary of 9/11 and during a presidential election, President Obama sees no need to attend daily intelligence briefings. I know this country has about gone to hell when anybody, much less Liberals and the Independent pretenders here can defend the most ill-equipped person to ever be elected President.
If the American people can look past the media sycophants spinning everything positive for Obama and blaming Romney, the filmmaker and everybody except Obama, they would see that Romney is the only one acting presidential in this situation.
Obama raised a pile and Americans died.
TruthBe
September 16th, 2012
9:40 pm
Bookman has the same olde crowd of radical liberal bloggers on his site day after day. Same crap different day. Besides Jay Bookman gets paid by the Obama Campaign and George Soros people to run cover for the idiot Obama and his democrat/communist “New World Order”agenda.
Reagan Lover
September 16th, 2012
9:42 pm
War should be declared on the entire Middle East, a new military draft should be instituted, and Kyle Wingfield and all his neo-con buddies should be drafted and shipped immediately to the front lines.
JDW
September 16th, 2012
9:42 pm
@David R. Boag DDS…”then-President-elect Reagan hadn’t even been inaugurated yet, and suddenly the American hostages in Iran were released. ”
To be fair you should remember that Carter negotiated that entire deal over the months leading to Reagan’s inauguration. Only involvement Reagan had was to make the formal announcement.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 16th, 2012
9:53 pm
Gotta love Amvet. He makes a statement that the GOP doesn’t like clean air and water, then tells conservatives to prove his statement false.
Never considering that the burden of proof is on the accuser.
Or in this case, the whiner.
getalife
September 16th, 2012
9:55 pm
A look inside a failed campaign:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81280.html
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 16th, 2012
10:10 pm
“A look inside a failed campaign:”
I was unaware that Nov. 7th was behind us.
getalife proves once again he doesn’t know the proper tense for his idiotic statements.
cc
September 16th, 2012
10:17 pm
Liberal Pariah@9:39 pm:
Obama has apparently placed foreign policy/national security on auto-pilot. I offer this from the Washington Post:
“The Government Accountability Institute examined President Obama’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.”
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
September 16th, 2012
10:39 pm
This is what the libs hate on Romney about -
America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We’ll defend also our constitutional rights of speech, and assembly, and religion. We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our constitution, because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.
They put themselves on record to disagree with this, they foam over it.
This election is ova.
David R. Boag, DDS
September 16th, 2012
10:43 pm
JDW,
And don’t think that the possibility–well, probability would be a better word–of Reagan taking the helm didn’t play into Carter’s negotiating position with the Iranians. It was like a ticking clock. The Iranians saying to themselves (justifiably), “Better negotiate now, because when Reagan takes over, it’s gonna get ugly for us. End it while they are weak.”
getalife
September 16th, 2012
11:44 pm
reagan cut and ran in Beirut, raised taxes many times and granted amnesty.
You cons would vote him out.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
September 17th, 2012
12:29 am
And Obozo never misses a chance to compare himself to Our President Reagan.
Americans can tell the difference between the real thing and the self-absorbed liberal fascist phony.
Want progress? Vote American.
Michael
September 17th, 2012
3:01 am
I think we should suspend funding,demand the killers delivered to our door step before funding begins again and send the diplomats home till this happens.and we should also suspend all visas to the us until all demands are meet
seabeau
September 17th, 2012
5:52 am
Put US Marines in all our foreign embassys and consulates! OOPS TOO LATE!!!
JDW
September 17th, 2012
6:55 am
@CC…”By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.””
What time was his 9/11/01 meeting?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
7:33 am
“What time was his 9/11/01 meeting?”
Maybe you should tell us, JDW.
You seem to have had attended each and every one of them based on your comments.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
7:36 am
Anybody on the left who continues this “GOP tried to block everything Obama proposed” mantra should listen to Bob Woodward or read his new book. He’s on Morning Joe right now.
Paints a very different story of the reality in Washington, D.C.
JDW
September 17th, 2012
7:46 am
@Tiberius…”You seem to have had attended each and every one of them based on your comments.”
Nope…unlike others around here I can read the 9/11 Commission Report and history as related by those that were invovled and read the writing on the wall. Besides it is a well docmented fact that in spite of requests from NSA and CIA Duhbya held his first Principals meeting on the subject in Sept. 2001, a full 7 months after taking office.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
7:51 am
“Besides it is a well docmented fact . . .”
(Yawn)
JDW
September 17th, 2012
8:03 am
@Tiberius…”(Yawn)”
Why that was Duhbya’s response as well…we saw how that worked out.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
8:07 am
“that was Duhbya’s response as well”
Of course, you’d know that, since you were there for every meeting during his term of office.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
September 17th, 2012
8:17 am
This is why liberals don’t really like Clinton:
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/14/clintons_no_liberal_hero/
JDW
September 17th, 2012
8:25 am
@Tiberius…
Its called reading…try it sometime you might actually learn something…
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
8:33 am
“This is why liberals don’t really like Clinton:”
More like, “This is why liberals are so out of touch with reality”.
‘Cause we’d hate to have a President who might actually try to work with the other side of the aisle.
JamVet
September 17th, 2012
8:39 am
Tibs ends yesterday, doing what he generally does, huh?
Whining about me.
Sad, yet funny.
BTW, though he has severe attention issues, the cogent here noted that I listed multiple irrefutable facts about how the GOP has weakened environmental protections *repeatedly* for forty years. they now coddle the polluters and many of the Republiloons actually want to eliminate the EPA.
Anyone with an IQ over 75 does not even refute this.
Go have yourself a nice big drink of polluted water, tibby!
You’ll feel better!
JamVet
September 17th, 2012
8:41 am
This election is ova.
So how much have you wagered on the RINO?
(Easy money right?)
LOL!
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
8:44 am
“the cogent here noted that I listed multiple irrefutable facts about how the GOP has weakened environmental protections *repeatedly* for forty years.”
And yet even in your alternate reality, AmVet, your opinion doesn’t constitute a “fact”.
And the water in our county is some of the best-tasting and safest to drink in the nation – all done through LOCAL efforts
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
8:53 am
And btw, that’s in one of the most “Republican” counties in America, AmVet.
Because people generally do what is good and right without the need for mandates and regulations, despite your lame attempts to pigeon-hole them into groups of good or bad.
JamVet
September 17th, 2012
8:55 am
Sunspot tibs,
You are apparently brain dead from drinking that water.
From the GOP Platform’s text:
“We call on Congress to take quick action to prohibit the EPA from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations that will harm the nation’s economy and threaten millions of jobs over the next quarter century.
“Coal is a low-cost and abundant energy source with hundreds of years of supply. We look toward the private sector’s development of new, state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that will be low-cost, environmentally responsible, and efficient.
Environmentally responsible????? Coal???????? Must be those “clean coal” rubes. (Including Obama.)
JamVet
September 17th, 2012
8:59 am
No worries, tibby.
You’ll have to obsess over me and my posts without me.
But enjoy yet another of your wasted days here.
Duty calls.
Toodles…
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
9:07 am
Prohibiting NEW excessive regulations does not mean anyone wants to harm the environment or pollute it more.
Except in your fantasy world, AmVet.
And yeah, clean coal technology does exist. Except in the world of Luddites.
And you’ve forgotten what “duty” is.
Rush
September 17th, 2012
9:42 am
Tiberius is not the only one who tires of your useless drivel, Jam Sandwich!! Bookman ban you from his site again?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
9:55 am
Rush, there’s not enough room for AmVet’s negativity over there, so he needs this site as an outlet for his hatred of America.
antinewt
September 17th, 2012
10:03 am
Kyle, thanks for helping the president out on this crucial national security issue. These responses will go a long way toward solving a very thorny and complex dilemna.
JamVet
September 17th, 2012
10:09 am
No, that would be your serially, permanently banned, permanently negative and childish pal, tibby.
If you work hard and get lucky, maybe one day you can reach his lofty stature. (As if you haven’t already! LOL!!)
Drive by and back to work…
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
10:14 am
What’s the matter antinewt? After all, Obama killed Bin Laden according to you libs.
Stopping his ambassador from being killed should have been child’s play for this guy.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
September 17th, 2012
10:15 am
“permanently banned”
More lies from AmVet. Par for the course.
PROUD NAVY VET
September 17th, 2012
10:31 am
If I were the President, I would do exaactly what he is doing. Gather more information. Currently the Navy & Air Force is pinpointing where ALL of the training camps are. There will be an attack on all of the camps at one time, wiping out as many as poosible. Most likely we already have permission to do what ever we want when the camps are all located.
No President could have stopped what happened. It’s that simple. The enemy will say what ever they think we want to hear while planning attacks on the NATO forces.There is no way we can ever have peace with those gangs. There is always a faction within that will do anything to kill everyone in the West. How about everyone coming together to support the President as he deals with this? That’s what Americans do.
It’s so amazing that people want to say what should be done when they have no information as to what is really going on. It’s like somebody telling you what the dark side of the moon is like and they have never been there.
Dose it take another 9/11 for the country to come together? I sure hope not.
DawgDad
September 17th, 2012
10:35 am
I understand we killed an Al-Qaida #2 guy, a Libyan, with a drone strike not too long ago. We are in a shooting war. We killed one of their leaders, they killed one of ours.
The proper response is to win the war, because if you don’t the radical Islamists will win. You want to make peace with them? By all means, go meet with them. No need for a round-trip ticket.
The Obama Administration has already “blamed America” for the embassy attacks in public and now in the UN. What they are doing is setting up this excuse as their excuse to attack free speech on the Internet.
TRUTH
September 17th, 2012
11:14 am
Wow. anything to try and advance the extremely weak GOP position. Surely, as Mr. Romney’s surrogates have touted, had HE been in office, these attacks would not have happened. (Since we cannot fully place the appropriate language here, please use your imagination… Bull-snot!!). For those who memories only go back 24 hours, Mr. Romney’s, er, “showing,” at the very start of his highly unsuccessful Euro trip, clearly proved he is NOT ready for prime time. We would have been at war within minutes. Period. Point Blank. Our military would be, oh my, shooting first and aiming second. Mr. Obama is gathering information from intelligence agencies and then he will Lead with the proper information, unlike HIM WHO WE WILL NOT MENTION (at our convention, in our ads, in our GOP selves…). That type of leadership is ill-fitted for the world situation today. Republicans, today, are clearly irrational and are doing everything to decimate their brand. Sure its red meat, but its also counter to what every President that has faced a crisis. They were elected for the defense of this nation and the preservation of our freedom, however, it is not a license to react wildly and without, what’s that word….”KNOWLEDGE!”
Romney is not for everyone, just as Obama is not for everyone from a ideological perspective, however, given the lack of information and specifics from the Romney camp regarding tax policy, foreign policy, domestic policy, jobs, healthcare, just to name a few, the Romney/Ryan ticket is a ideology conflict walking. The world has seen Ryan at work, although the conservative darling, no one seems to look at the net size of the conservative party. Romney, who’s run for the Presidency evidently started when he became Governor of Massachusetts, has ALWAYS had a problem selling himself to the general electorate for many reasons, and I’d venture to say that his biggest issue is a lack of “personality.” Maybe being rich is the cause, maybe having privilege is the cause, but most if not all of our politicians are fairly wealthy. Especially those with a loftier title or status. But they have mastered the gymnastic of coming down to the general levels and connecting on issues that concern them. Mr. Obama walks into the heart of a GOP enclave and receives a very warm welcome (replete with bear hug), Romney walks in and the first question is does he own ALL THE HAIR CARE PRODUCTS IN THE WORLD?
That’s just the ticket, the machine that is Team Romney are in-fighting (ala, McCain in ‘08, amazingly at about the same time he “suspended” campaign operations to rush to DC to be filmed walking through the rotunda on a cell phone no doubt talking smack to the World Bank/FED/EU and whoever the heck else to cease the financial catastrophe and other shenanigans at once!! Epic Fail. Like how Romney ran to Louisiana during Issac. Why? You’re not an elected official, you have 0 input how resources are to be deployed (but I’m sure Bobby Jindal had an idea)…blank stare. So, I wonder did he tell Bobby to ask for the money from the Obama administration and sign the request for assistance “The Easter Bunny?”
This is a huge problem for the GOP. If I can see the holes, and I’m just one vote, I’m sure millions of others do as well and ALL will vote. And in the words of conservative George Will, “…the GOP is done as we know it…” (sic). I think so. The efforts by the GOP and the strategy of the Romney campaign was to target angry white males, not my words but the word of all pundits, political observers, and now the citizenry, excluding all others, have essentially painted themselves in the proverbial corner. To the point, with mere weeks to go, that strategy has been scrapped. Therefore it was true. (can’t scrap something unless you were doing it, now walk THAT back…)
I encourage all to vote. It’s THAT important. Romney and Ryan have been proven to flip flop, lie, and pander for the moment. Not many of us want that. I know I don’t.
Nice try, Kyle. Desperate. Clearly desperate….
OBAMA 2012
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
September 17th, 2012
12:21 pm
How Obozo SHOULDN’T have responded…by blaming Americans for exercising their free speech rights.
Obozo: Not-so-liberal fascist.
gm
September 17th, 2012
4:41 pm
Gorden Gekko (Mitt) said today that 47% of Obama supporters want free stuff from the Gov.
Hey American job shipper, what about the rep who receive corporate welfare, pell grants, ssi, va, medicade, never mind all the rep who received stimulus check from GW Bush, I wonder did any of these hypocrites of the tea party send those checks back to the gov?
This people are a joke and no one take them serious but there right wing nut jobs ””””’
Bigboy
September 17th, 2012
7:39 pm
Romney is going to get creamed in this election.I’m talking Reagan over Carter level of being creamed.
TruthBe
September 18th, 2012
9:55 pm
Hey gm, your boy Obama gave over 4 BILLION DOLLARS
TruthBe
September 18th, 2012
10:06 pm
Hey gm, your boy Obama gave over 4 BILLION DOLLARS to the PLO, Hamas, Hebzullah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. These are the same terrorist that are killing our Troops, Citizens, and attacking our embassies. All with the help of Hillary Clinton Sec,of State. Even when the House said NO. Obama used his presidential executive order and did it anyway just like he does to FORCE his COMMUNIST New World Order AGENDA on all us. Even on you stupid kool-aid drinkers. But 97% of the N e g r o s will vote for Obama because of his black skin. I believe you will be first in line with your shameless black pride for this disgraceful president Obama.