(Newsmax). Potential 2012 GOP presidential contender Donald Trump says President Barack Obama’s Monday night address to the nation on America’s Libyan intervention “makes no sense.”
In a heated debate on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” which also included former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Trump said calling the Libyan opposition “rebels” might be romanticizing a group of insurgents that no one knows anything about.
Richardson said although U.S. intervention in Libya is not ideal, the alternative of Gadhafi remaining in power is infinitely worse.“I do really want to know who these people we’re fighting for — who they are. They call them the ‘rebels’ like they’re these wonderful guys, But I hear they are aligned with Iran — I hear they may be aligned with al-Qaida".
“To be honest, wouldn’t that be really very, very sad if we’re bombing all of these tanks, killing all of these people . . . and Iran ends up taking over Libya? It makes no sense whatsoever — I think he's a little afraid of Congress — frankly, he doesn’t want to go in too strongly, because they’ll say that that he broke constitutional law and [then] he’s got himself some problems".
“So I think he’s trying to take sort of a neutral turn. And what he said just makes absolutely no sense — and at this point, if you don’t get rid of Gadhafi, it’s a major, major black eye for this country, But you also have to ask the other question: Who is paying for this? You have Saudi Arabia, the Arab League — the richest nations in the world — saying go in and get them. We don’t like them — go in and get them. And why aren’t they paying for this?”
“Look, they’re probably not perfect revolutionary characters. But they're sure as heck a lot better than Gadhafi staying, We don’t want Gadhafi to have a weapons of mass destruction program, like he had before. We don’t want him to continue the carnage.”
Morgan asked Richardson how Israel should react to what is happening in Libya, the turmoil in the Middle East — and particularly the unrest that has spread to Syria.
Video of debate:“Look, Piers, if I'm Israel today, I am concerned. The neighborhood is not very friendly — and our commitment to Israel should remain unshaken. And we have to look at ways probably to strengthen the military relationship with Israel,But at the same time, I don’t think the Syrian situation is similar to what is happening in Libya — the carnage that is taking place there.
“I think there’s still some hope, although limited, that the Syrian leadership will be much more moderate than Gadhafi has, and deal with this issue more effectively.”