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Sunday, April 24, 2011

"I believe that with sufficient and efficient, sufficient and efficient use of airpower, we can bring Gadhafi to his knees. "

"It's ideal terrain and situation for doing so.  Have no doubt, though, that he and his forces are adapting to this situation by hiding in houses and doing various things that prevent the airpower from being so effective.  But I'll tell you, when you're flying around at 25,000 feet, it's pretty hide--it's pretty easy to hide from them.  But we need to recognize the government as a legitimate voice of the Libyan people so they can have access to the funds that we have frozen of Gadhafi's.  We need to help them with communications, we need to help them with humanitarian assistance.  We need to--my view, would be very helpful if we took out Gadhafi's television because when the Libyan people see Gadhafi on television it scares them.  This guy is, you know, in the--by the courthouse in Benghazi, there are pictures of the 1,200 people that he had massacred in one day in a prison.  And so we need to, we need to be more helpful, but troops on the ground is out of the question."

John McCain, in full babble mode, on "Meet the Press" this morning. I'm only reading the transcript. I didn't watch it on the television, which I don't find very helpful, because when I see  John McCain on television, it scares me. Maybe you can explain what he's saying. Libya has "ideal terrain and situation" for doing what we need to do from 25,000 feet in the air. No boots on the ground ever ever ever. But because we're only in the air it's easy for them to hide from us, despite the "ideal terrain and situation." But surely if we're sufficient and efficient — such a cute phrase, he said it twice — we'll somehow get rid of Gadhafi and find the right people to give Gadhafi's frozen money to, because people are dying there, and we need to help them. But we can't go anywhere near them, so here, catch, it's $30 billion. Thrown from a plane! Hope the right people catch it!

David Gregory asks whether airpower alone is enough, and McCain says:
I think you can do it with airpower and sufficiently trained and equipped liberation forces.  Look, these people hate Gadhafi.  That's why I think there's still hope and a chance he may crumble from within.  But the longer we delay, the more likely it is there's a stalemate.  And if you're worried about al-Qaeda entering into this fight, nothing would bring al-Qaeda in more rapidly and more dangerously than a stalemate.
So they're already there, in all likelihood.  As long as we're talking about things one can still hope for, I hope al Qaeda doesn't get the $30 billion.

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