Oct. 22 - Presidential Debate - Question 1

The October 22, 2012 presidential debate was with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS news who announced it was the 50^th anniversary of Kennedy announcing the Cuban missile crisis. The first question was what happened in Libya and the Middle East. Romney gave a general description of the area, congratulated the President for going after Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and said – we can’t kill our way out of this mess, we have to put together a comprehensive and robust strategy to help the world of Islam and other parts of the world to reject this radical violent extremism. The President said – his job as Commander-in-Chief is to keep Americans safe and that’s what we’ve done in the last 4 years; we went after those that killed us on 9/11, ended the war in Iraq and are helping Afghanistan to be responsible for itself - that allows us to rebuild allegiances around the world to combat future threats. In regard to what happened in Libya he restated what was said in the previous debate and went on to say that for the cost of 2 weeks in Iraq we liberated the 40-year dictatorship of a country and despite the tragedy there were 10s of thousands of Libyans marching in support of America and that represents an opportunity we have to take advantage of; Obama said he was glad that Romney agreed that we have been successful in going after Al Qaeda but stated Romney’s previous positions would not have kept Americans safe or built opportunities in the Middle East. Romney said – his strategy is straightforward, go after the bad guys, do our best to interrupt or kill them but my strategy is broader than that and the key is to get the Muslim world to reject them on its own; the right course for us is to go after the leaders of the countries that are anti-American; he said a group of Arab scholars went to the UN and said – 1) in a coordinated effort we, along with our friends, should key foreign aid to economic development, 2) education, 3) gender equality, 4) the rule of law – we have to help them create civil societies. He said it is nice Libya is making progress but right next door is Egypt, northern Mali was just taken over by Al Qaeda, Syria is killing their own people, (Bob tried to interrupt) but Romney added Iran.

Romney said we should go after anti-American countries. In the past he’s slammed our support of the UN and now touts a UN Arab proposal. How can we help others create a civil society when we don’t lead by example-in July a report said the US has averaged 2 mass murders a year for the past 15 years; by October 18 more people were killed in Chicago this year than in Afghanistan. I did not like the implication that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President is bad; they been supportive of us so far. Mali achieved independence in 1960, had a coup in 1991 that led to a new constitution and the establishment of a democratic multi-party state; March 22, 2012 a group of soldiers seized control and declared the government dissolved and its constitution suspended; April 6 rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad declared the secession of a new state however they were sidelined by Islamist groups associated with Al-Qaeda and dropped their demands; an interim government led by former Prime Minister Traore plans to re-take the north with international assistance and hold long-delayed national elections-Romney keeps blowing things way out of proportion.