Word: gaddafis
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...NATO < allies to take tougher, nonmilitary action against Libya, she told Parliament, results had been "totally insufficient. She held to the view that "if one never took any action because of the risks involved, the alternative would be to be totally and utterly passive and supine before Colonel Gaddafi and anyone else who practices state-sponsored terrorism...
There are good reasons why Administration officials played it coy on the subject of whether they intended to kill Gaddafi with a well-aimed bomb. For one thing, acknowledging such an attempt could provoke a political fire storm. But more important, the idea of killing a leader raises difficult legal and moral issues, issues that the Administration seems unwilling and unready to confront publicly...
...discussing whether the Administration had tacitly hoped to kill Gaddafi, Secretary of State George Shultz seemed to be engaged in a kind of Jesuitic legal maneuvering. "We did not have a strategy saying we wanted to go after Gaddafi personally," said Shultz. "We have a general stance that opposes direct efforts of that kind." The implication is that if the attempt was indirect and unofficial, they would be off the hook...
...Order represents a voluntary restraint rather than a legally imposed one. By violating it, the President is not breaking a law but a promise. Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger speculates that the President could have sidestepped any legal problems by issuing a secret National Security directive sanctioning action against Gaddafi...
...assassination attempt, say some, is more a moral issue than a political one. Critics of the Administration suggest that the Government's actions have undermined American claims of moral superiority, reducing the U.S. to the same level as the terrorists it condemns. If the Administration did intend to get Gaddafi, notes former Carter Legal Adviser Lloyd Cutler, it would be "the equivalent of a terrorist attack on a foreign leader...