into afghanistan with us ten years ago. they have been there and a lot of them have been there, despite the fact they were not attacked. the attack came on us, as we all tragically remember. they stuck with us. when it comes to libya, we started hearing from the uk, france, italy, other of our nato allies, this was in their vital national interest. the uk and france were the ones who went to the security council and said, we have to act because otherwise we re seeing a really violent upheaval with a man who has a history of unpredictable violent acts right on our doorstep. so let s be fair here. they didn t attack us, but what they were doing and gadhafi s history and the potential for the disruption and instability was very much in our interest as bob said, and seen by our european friends and our arab partners as very vital to their interests. before you go, secretary
hands, and the president is obviously not happy with his set of choices. one person told me in a meeting he called this military action in libya a terd sandwich. but he was quoting an aide who likes that term. ted koppel, you spent time with henry kissinger in the earlier days who knew something about the big ideas for the world. is this administration getting the big ideas right in the tumult in the middle east? i don t think anybody has the big ideas right yet. first of all, let s take a look at what happened not so many years ago, and tom would know more about this than most of us, bob, too, afghanistan. we supported the muja hadin in afghanistan when they were there to drive the soviet union out. we spurted them and found to our chagrin after we supplied them with weapons eventually those weapons were turned against us. one of the men fighting for that group was osama bin laden.
when rwanda happened, the united states was so shell shocked that it was unable to do anything and 800,000 people died. is the question politically on what s happened on the left, i spoke to dennis kucinich as part of our midweek meet the press press pass conversation, and he raised the specter of a primary challenge for the president. take a look. should there be an antiwar candidate who challenges president obama in 2012? i believe it would be healthy if there was a pro-peace candidate but not just about peace as some airy fairy notion but an active presence of an understanding of the science of human relations and jobs for all, education for all, retirement security. peace is an economic issue as we re finding out, $3 trillion for the war in iraq, $500 million in afghanistan, $100 million a day spent in the
the other, tunisia. they re going through these extraordinary transformations and cannot afford to be destabilized by conflict on their borders? yes. do they have a major influence on europe because of everything from oil to immigration? david, that raises a very important point because you showed on the map just a minute ago afghanistan. you know, we asked our allies, our nato allies, to go into afghanistan with us ten years ago. they have been there, and a lot of them have been there, despite the fact they were not attacked. the attack came on us, as we all tragically remember. they stuck with us. when it comes to libya, we started hearing from the uk, france, italy, other of our nato allies. le this was in their vital national interest. the uk and france were the ones who went to the security council and said, we have to act because otherwise we re seeing a really violent upheaval with a man who has a history of unpredictable
that s totally consistent with what i call the obama doctrine, that other countries are going to have to do more in a more diverse international order. but this is war. i mean you can t extinguish our knowledge about war. this idea that you can have a limited video game, it just isn t the way it is. no one knows more about this than tom ricks. and the question is, what s going on here, and the larger picture is what savannah is calling the arab spring. i m not sure whether it s unrest, an up heevl, whether these are revolutions. but in a 5,000-mile area, mon toews ya to afghanistan, you have to kind of put all of this together, the president has a mammoth management problem.