the people of Benghazi , as he was threatening to do . Obama did not want to join the fight ; he was counseled by Joe Biden and his first - term secretary of defense Robert Gates , among others , to steer clear . But a strong faction within the national - security team — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice , who was then the ambassador to the United Nations , along with Samantha Power , Ben Rhodes , and Antony Blinken , who was then Biden ’s national - security adviser — lobbied hard to protect Benghazi , and prevailed .
( Scott Morgan / Associated Press ) Gary Johnson 's long - running battle with talking about foreign policy continues . During a new interview with the New York Times 's Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns , he likened U.S. intervention in Syria to Syrian President Bashar al - Assad slaughteringconflict.attack.selfdirectedbattlehis own people : Attacking Hillary Clinton over what he criticized as her overly interventionist instincts , Mr. Johnson pointed to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians killed by forces loyal to President Bashar al - Assad , as well as civilian deaths caused by the American - backed coalition , and said Mrs. Clinton , the former secretary of state , bore at least partial responsibility . But when pressed four times on whether he saw a moral equivalence between deaths caused by the United States , directly or indirectly , and mass killings of civilians by Mr. Assad and his allies , Mr. Johnson made clear that he did .
I 'm fully aware that its impoverished people have been ground up as empire fodder by everyone from Queen Victoria to Mikhail Gorbachev . All of these things add up to a long , bloody , and tragic history that should have been a caution to American policymakers . All of these things do not add up to a reason for the people of Afghanistan to keep slaughteringlife.die.deathcausedbyviolenteventseach other in the marketplace . We are trying to create and sustain a country among people who are not sure they really want one , and who are extremely sure that they do n't want one that relies on outside support to survive . We 've exchanged the British East India Company for Unocal , and the hatred of the oligarchical meddling by Western business interests has been constant and unchanging .
Because it tears the scab off a much bigger wound that Japan wants healed , ” says Grant Newsham , a senior research fellow with Japan Forum for Strategic Studies and former U.S. diplomat with over 20 years ’ experience in Japan . “ If Obama apologizes at Hiroshima , it draws attention to Japanese behavior elsewhere in Asia during the ’ 30s and ’ 40s . It might even be demanded that the Japanese government and emperor go to Singapore and apologize for slaughteringlife.die.na25,000 Chinese there in 1942 . Or to Australia to apologize for how they treated their POWs . Or to the Philippines ( to apologize ) for a few hundred thousand murders by the Imperial Japanese Army as well . ”