{"id":27822,"date":"2011-03-29T08:25:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T14:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=27822"},"modified":"2011-03-29T08:26:40","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T14:26:40","slug":"n-m-reaction-to-obama%e2%80%99s-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/n-m-reaction-to-obama%e2%80%99s-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"N.M. reaction to Obama\u2019s speech"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The U.S. Capitol building (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

New Mexico\u2019s U.S. senators were quick to praise President Barack Obama<\/a> on Monday following his speech explaining the military mission in Libya.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s U.S. House members, meanwhile, are split on U.S. involvement in the country.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jeff Bingaman<\/a>, D-N.M., said Obama made a \u201cstrong case for why he had committed U.S. military assets to this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was encouraged to hear that this is going to be a limited mission, and I believe he did a good job of defining that mission,\u201d Bingaman said. \u201cHe was clear that we are not pursuing regime change through military action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally,\u201d he said, \u201cI am glad to hear that as of Wednesday, NATO will take on the lead role in enforcing the U.N. resolution, and that we will be playing a supporting role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Udall<\/a>, D-N.M., also said Bingaman \u201cdemonstrated leadership and patience to create a strong international coalition to prevent further attacks on the Libyan populace by its government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the president outlined tonight, the next step is to make sure the U.S. mission in Libya is more narrowly defined and limited, with NATO leading the effort to keep the Gaddafi regime from attacking civilians,\u201d Udall said. \u201cCongress must now meet its constitutional obligations to ensure that the U.S. mission in Libya is not prolonged.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s members of the U.S. House didn\u2019t send out statements following the speech, but they were quoted about the military intervention by the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>. U.S. Reps. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M., and Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n<\/a>, D-N.M., both expressed concerns, with Pearce saying he\u2019s \u201csolidly opposed to what we\u2019re doing\u201d because it \u201cfeels like an ad hoc war\u2026 and we don\u2019t know exactly where we\u2019re headed.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Luj\u00e1n was quoted by the Journal as saying he had concerns about the cost of U.S. involvement.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich<\/a>, D-N.M., was quoted by the Journal as saying Obama made the case for why military intervention was necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot acting would have resulted in the mass slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians and deprived the Libyan people of the opportunity for the democratic change they are calling for,\u201d Heinrich said.<\/p>\n

Watch Obama\u2019s speech<\/h3>\n

You can watch Obama\u2019s speech here:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Mexico\u2019s U.S. senators were quick to praise President Obama on Monday following his speech explaining the military mission in Libya. The state\u2019s House members are split on U.S. involvement in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-27822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}