"- For generations, the United States played a unique role as an anchor for global security and advocate of freedom. Since we are aware of the risks and costs of military operations, we are naturally reluctant to use force to resolve the many challenges facing the world. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. That is what happened in Libya over the past six weeks.
- As president I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves should appear before the person was taking action.
- To override America's responsibility as a leader - and more compelling - our responsibility for our fellow man would have to abandon who we are.
- We should not be afraid to act, but America should not bear the burden alone action. As we did in Libya, it is our job, instead to mobilize the international community in a joint action.
- U.S. and the world faced a choice. Gaddafi declared that he would not show mercy towards his own people. He compared them to rats and threatened with punishment from door to door. Previously, we have seen him hanging civilians in the streets and kill more than a thousand people on a single day. Now we saw the regime's forces on the outskirts of town. We knew that we waited one more day, so could Benghazi - a city almost the size of Charlotte - suffer a massacre that would reverberate throughout the region and be a stain on the world's conscience.
- In just one month, the U.S. together with our international partners had mobilized a broad coalition, secured an international mandate to protect civilians, stop an advancing army, prevented a massacre and had set up a no-fly zone, together with our allies and partners.
- Are we trying to remove Gaddafi to power, it will divide our coalition. We would probably need to deploy U.S. ground troops or threaten to kill many civilians in attacks from the air. To be blunt, it was the solution we chose in Iraq.
- Of course there is no doubt that Libya - and the world - would be a better place without Gaddafi. Same with many other world leaders, I support the goals and will work actively with the non-military means. But it would be a mistake to extend our military mission to include regime change."
Google Translated from the Danish translation of the speech.
I find the bolded parts very interesting.