Obama Prepared to Invade Pakistan?

According to ABC news, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will announce today that he is prepared to invade Pakistan, a nominal U.S. ally, to advance the War on Terror…

In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism scheduled for this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will call not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan — with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
Of course, this is the same Barack Obama that told the Associated Press he has absolutely ruled out using U.S. troops to prevent genocide in Sudan (unless the U.N. grants permission, presumably), no matter how bad the situation gets…
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there…
”We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea.”
One way to look at this is that Senator Obama, if he becomes President, is willing to use the U.S military to defend America’s traditional security interests, but not for fundamentally humanitarian missions. (this would be a sharp contrast from the administration of President Bill Clinton, who was criticized for using the military to do “global social work”).
However, an equally valid interpretation is that Obama has succumbed to the Democratic Party’s usual foreign policy incoherence, and is (unintentionally) telegraphing the message that the best way for others countries to protect themselves from American military action is to proclaim hostility to the United States and/or the basic norms of civilization as loudly as possible, because Democrats have internalized the McGovern/Carter era philosophy that punishing allies does more to bolster America’s standing in the world than attacking enemies does.

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Greg
Greg
16 years ago

Yeah. Attack Pakistan!
But don’t deal with Iran except to ask them nicely to stop building nuclear weapons.

rhody
rhody
16 years ago

Obama simply wants to clean up the mess Bush neglected when he got the jones to invade Iraq.

smmtheory
smmtheory
16 years ago

Pardon me Rhody, but didn’t you just imply that President Bush messed up by not invading Pakistan?

Bobby Oliveira
Bobby Oliveira
16 years ago

Dear Rhody,
That’s not what this is at all.
This is a Presidential candidate wanting to have it both ways and just about tossing a death sentence and the President of Pakistan.

Anthony
Anthony
16 years ago

Doves talking about invading Pakistan and Hawks protesting…the end is near!

mikeinRI
mikeinRI
16 years ago

(speechless)

SusanD
SusanD
16 years ago

“Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will announce today that he is prepared to invade Pakistan, a nominal U.S. ally”
What?!
Okay, let’s back up.
Obama doesn’t like our action in Iraq. But not on the basis of a somewhat understandable all-war-is-bad principled pacifist stance.
Now, Saddam Hussein was never our ally and had not yet obtained nuclear weapons (though he had the desire and means). Pakistan is our ally – nominal, yes – and is definitely in possession of nuclear weapons.
So … he wants to drop our action on the former and start an action against the latter. (Again, the one who can retaliate with a nuke.) Whoa.
Foreign policy incoherence. Yes. Alienating a whole lot of Democrats whose vote he needs next year. Oh yeah.
In short, this is really dumb. As someone who favors Republican candidates, therefore, I think it’s great and I only hope Hillary signs on to it.

Sarah
16 years ago

So he doesn’t support providing funding for the war in Iraq, will pull the troops out of there, but thinks its a good idea to send additional troops into Pakistan with our without their President’s approval…I think this call proves his immaturity as a leader and inexperience in foreign policy. I’m sure this will really rally his young, peace loving, progressive base…yeah right.

brassband
brassband
16 years ago

After the “meet with anyone” comment that Sen. Obama made in the You Tube debate, I observed that he needed another full season in Triple-A before competing in the majors . . . I should have said Double-A.
Like her or not (and I don’t), Sen. Clinton is head and shoulders above Sen. Obama as a candidate. I think it may be charitable to call him naive; he’s clueless.

SusanD
SusanD
16 years ago

Brassband, I don’t see Clinton as much of an improvement over Obama.
She may well get elected – and if she does, it will be due mainly to her popular husband and their political machine. But on this issue, she went, literally, from making the case for our invasion of Iraq (and not a lot has changed on your list, Senator Clinton) to – whup, poll results are in – now opposing our action there.
Someone capable of this volte face on an important matter of foreign policy is no better suited to be President than someone who makes decisions out of immaturity and impulsiveness.

brassband
brassband
16 years ago

I don’t think she’d be much better as President, but I think she is a vastly better candidate.
If he wins the nomination (which I think is becoming less and less likely each day) the flip-flop ads against Sen. Obama will almost make themselves.
Hillary is a lot more cautious, conniving and clever. And to be fair to her, she has a lot more years in the spotlight of the national media.

George
George
16 years ago

nice of you to report half the truth.
“As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America’s commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists’ program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair — our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.”
what he actually said was that he would bomb terrorist training camps in Pakistan not invade it.

smmtheory
smmtheory
16 years ago

Would that be with or without permission to overfly their territory George?

George
George
16 years ago

Does it matter smmtheory? I would guess without their permission.

George
George
16 years ago

I’m sorry. I don’t buy it.
1. It was ABC new and then you decided to run with the story without looking at what the full statement was.
2. If you agree that the term was vague why say he would invade pakistan. All he said was action, which to most people without an agenda does not mean air strike.
3. I did not hear you complaining about international airspace when we bombed Somalia or going into Iran. Funny how the rules change when a democrat is doing exactly what you guys want him to do.

George
George
16 years ago

1. Right and you reported that excerpt without finding the whole statement.
2. “Act” does not imply invasion. If you think it is vague I suppose thats fine but don’t jump to invasion.
3. Funny, though that you don’t complain about air strikes in Iran which would inherently violate their sovereign airspace. Or the fact that we basically ignore the Geneva convention on torture. Or complained when the President bombed Somalia without permission of the congress. I guess the rules do change for those who are blind to their party.

smmtheory
smmtheory
16 years ago

Does it matter smmtheory? I would guess without their permission.

It does matter, though George. Without permission means that Pakistan can interpret that “action” as an invasion of their air space. Don’t you think you would get fairly miffed if military aircraft from a foreign country were to fly through U.S. air space without permission to bomb some group of eco-terrorists holed up in the forests of Pennsylvania? I’ll bet Mr. Obama would… and if he were President, he would be hopping mad!

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