I’ll ask again: where are you getting the notion that Obama is willing to invade Pakistan. I agree that he leaves it ambiguous in his speech. But if we’re going to assume one way or the other, why not take into account the face that he specifically disavows invasion and occupation as a tool to fight terrorism?
My bad. A lot of articles seem to suggest that’s what Obama was getting at, but I read his actual speech and that’s not clear at all.
He said he would send in troops to “take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” which does not necessarily imply an invasion-level force and certainly not an occupation, but which nevertheless would stir things up even more.
By Osama, you mean Obama, verdad?
Is anyone worried about the typo mess that would ensue if Obama went after Osama?
By the time Obama would take office Musharraf most likely won’t be in office. Anybody want to bet that his replacement is as friendly to the West as Musharraf has been? Anyone at all? The real question is, if we go in, what happens to Pakistans nuclear weapons? If they have a sane, rational government, then we have nothing to worry about, if they don’t have a sane, rational government, then they may just “misplace” one into the hands of some unsavory characters, at which point, we’ll have no choice but to “explain” it to them. Sweet dreams.
Indeed, that seems to be the right wing nut talking point du jour, but it’s not at all what was said.
Yeah, I basically agree with this. The question is whether the positive outcomes would outweigh the “stirring things up” and whether we’re willing to take that gamble. But I don’t think the answer is obvious, and I don’t think it was political pandering.
Of course. All of the Dem’s (who actually have any chance at all of election in the US) are walking a fine line between being seen to be highly critical of Bush and his programs, critical of the war in Iraq and how its being prosecuted (while also hinting that they can fix the mess) while being seen as ‘tough on terror’. In Obama’s case especially its hard for anyone who has read some of his books…he’s NOT what I would consider a hawkish kind of guy. IMHO of course…and nothing wrong with it either. Its just going to be an uphill battle for him (and a few others…curiously Hillary doesn’t have this problem).
Well, we can all hope, pray or whatever that he is a politician. Its a fucking stupid idea, or as another poster put it ‘batshit crazy’. I THINK that, if elected and unless something really dire happens we can count on Obama NOT sending troops into Pakistan.
Um…no. It would be a worse idea than invading Iraq IMHO. Which has got to be in the top 10 of stupid idea’s the US has had in the last century. Sending combat troops into Pakistan would not only be top of the list it would probably be the top 5.
As to getting some ‘actual terrorists’, I’m sure we would. We could kill some of those ‘actual terrorists’ in Iraq or Afghanistan however for a lot less trouble.
It would be incredibly stupid. Thats why I think its a lot of hot air. Obama is a lot of things…stupid isn’t one of them.
-XT
Sounds like a Cheney argument to me.
D’oh! :smack: :smack: :smack: Of course you’re right.
I’m not convinced that a real world venture would work. Now if we could get John Wayne and Rambo to go in all under cover and be successful… well that’d be different.
anyway I was just addressing the point that Obama doesn’t appear to have said what folks are saying he said.
He did place some sufficiently vague qualifiers in his statement
Dontcha get it?! They’re all the same – Obama, Osama, and Chelsea’s Momma.
Questions one and two are related in my mind cause it appears to be Obama stating what he thinks he should do before he actually gets into office. If he is elected into office then his follow on responses may be more crafted or even a complete 180 after receiving information and advice that he may not be currently have.
The fact is that Pakistan may collapse anyways in the next several years , but perhaps he has an understanding with the Indian govt regarding pakistan and its future.
Declan
There are several questions you have to ask when contemplating this:
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How important is Osama Bin Laden, really? Yes, the revenge factor would be nice. But does anyone think that taking out Osama Bin Laden would make a lick of difference any more? He’s not running the show. He hasn’t made an appearance in over a year. Killing him would be sweet, but it would probably just make him a martyr. It might even help the Islamists by giving them a martyr while simultaneously losing a liability (it’s got to be hard to run a terror network from a cave in some mountain, with your only communication being by runner).
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How in hell do you expect the military to get him? They couldn’t get him when he was in Afghanistan. Now he’s gone deep, deep underground, in a mountainous region full of fanatical worshippers who are willing to die to protect him. What exactly is the military supposed to do? If they had actionable intelligence that showed exactly where he is, don’t you think they would have launched a surgical strike by now? The fact is, no one knows where he is, and he’s in a region where it would be next to impossible to find him.
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The big, big risk is that this pisses off the Pakistanis enough that Musharref’s government falls and gets replaced by an Islamist nutball regime. That is a result so incredibly dangerous that even a slight chance of it happening should be enough to make anyone think twice about doing anything to upset that particular apple cart.
Musharref hasn’t gone into the region that bin Laden is supposed to be in because he probably can’t. He’s got a tenuous grasp on the military, and he maintains power by cutting deals to leave those regions alone. I’m not sure he could order the military in there en masse and tell them to start killing people without having an immediate coup attempt made on him.
Plus, he probably doesn’t have any better idea of where Osama is than we do, so what exactly is he supposed to accomplish?
People who say the military should just ‘go in and get him’ are speaking from real ignorance about just what the military can accomplish. A military can flatten a city, but it can’t go in and find a single well hidden person, unless it can gain intelligence on how to find him. Decades after WWII there were still high-ranking German officers in hiding all over the world. A single person can vanish and not even the biggest military in the world can find him, unless he makes a mistake or someone rats him out.
In short, it’s a naive idea, it’s far more dangerous than invading Iraq was, and it would probably fail anyway.
Why would an American senator, who has never held a federal executive office, have such an understanding with India?
A cambodian style invasion or a declared war/police action on Pakistan would have reprecussions on the whole region, India’s ears would have definitely perked up on that since for one the majority of Pakistans nukes are pointed that way , and no amount of denials from New Delhi are going to make a dent in the thinking processes of the radicals. They are going to be thinking a two pronged invasion from Afganistan and India, and even if India has no such understanding ,the Pakistanis have to honor the threat and position forces towards making sure that the Jamu and Kashmir flash points are covered.
Obama , while only a state senator is an acknowledged contender for the presidency, at this point he should have advisors crafting his basic bullet points on platform positions. If he has met with various special interest groups, pac’s and what have you , then the Indian expat and Desi community will have likely given him their views, no different if he has met with Florida cubans or any other group.
Until he either assumes the office of the President , he has no legal or constitutional right to make any agreements or understandings or anything really , but I would not be surprised if it has happened.
I’m basing that on the only reason that he may have actually meant what he said, as opposed to being naive and or “he” knows or understands that he wont be president on Jan 20 2009, and can say what he wants.
Declan
Musharraf isn’t 100% our boy, but he did just swallow his pride and reinstate Chaudhry and he let Bhutto back in, both to dig him out of trouble mind you…still, it could have gone the other way easily. He’s as troubled about Islamic extremism as the US is, except he can’t take the hard line stance we can. Above all he cannot allow in anyway Pakistan sovereignty to be undercut by US goals, no matter how much he may agree with them. ‘Invading’ Pakistan will create more terrorists, probably not get Osama and bring the fall of any moderate government in the region, for us, lose lose lose. I really like Obama, but this kind of grandstanding chainsaw foreign diplomacy crap is troubling.
It’s not clear to me whether you were addressing Obama’s statements or other posters in this thread. From what I’ve read, this is much like the molehill “direct meeting with foreign heads of state”. Here’s the quote (from the OP WaPo link):
Granted, Bush et al didn’t pursue that one lead in 2005 (I forget the details). But honestly, if directly questioned, would any candidate really give a negative answer to the question “If you were given actionable intelligence about Bin Laden’s whereabouts in Pakistan, would you pursue him – even without Musharaff’s permission?” They quote Clinton saying, given actionable intelligence, “I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured.” None of the other candidate’s responses contradict Obama’s either, but are simply variations on the theme (naught but political posturing).
Making a big deal out of this seems like a temptest in a teapot to me.
Department of Inoperative Statements:
“No refuge or no rest.” Not a bad idea. Obama isn’t saying anything nearly as drastic. All he’s saying, from my reading of the speech, is that if we’re lucky enough to get intel we can act on, if we can take out bin Laden or Zawahiri with the resources we’ve got, we’ll do it.
And now, Sam v. Sam:
There you go. It’s just bad business if someone kills 3000 of your people, and you let them get away with it, year after year.
Let’s suppose bin Laden and Zawahiri have retired from the terror business, but some other guy is now the Great Islamofascist Terrorist Mastermind. Would we want him to think that if he perpetrates a major attack on us, and he can elude us for a couple of years afterwards, he’s probably home free after that? Hell, no.
I have no idea, and it’s really outside the scope of this debate - other than to get meta, and point out that this is an improbable event that Obama devoted only one sentence to in a lengthy speech, so it’s silly for us to be concentrating on this one line in the speech, rather than the rest of the speech. Which had a lot of good stuff in it, btw.
But staying within the debate, the answer is that if the military can’t get him based on the intelligence, then it’s not actionable, so it’s outside the scope of Obama’s statement.