Obama's Terrorism Speech

Read it here. It seemed pretty good to me, although nothing extraordinary. On the business of the "tough" and "provocative" bits about Pakistan, I think the devil is obviously in the details. One could imagine a situation in which a special forces raid against a terrorist base inside Pakistan would be a good idea even if the Pakistani government didn't approve, but one could also imagine a situation in which it would be a terrible idea. This is basically the sort of question that I think looks a lot simpler from outside the White House than from inside the Oval Office.

I liked that Obama put his critique of starting the Iraq War and his argument in favor of ending the Iraq War firmly inside his argument about terrorism.

Comments

Crickets here in the comment section, huh?

Interestingly, online reaction seems far more extensive on the right -- and, as is perhaps to be expected, skews overwhelmingly negative (labeling Obama's plan "irresponsible and naive", an ill-advised provocation of an ally, etc.).

Is this a stunned silence? Or are my fellow liberals so pleased they assume nothing more needs to be said? Or - and this may be most likely - are people just taking their time to calibrate responses so as to best acknowledge that (a) at some point, action against a sovereign nation harboring terrorists (either willingly, helplessly, or indifferently) may be entirely justified, while simultaneously recognizing that (b) it's undoubtedly a very, very delicate operation?

I'm with Matt's observation that this kind of stuff looks a "lot simpler from outside the White House than from inside the Oval Office." But the politics of it seem interesting: is it really advisable to label the aborted 2005 attempt as a "mistake," given that Obama likely has at best incomplete knowledge here? And how does the "actionable intelligence" Obama relies on to determine whether or not to initiate this kind of action differ in quality, source or reliability from, say, the "actionable intelligence" presented to Senators Clinton and Edwards in the lead-up to the Iraq war resolution?

Posted by Will | August 1, 2007 12:13 PM

Will,

Part of the cricket-chirping may be the wrench Obama's truism (about the potential need for U.S. military involvement in Pakistan) throws into one of the dominant Democratic talking points: that we should pull out of Iraq to "focus on Al Qaeda". Setting aside the matter of Al Qaeda in Iraq for a moment, Obama's comment highlights an inconvenient fact about "focusing on Al Qaeda". Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, and fighting Al Qaeda in Pakistan would be more complicated and dangerous than fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Dems' anti-Iraq War message has resonated mainly because Americans are weary of the war, not because they are eager to jump into a potentially more difficult war in Pakistan. Obama's point about Pakistan is unhelpful politically, because it suggests that, if Dems are honest about their desire to focus on the non-Iraq parts of Al Qaeda, they have to acknowledge this may involve transferring troops from the frying pan of Iraq to the fire of Waziristan.

Posted by Fred | August 1, 2007 12:38 PM

Isn't this basically the position advanced by John Edwards in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations several months ago: to identify and isolate and then eliminate the actual terrorists and not recklessly proclaim an unending GWOT - that is basically counterproductive?

Posted by Boxer7 | August 1, 2007 12:39 PM

I just read the speech (well, skimmed is probably more like it). Overall, its a great speech.

As for Matt's comment: "One could imagine a situation in which a special forces raid against a terrorist base inside Pakistan would be a good idea even if the Pakistani government didn't approve, but one could also imagine a situation in which it would be a terrible idea."

Sure. But for every one of the former cases, I could probably imagine 100 of the latter cases. Let's face it, unless they acquire nuclear or really bad biological weapons, Al Qaeda is a pretty insignificant danger. The appropriate support and aid to Pakistan, combined with pressure, is fine. Armed incursions into Pakistani territory sounds completely insane to me.

Posted by Jim W | August 1, 2007 12:47 PM

Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, and fighting Al Qaeda in Pakistan would be more complicated and dangerous than fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq.

So we're like the drunk looking for his keys under the street light rather than where he lost them?

Posted by rea | August 1, 2007 12:48 PM

No, if you go over to Daliy Kos, there've been like five diaries blasting Obama's hawkishness on Pakistan. I can't believe that Yglesias doesnt find the hawkish posturing dangerous. (Or actually I can: the dude supported the War in Iraq.)

It's one thing to reserve the right as president to use special ops and CIA to go after AQ; I don't much like this, and I shudder to think what's done in secret, but at least it has the advantage of being secret. It's wholly another to publicly threaten a sovereign nation with military action that Pakistan says it considers a violation of international law (i.e an act of war.)

Now, I don't think Musharraf's hold on power is as tenuous as some people claim, but it's pretty tenuous, and military action would risk handing nukes over to religious militants--Bin Laden's allies.

This speech has Richard Clarke's zealotry all over it, Liberals praised him cause he went after Bush, failing to notice that he's a superhawk when it comes to AQ. He and Obama think military action against Pakistan would make us safer. I don't, and I don't see how any responsible person could,

Posted by david mizner | August 1, 2007 1:07 PM

Regarding attacking Al Queda in Pakistan without some understanding from Musharaf, "the sort of question that I think looks a lot simpler from outside the White House" is a long way of saying naive.

Unfortunately Obama's Pakistan proposal is part and parcel of his own view of himself as transformational and his American exceptionalist foreign policy. It is also dangerous.

Posted by tib | August 1, 2007 1:09 PM

This speech has Richard Clarke's zealotry all over it, Liberals praised him cause he went after Bush, failing to notice that he's a superhawk when it comes to AQ.

I'm sort of with Bill Clinton on this one. I don't think you can take Richard Clarke's advice enough. He's a true expert, and the Bush Administration made few mistakes as great as consigning him to the back burner.

Posted by Steve | August 1, 2007 1:13 PM

The Pakistan bit is a passing hypothetical in a much longer speech proposing exactly the refocusing we need. So naturally the wingnuts and the we-hate-everybody progressives are focusing on that throwaway line. Sigh.

Anyway, one thing I really liked is that Obama clearly embraces what Fallows said last year in the Atlantic: that our response to al Qaeda can (and has, in Iraq) hurt us far more than they can themselves.

Posted by Tom Hilton | August 1, 2007 1:16 PM

Fred - Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, and fighting Al Qaeda in Pakistan would be more complicated and dangerous than fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Dems' anti-Iraq War message has resonated mainly because Americans are weary of the war, not because they are eager to jump into a potentially more difficult war in Pakistan.

That pretty much nails it.

Much of the rest of the speech was naive - like FISA working just fine before the evil Bushies began infringing on terrorist's right to private phone calls, how he will close GITMO and bring the terrorists into the USA for civilian trials or somehow - UCMJ justice for non-soldiers...Then adding to his pledge to meet with all the world's rogue nations with no preconditions, Obama wishes to go to an Islamic Summit to tell them how wonderful both America and Islam are, so we should get along and embrace "hope" or somesuch fancy....He had a few good ideas like starting the strategic communications and cultural outreach part of the struggle with the Salafists and Saudi-funded intolerant Mullahs and madrassahs, something Bush has miserably failed to do, but Obama is saber-rattling, recklessly.

The most dangerous part of the speech is the 2002 Democratic mentality that Al Qaeda is "only dangerous" in their manifestation in the mountains of Afghanistan and the Pak tribal areas - and the ultimate solution being America going in shooting to "find Binnie, and bring him to justice in American civilian courts". Which somehow, the old 2002 thinking goes - would magically end radical Islamic terrorism with Binnie's trial and his 1-2 years of speeches and views the global media would cover during his extended martyrdom by the Infidel...then, if he got death, 5-10 years of appeals. With perhaps a few books written by him, and more media coverage...Doesn't sound good.

Remember that it just didn't take an invasion to "get" Saddam and bring him to trial to end the insurgency demoralize his allies, and give birth to the new, peaceful secular Iraq that abandoned radical Sunni or Shiite religious war (ooops, guess it didn't!)

In a country where we eliminated any conventional military threat, with 80% of the populace looking for Saddam's head besides us, it still took us almost a year to find the guy.

The Paks would look at an infidel invasion much as America might have looked on a British SAS raid to kill pro-IRA sympathizers here after the USA "failed to act", or Soviet Spetnaz teams sent here to liquidate dissidents and E European indepence-seekers......not favorably. Not favorably at all.

The unpredictability of response and consequences of a US invasion of Pakistan's sovereignity has stayed our desire to whack bad guys there. It could end up with Islamists seizing political control of Pakistan, it's nuclear arsenal, 160 million uniting in Jihad against us - as blowback. It could require the US launching preventative thermonuclear war (if Obama thinks Iraq was justly condemned as an illegal preventative war, I wonder if he grasps the level of condemnation if he hit Pakistan with 20-25 thermonuclear weapons to keep WMD out of Islamist's hands).
Or it could trigger a wider Jihad, or a war and nuclear weapons exchange with India simply so one famous terrorist gets handed over to his ACLU defense team?
Or, no nukes, but 200,000 -300,000 US troops battling all the Pashtun nation in the tribal areas plus hundreds of thousands of outsider radical Islamists drawn in by Jihad (after Obama has to start a Draft to get the manpower he needs to fight his war)?

Fighting AQ in Pakistan, plus all the foreign fighters drawn in and recruited by US invasion to do the Great Binnie Hunt liberals demand - would has Fred said, be quite difficult. Worse than Iraq. The Islamic enemy knows the terrain, has the high ground, knows the best ambush sites and range to target to the meter. And unlike Iraq, where 90% and maybe more of the population is now fine with killing AQ operatives, even helping, in Waziristan and Baluchistan you might see 90% of the civilians committed to helping the enemy.

Obama. Definitely naive. Reckless?

Posted by Chris Ford | August 1, 2007 1:45 PM

I have to disagree with Tom, the Pakistan piece was deliberately "provocative." It's meant to be the news lead to calm any linger doubts about Obama's toughness. By naming names Obama knows he is going to make news.

As to whether this is a good policy, I doubt it. Publicly shaming Musharaf and threatening to violate their territory by the actual President would inevitably weaken Musharaf at the expense of the extremists, and make it more difficult to cooperate. We should encourage a reconciliation with Bhutto, along with democritization, and in that order.

Posted by AJ | August 1, 2007 1:59 PM

Right, AJ, it's not a "passing hypothetical" and Tom knows it's not. It's an ultimatum as well as policy.

it's time like this that I remember that some self-avowed progressives actually beleive that hawkish nonsense that Dems fell the need to spout in order to win. They sincerely buy into the Bushian notion that if we just attack the right people at the right time in the right way, we'll be magically safe.

Posted by david mizner | August 1, 2007 2:26 PM

Right, AJ, it's not a "passing hypothetical" and Tom knows it's not.

Well, it is certainly a hypothetical, and it is unquestionably just one small part of a much broader speech. You want to quibble about the intent of that small part of the speech, go ahead and quibble; I'm not interested.

The point here is that it makes more sense to me to judge the speech as a whole (which is really good) rather than taking one small part of it (which I'm not in love with) out of context and using that as the standard for judging it.

Posted by Tom Hilton | August 1, 2007 2:59 PM

I agree, and I sincerely hope this hypothetical is nothing more than political posturing.

Posted by Jim W | August 1, 2007 3:03 PM

I wonder if he grasps the level of condemnation if he hit Pakistan with 20-25 thermonuclear weapons to keep WMD out of Islamist's hands

An important point. Also, does Hillary Clinton grasp how people would react if she clubbed a child to death on stage? Does John Edwards truly understand how the world would feel about his invading Canada? Does Rudy Giuliani really get how the American public would react if he decided to become a suicide bomber? Would it be a good idea for Fred Thompson to propose gassing all blacks?

Posted by KCinDC | August 1, 2007 3:04 PM

What I love about this speech is how forcefully it breaks with both GWB and HRC on the quesiton of dealing with terrorism and rebuilding a workable international order in the wake of the disastrous Age of Bush. So, last week we have Obama telling us that we will begin to talk to isolated and failing states because engagement might work where years of neglect and alienation have failed. So its a radical new departure in American diplomacy, and towards a more effective policy of engagement. Now, Obama is saying that we must draw down forces in Iraq because the costs of staying far outweight the costs of leaving, but that in leaving we must do so delicately. So he will begin the process of ending the disastrous occupation of Iraq, which has served absolutely no one's interest except, seemingly, anti-American and antidemocratic forces inside Iraq and elsewhere. Finally, Obama is recognizing that Mr. Bush's policies towards Pakistan and Afghanistan are in tatters, that new policies must be crafted. Finally, he is showing the willingness to fight terrorists harshly and defend American interests by military means when necessary. Compare this to Hillary's attempts to pose as a hawk by using anti-Iranian rhetoric. On every point where the Bush years have been disastrous, Obama is proposing rethinking the specific policies that have made them disastrous, while Hillary is proposing continuing those policies under better management and more palatable rhetoric. Obama is a liberal pragmatist in foreign affairs the likes of which have not been seen in decades.

Posted by Chuck | August 1, 2007 3:11 PM

"He and Obama think military action against Pakistan would make us safer. I don't, and I don't see how any responsible person could"

David Mizner,

That's not what Obama is advocating. Obama is simply pointing out that since AQ's leadership is reconstituting their capabilities in their safe havens in Waziristan and border areas in Pakistan, we have to take action to stop them in those areas. Obama does not advocate an attack on Pakistan by the US as our action of first resort; ne's simply pointing out that if Pakistan's leadership fails to deal with AQ in those areas, then the United States will have to, just as we did in Afghanistan when its leadership (the Taliban) failed to deal with Osama and company. This is not irresponsible war-mongering in the manner of Bush and Cheney. It's a serious & sober assessment of what our options are in dealing with the threat of AQ, and a damning critique of Bush & Cheney as well. Had they not allowed Osama and the rest of AQ's leadership to escape from Afghanistan and find safe haven in Pakistan, we wouldn't be facing this grim situation.

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 3:24 PM

The kids over on The Corner are jumping over each other to talk about how bad this speech was. I gotta think that is a pretty good sign for Obama. It is a pretty simple rule, but I think you can't go too wrong with "if KJ Lopez thinks your nuts you just may be onto something" The converse works as well of course.

Posted by Eric K | August 1, 2007 3:40 PM

"Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, and fighting Al Qaeda in Pakistan would be more complicated and dangerous than fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Fred,

It would be more complicated and dangerous to fight AQ in Pakistan than in Iraq, but it would be a hell of lot more effective. Fighting AQ through the affiliate/franchise/proxy they have established in Iraq in the wake of the US occupation has done nothing to weaken AQ as a whole, and has actually strengthened it. Fighting in Iraq has given Al Qaeda operatives valuable experience and intelligence in how to fight with our military with little or no risk to Al Qaeda's leadership, since AQ's leadership (Osama & company) are in safe havens far from Iraq's battlefields and from our troops. This has given AQ the golden opportunity to rebuild and retool their capacity to plan and direct terrorism against the West. Fighting AQ in Pakistan then will at least bring the fight back to AQ's leadership right in their very back yard, making their fight against us more complicated and dangerous FOR THEM, since they will no longer be able to carry out their evil doing with impunity while hidden away in Pakistan's border areas. Limiting our military actions against AQ to the peripheral battlefield of Iraq makes as much sense as limiting our fight against the Nazis to North Africa, or limiting our fight against the Confederacy to north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 3:50 PM

"Obama would strike in Pakistan" is BBC's top headline right now. This is not good for Obama. He was trying to sound tough and balanced, but the media inevitably grabs phrases for headlines.

Otherwise the speech was decent. Maybe he should have talked about the relationship between the Israel-Palestine conflict and 'drying up' support for terrorism.

Posted by Neil | August 1, 2007 3:56 PM

"One could imagine a situation in which a special forces raid against a terrorist base inside Pakistan would be a good idea even if the Pakistani government didn't approve, but one could also imagine a situation in which it would be a terrible idea. "

True, but, as the neocons say about dropping nukes on Iran, it shouldn't be taken off the table.

There's little incentive for Musharraf to do it unless he thinks we might well do it ourselves.

Posted by Jon H | August 1, 2007 4:34 PM

"This is not good for Obama."

How so?

I figure at the very least it works a bit against the Fox/GOP meme that he's a crypto-Islamist.

It also sounds good to the many people who wonder WTF we attacked Iraq, and are talking about attacking Iran when the threats to *us* (as opposed to Israel) are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Posted by Jon H | August 1, 2007 4:42 PM

"Fighting AQ in Pakistan, plus all the foreign fighters drawn in and recruited by US invasion to do the Great Binnie Hunt liberals demand - would has Fred said, be quite difficult. Worse than Iraq. The Islamic enemy knows the terrain, has the high ground, knows the best ambush sites and range to target to the meter."

Chris Ford,

Unfortunately, taking effective & becessary military action against our enemies entails risk; however, failing to take the necessary actions to destroy the threat our enemy poses also entails risk.

The question is, is it riskier for us to invade Al Qaeda's safe havens in Pakistan if Musharraf fails to act, or is it riskier for us to stand by and let Al Qaeda operate with impunity behind a wall put up by one of our ALLIES? Yes, it is easier for the US to fight AQ in a peripheral battlefield like Iraq, but it also easier for AQ to fight the US in a peripheral battlefield like Iraq.

Think about it; the war in Iraq has given AQ 4 years of experience and intelligence about fighting the US military with little or no risk to AQ's leadership, who are safely based far away from the battefields of Iraq and from our troops. Fight. Taking the fight to AQ's leadership in Pakistan will more difficult, but it would be ultimately be more effective since the supply of AQ's leadership (which is finite compared to its supply of recruits) would actually be threatened and endangered by our military actions.

It is always harder to fight our enemies on their strongholds, but so long as they have strongholds, they will live to fight another day. That is why you have to invade Normandy and march to Berlin, and not just fight in North Africa.

Note that what Obama is proposing is not akin to our invasion of Iraq, but rather is akin to our invasion of Afghanistan. He is not talking about a premptive strike against a country that has little to nothing to do with the war on terror. He is talking about an action that may be necessary to destroy AQ's strongholds if our nominal ally Musharraf allows the threat of Al Qaeda to fester on his very doorstep. The legitimate thing to compare Obama's proposal to then is our current occupation of Afghanistan, not our current occupation of Iraq. Arguing that Pakistan is a more dangerous battlefield than Iraq is not really relevant. What's relevant is whether Pakistan will a more effective battlefield than Afghanistan, given the greater risks of invading Pakistan relative to simply strengthening our position in Afghanistan, so that AQ's reach is contained to their safe haven in Pakistan's border regions.

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 5:02 PM

"And unlike Iraq, where 90% and maybe more of the population is now fine with killing AQ operatives, even helping, in Waziristan and Baluchistan you might see 90% of the civilians committed to helping the enemy."

Chris Brown,

Since the primary reason for staying in Iraq is allegedly to fight the presence of Al Qaeda in that country, your argument above shows that our continued occupation of Iraq is unnecessary. If the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are committed to destroying AQ's presence in Iraq, we have accomplished our millitary mission there. All we have to do is give the Iraqis the weapons they need to destroy AQ themselves; there is no need for our military to carry out that task for the Iraqi populace. It would a better use of our military resources to send our troops to kill AQ in other countries where they have strongholds, such as Afghanistan or even Pakistan.

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 5:15 PM

I'm afraid that with President Obama our government of the people, by the people and for the people shall perish from the earth as Barack becomes The (New) Decider.

Senator Obama:

*I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan
*I would increase our non-military aid by $1 billion
*I will send a clear message
*I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional
*I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America
*I will strengthen these civilian capacities
*I will also strengthen our intelligence
*I will create a Shared Security Partnership Program
*I will lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons
*I will make it a focus of my foreign policy to roll back the tide of hopelessness
*I will double our annual investments
*I will also launch a program of public diplomacy
*I also will reject a legal framework that does not work
*I will establish a Quadrennial Review at the Department of Homeland Security

I'm not contending that these things shouldn't be done, and some of them are true executive functions, but I do criticize the autocratic tone and attitude that seems similar to George Bush's--a tone and attitude that apparently are symptomatic of post-9/11 America where the Commander-in-Chief is The Decider, the undemocratic Father-Knows-Best we 'need' in these largely trumped-up (and created by the government) troubled times. In other words it's Bush paternalism with a new face. I will do this, and I will do that.

Most, if not all, US presidents in the past fifty years have been at least a disappointment and too often abject failures. I contend that this happens because we have too much faith in them, and give them too much power because of that faith. And here we go again, with Obama. He's rising to our expectations, earnestly telling us what he will do. Is that what we really want? Or is this still a democracy.

Posted by Don Bacon | August 1, 2007 7:40 PM

eltoro - Fighting AQ through the affiliate/franchise/proxy they have established in Iraq in the wake of the US occupation has done nothing to weaken AQ as a whole, and has actually strengthened it. Fighting in Iraq has given Al Qaeda operatives valuable experience and intelligence in how to fight with our military with little or no risk to Al Qaeda's leadership, since AQ's leadership (Osama & company) are in safe havens far from Iraq's battlefields and from our troops.

Many liberals and Leftists still fail to admit that the enemy is not Al Qaeda, it is radical Islam. Al Qaeda is just one of 60 or so radical Islamist groups, some of which, like GIA, JI, Jammu al-Kashmir, have killed millions in Algeria, Indonesia, India&Bangladesh in the last 40 years. And those terrorist groups are just the tip of the spear for a much larger mass or radical Muslims that fund, feed, recruit for, and support war and butchery on Unbelievers.

It hurts to think this is not some James Bond fantasy where a couple helicopters full of "secret agents and ACLU lawyers along to safeguard AQ leaders civil liberties" can't just end the whole problem by getting a dozen or so "Mr Bigs" in Pashtun lands - but sorry, that is fantasy.

And your assertion that killing 10s of thousands has done nothing to wealen AQ is just the claim of the Left, it is not reality. Even the national intelligence estimate saying AQ has used harbor to regroup in Pakistan does not mean they are the danger they were before.
Saying that only the perps behind 9/11 are the problem ignores the same Saudis, Yemenis, Sudanese, and JOrdanians that Lefties preferred that they would have fought us in superb defensive postions in Pakistan - are being readily whacked in the tens of thousands in Iraq where they have little cover now, few supporters..
Iraq is their death trap, Pakistan will never be.

And AQ and other radical groups have blown their networks in Europe, Jordan, KSA, Morocco trying to send all available Jihadis and leadership - into Iraq. AQ leaders from KSA, Jordan, MOrocco, Sudan, and Yemen have been killed or better - caught and sent to ACLU-less Egypt or KSA police to have heart-to-heart talks.

So their leadership is not intact.

In fact, their leadership in Pakistan/Afghanistan are now on the sidelines, scared of ISI and Indian intelligence targeting them, and so cut off they are begging AQ in Iraq for money.

Limiting our military actions against AQ to the peripheral battlefield of Iraq

Funny, only Lefties believe the Himalayan sanctuaries are Central. Even Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as most countries in the region believe that Iraq, at the heart of Sunni Islam and the seat of the traditional Caliphate, is the Central Front.

The real problem is too few people recogize that AQ is a minor part of the overall war with the ideology of radical Islam. It's a netcentric war and Mosques and madrassahs teaching intolerant, violent Islam, oild demand exceeding supply, and high Muslim birthrates also add to the problem.

Liberals believe that only "freedom fighters" are capable of learning and getting better in war - never Americans. The more we know about radical Muslims, the easier it will be to wage the war of ideology and kill the small numbers called "terrorists".

KCinDC - wonder if he grasps the level of condemnation if he hit Pakistan with 20-25 thermonuclear weapons to keep WMD out of Islamist's hands
An important point. Also, does Hillary Clinton grasp how people would react if she clubbed a child to death on stage?

Your thoughts regarding probabilities of event progression is faulty. A Obama decision to invade Pakistan could lead to a the scenario of India nuked Paki cities and bases, or a more precise US thermonuclear strike to just take out all Pak missile, air bases plus nuclear and troop concentrations - if radical Islamists seized power and nukes due to Obama's invasion.

That is how military planners see it. Many of the "invade Pakistan" scenarios end up with nukes finishing it. Big risk just to get a dozen or so Big Shots from one terrorist group, all simply to treat them to 10 years of free propaganda, tasty Halal meals and free ACLU lawyers defending them for the trials and endless appeals...

And Lefties that support Obama reflexively will have a hard time explaining to their Euro Leftie and Muslim pals why a prememptive war done by Obama is OK when it was just so horrible of the Bush-Hitler to do so.

On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a Lefty scenario that would culminate in Hillary clubbing kids to death on stage, or Fred Thompson ending up gassing all blacks as possible end-state outcomes..

Posted by Chris Ford | August 1, 2007 8:14 PM

Chris Ford,

Who attacked us on 9/11, the whole of radical Islam or just Al Qaeda? The answer of course is Al Qaeda. Yes, the rest of radical Islam has beefs with the West, but is Al Qaeda that actually has waged war against us. That is why we must concentrate our war efforts on them, and not get involved in every conflict in the Middle East involving Islamists.

As for your contention that we have killed tens of thousands of Al Qaeda members in the Iraq war, that is utter nonsense. We have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis during the occupation, but these were mostly native Iraqis belong to either the Sunni militias or to the Shiite militias, not the foreign fighters from Egypt, Libya, etc. that you referred to. At best, we have killed AQ members in the ones of thousands, not the tens of thousands. (Typical Dubya cultist tactic; conflating the Iraqi civil war with the war on Terror.)

Moreover, the AQ people we have killed have been replaced (Jihadists have an uncanny ability to continually find new recruits to serve as cannon fodder), and AQ in Iraq keeps going and going, even though the Sunnis are starting to turn against them. The fact that AQ in Iraq is in the position to give money to the main AQ organization in Pakistan shows that your contention that our efforts in Iraq have succeeded in weakening AQ as a whole is utter BS.

Iraq is not a death trap for AQ, because the people they send there to kill our troops are people who want to die, and there are always more of them to send. Until AQ's leadership is actually threatened the way they were when we invaded Afghanistan, Iraq will simply be a death trap for our military, not for AQ. Since AQ's leadership are smart enough not to go to Iraq themselves, Iraq will never a death trap for them. Besides that whole flypaper scenario has the deadly flaw of reducing our military posture to a defensive crouch. We wait for them to come to us and then we destroy them, instead of staying on the offensive and hunting them down even in the places they thought they would be safe. We did that very thing when we first invaded Afghanistan, but then your Maximum Leader allowed them to escape, despite the fact that it would have been far better to fight them in Afghanistan (where their leadership would have been in danger from our troops), than to fight them in Iraq (where the leaders are comfortably hidden away from our troops). Yes, Pakistan sucks as a battlefield, but whose fault is that, Obama's or Dubya's? (The answer of course is Dubya's, in case your brainwashed self couldn't figure it out.)

Moreover, even if our Sunni enemy thinks that Iraq is a central front in their plans, it doesn't follow that it is a central front in our plans. Their plans after all are not just about destroying the influence of the infidel West; their plans are also about destroying the heretic Shia within the Muslinm world itself. That is why AQ has not only waged war against the US in Iraq; it has also waged war against the Shia there, without regard to the well-being of the native Sunnis who have suffered as the result of the sectarian civil war. That is why (as you have mentioned) 90% of the Iraqi populace is eager to destroy AQ in Iraq themselves.

No, the central front for us is where the AQ leadership is at. It doesn't matter if they are in fear of the ISI or Indian intelligence; so long as the Pashtun warlords who control the border regions give them sanctuary, they can continue their evildoing unimpeded. They may be cut off from the east, where Musharaff has actual control, but they are not cut off from the West, where their Taliban friends have control in the Afghan border regions, and thus can serve as a conduit to the outside world. That makes the Pakistani border region the Berlin of our War on Terror, not Iraq, which is an Italy at best and a North Africa at worst. (Afghanistan at this moment is this war's equivalent of France or the Soviet Union in its strategic importance.)

I agree with you that invading Pakistan could escalate in a ugly thermonuclear exchange. Guess what? So does Obama. That is why he would invade Pakistan only if it were necessary. He is not proposing a premptive war in the manner of your hero Dubya. Unlike Dubya, Obama actually thinks through the consequences of his actions. A man who displayed better judgement on the Iraq war than the man who was the very architect of that war is not going to invade Pakistan is he has other options available. However, if these other options don't work out, this country can't be content with AQ rebuilding itself in Pakistan. In that scenario, military action must be taken to crush AQ in that region. That action may be performed by Pakistan, by the US, by the US in concert with Pakistan, and even by the US in an alliance with the Afghanistan, Iran, and even India, but if all other options it must be performed. Yes, it sucks that we have to even consider this option, but that's not Obama's fault. It is the fault of Dubya specifically, and of the Right in general for blindly supporting and enabling an incompetent war leader on Dubya's scale.

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 10:26 PM

Due to the way the Right-wing dead enders like Chris Brown have hysterically portrayed Obama's message as a call for premptive war against Pakistan, it makes me think that Obama was seen travelling in a jeep dressed in the manner of George C. Scott in the movie Patton, and that this exchange took place:

Press: We are you going, Obama?
Obama: I'm going to Waziristan; I'm going to personally shoot that video-making sonofabitch!

Posted by eltoro | August 1, 2007 10:49 PM