Obama Threatens Illegal Aggressive Attack on Pakistan
Obama issues Pakistan terror warning
By Stephen Collinson, AFP
Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama warned Wednesday that as president, he would order US forces to strike Al-Qaeda inside Pakistan, if President Pervez Musharraf failed to act first.
Obama's tough remarks, which prompted the Pakistani government to caution presidential candidates against using terrorism for "point-scoring", came in a bold speech laying out his anti-terror strategy.
Days after his chief Democratic rival Hillary Clinton branded him "naive" and "irresponsible" on foreign policy, the Illinois senator also accused President George W. Bush of botching the war on terror.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said, referring to intelligence reports Al-Qaeda had regrouped in Pakistani tribal areas bordering 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."
A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declined to comment without seeing Obama's exact remarks, but issued a general warning for candidates.
"He is not the president of the United States, we do not make comments on the observations of individual politicians," spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.
"However, these are serious matters and should not be used for point-scoring. Political candidates and commentators should show responsibility."
The Bush administration last week attempted to smooth a row with Islamabad over threats to act against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan's territory, saying it had full respect for its sovereignty, though reserving the right to act.
Experts, lawmakers and academics have worried that any US action in Pakistani territory could set off a storm of protest and endanger Musharraf, a key US anti-terror ally.
Politically, Obama's speech was seen as a bid to bolster his foreign policy credentials, boost his campaign as a new national poll showed him well behind Clinton, and to counter claims he is too inexperienced to be president.
Arguing it was "time to turn a page," language seen as veiled criticism of Clinton whom he portrays as a voice of the past, Obama, 45, accused Bush of misrepresenting the terror threat.
"The President would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of al-Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war," Obama said in the speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
It was time to begin drawing down an "occupation of undetermined length" in Iraq, to focus on the "right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama said.
He said he would make hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid to Pakistan conditional on action to close Al-Qaeda camps, evicting foreign fighters and halting Taliban strikes in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.
Obama also pledged to deploy at least two extra US brigades to Afghanistan to reinforce counter-terrorism operations and bolster NATO's fight against the Taliban.
"The solution in Afghanistan is not just military," Obama said. "It is political and economic. As President, I would increase our non-military aid by one billion dollars."
He bemoaned a "terrible mistake" by the Bush administration to "fail to act" when it reportedly had a chance to take out an Al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005.
His comment appeared to be a reference to a secret military plan to kill Al-Qaeda leaders including bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The New York Times has reported the mission was halted partly due to fears of harming US ties with Pakistan.
The Republican White House attributed Obama's remarks to the atmospherics of the campaign trail, but noted Pakistan had 100,000 troops in tribal areas, taking casualties and the fight to Al-Qaeda.
It was not the first time that the spectre of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan had entered the Democratic race.
In June, Clinton pledged to focus on Pakistan's anti-terror efforts like "a proverbial laser" and suggested the appointment of a high-level presidential envoy to help smooth prickly ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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www.VelvetRevolution.us
Obomba
As likely as snow in Venezuela.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWUxZGUyYjRhZjE0MWI1OTJiYTY0NzN...
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Obama's Foreign Policy, Part 2 [John Podhoretz]
I'm getting a lot of enraged e-mails from Obama defenders who are accusing me of caricaturing his position on Pakistan, or of being an apologist for somebody or other, or something. So let me be clear about one thing: Obama is full of it. This country is never — never — going to stage a major military action against Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation of 170 million people that has nuclear weapons and whose admittedly problematic and troublesome regime has, to some extent, cooperated with the United States in the war against Al Qaeda both in ways we know and ways we have no idea about. The concern that this strategically vital county might become an Islamic fundamentalist state is, should be, and will be paramount in every and all discussions about how to conduct the fight against Al Qaeda.
What's more, every serious person knows the United States won't invade Pakistan, even with Special Forces — since the reason we cancelled the proposed action against Al Qaeda in 2005 is that it was going to take many hundreds of American troops to do it. This isn't 15 people dropping like ninjas in the darkness. It's an invasion, with helicopters and supply lines and routes of ingress and escape. It would have had unforseen and unforeseeable consequences, but it would have been reasonable to assume the Pakistanis would have turned violently against the United States and hurtled toward Islamic fundamentalist control.
If the evil Bushitler Cheney Rumsfeld Monster wouldn't do it, nobody will do it. And you can bet there isn't a single person in line to run a Democratic State Department or Democratic Defense Department who would give the idea three seconds of thought. Obama is using Pakistan to talk tough, in the full knowledge that he will never actually pull the trigger.
He is trying to put one over on the American people, which is certainly using the "audacity of hope" in an entirely new way.
08/01 01:41 PM
CNN debate: Obama supports bombing innocents there on tip
Remember when he raised his hands in support of bombing innocent civilians there on a tip about the whereabouts of Osama,
Why are we surprised?
As an earlier commenter pointed out, only Dennis said he wouldn't bomb if innocents and Osama were at the same site. The best we can hope for from the others (other than Gravel) is a Bill Clinton-esque foreign policy, which is bomb when we can get away with it or when there's some scandal to cover up (a practice Bush seems to have perfected).
rjones2818.blogspot.com
80,000 American citizens on American soil died...
since 9/12/01 because they had no access to healthcare insurance. Zero Americans have died on American soil due to a terrorist attack since then. And Obama wants to bomb Pakistan? How about zeroing in on Congress?