Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s platform counter-terrorism speech is the most intelligent war policy statement I’ve heard in a long time. He calls Iraq a war the “should never have been waged” and promised, if elected, to reinforce U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. And alone among senior U.S. leaders, he has vowed to target the world’s biggest source of Islamic terrorists, Pakistan:
It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world’s most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.
The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I introduced a plan in January that would have already started bringing our troops out of Iraq, with a goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008. If the President continues to veto this plan, then ending this war will be my first priority when I take office.
Pakistan, understandably, is pissed, according to the Associated Press:
“It’s a very irresponsible statement, that’s all I can say,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. “As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections and contest elections at our expense.”
Sure, Barack’s statement is deliberate campaign move, but is he wrong that Pakistan is the major source of terror in the world? Not according to the Afghan ambassador to the U.S. … and the Council on Foreign Relations:
Despite its government’s cooperation with the United States, Pakistan is home to many Islamist extremists, some with links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Militants have conducted several terrorist attacks on Americans and other Westerners in Pakistan since September 11, including the abduction and murder of Daniel Pearl and the June 2002 car bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi, which killed twelve Pakistanis. Thanks to shared Islamist sympathies and ethnic ties, some Pakistanis have also helped Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fleeing from Afghanistan take refuge throughout Pakistan.
Related posts:
[...] Péter Marton posted an excellent followup to some of my musings on the difficult nature of air strikes and the legal consequences of dealing with the NWFP in Pakistan (something of which Barry Hussein Osama—that’s right, I went there—should take note). In short, it’s a legal briar patch, with the outside chance that the UNSC might authorize limited strikes. The trouble is, “limited strikes” means air strikes, and those are not constructive at this point. You don’t handle a lone gunman with a 1000, or even 500 lb bomb. Except right now, we do. The nasty, unpopular reality is that we need to accept the fact that we have to take casualties to win—that war can no longer be bloodless in the public eye. Kind of makes advocating war a touch harder, doesn’t it? [...]
Obama practically owns my vote after his recent statements regarding Pakistan. Pakistan has played a counterproductive role in regional and international politics for 30 years and as far as I’m concerned has brought nothing to the table aside from corruption, chaos and unchecked nuclear proliferation.
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you honestly think that pakistan is like iraq or afghanistan that we will just sit their and take an attck i mean if Obama wants every US soilder in Iraq or afghanistan to get hit with missile strikes conventional, nuclear and chemical he can enter pakistan and i dunt think he is that big of an idiot no is he.