The duplicity of attacking Obama’s Pakistan comment
Posted by BrianFew Republicans have held back in their attacks on Barack Obama for a comment he made recently about the (not so) hypothetical situation of sending our military into Pakistan with or without Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s consent. Here is Obama’s actual quote:
“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-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” - Barack Obama
Really, his statement is not all that different from what George Bush was saying a few short years ago. Remember the “You’re either with us or against us,” and “If you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account,” lines? Obama is kind of parroting Bush’s philosophy, which was (and is) popular with the same people who now criticize Obama. Seriously, in the specific hypothetical situation that Obama described if Musharraf would not allow us to pursue known terrorists then doesn’t that equate to harboring terrorists, thereby making Musharraf one of them?
The broader message that Obama is trying to convey is damaging to Bush and his supporters. The neo-cons’ burning desire to topple Saddam and experiment with nation building in one of the least hospitable climes in this world caused this nation to lose focus on the ones that attacked us. Instead we’ve fabricated a second breeding ground for radical Islamists who want to kill us and allowed Al Qaeda to return to full strength. Meanwhile, the masterminds of 9/11 continue to generate propaganda tapes aided by the safety that our alliance with Pakistan offers them. Obama says he would pull the trigger if Musharraf refused and I can’t help but agree. After all, you’re either with us or against us.
Related content:
August 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
I haven’t followed this closely, but I believe I’ve heard or read that Musharraf may be in a shaky position in his own country so I can understand that if in order to stay in control he is reluctant to take action against the terrorists in his territory. There’s much at stake here, with Pakistan having nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of the terrorists if he were removed from power, and there could be a coups to do that if he attacked them, or if he looked the other way while the US intruded on Pakistan’s territory.
August 6th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Musharraf is in a rather precarious position and he has attempted to consolidate power by removing the chief justice of their supreme court. The court has since fought back and ordered his reinstatement.
I’m all for a reasoned, nuanced foreign policy; my point in chastising Bush supporters for being critical of Obama is that Bush’s “with us or against us” policy is dangerously simplistic. Even worse, the Bush administration comes across as hypocritical when they don’t pursue states and organizations labeled as terrorists (i.e. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) with the same fervor that they showed when we invaded Iraq.