Obama: Dangerously Naive or Deliberately Deceptive?
September 27, 2008 by Laura | Trackback URI
Engram wonders if Obama is Dangerously Naive or if he’s deliberately deceptive:
And this fact brings up the complete non sequitur that an enthralled media allows Obama to get away with every time (and will do so again now): Because al Qaeda’s safe havens are inside Pakistan, how will withdrawing our troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban serve to defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan? There is no reasonable answer to this question, which is why Obama constantly blurs the critical distinction between Afghanistan (where the Taliban are fighting with the help of some al Qaeda field commanders) and Pakistan (where al Qaeda’s leaders are and where al Qaeda has established those safe havens). Only by blurring that distinction can one create the false impression that pulling troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan is a way to directly confront a resurgent al Qaeda.
One might conclude that Obama is every bit - and more - the warmonger McCain is accused of being in spite of the anti-war rhetoric which launched his presidential bid. Putting together all his quotes about Afghanistan and Pakistan, it seems that he’d be quite willing to launch a war on Pakistan from Afghanistan. Dangerously naive, or the phenomenon of liberals always wanting the war they don’t have? I haven’t heard him talking about needing “tough diplomacy” with Pakistan the way he does about Iran. Why is that?
Both …
How does keeping the troops in Iraq help defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan? If nothing else, the fact that you can see Pakistan from Afghanistan should help - after all, that’s the basis for some credible foreign policy experience, apparently
Being able to take the war to the border with Pakistan must be useful, because that’s what US troops have been doing for some time, according to the administration. In fact given that the leadership and safe havens are in Pakistan, and we’ve supported the Pakistani government in allowing it, we’re nearing a point where we might have to declare war or give up.
One of the things that has long puzzled me about the war in Iraq, if I pretend for a moment that it has to be based on logic, is why we so quickly skipped from WMDs to creating a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. We could have done that in Afghanistan (and still could - we’ve failed so far). Even if I give credence to the moronic idea that we’ll fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here (let’s build a big hospital that attracts all the bacteria and viruses, and then we won’t have to deal with them in the other hospitals), Afghanistan is over there too.