Obama over Pakistan

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Was Obama proposing an "invasion" of Pakistan?

August 07, 2007 1:29 PM

The Sioux city (Iowa) Journal today reports (HERE) that Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Illinois,  says his foreign policy speech from last week (CLICK
HERE FOR MORE) was the victim of  "misreporting."

Obama_blog

"I never called for an invasion of Pakistan or Afghanistan " he said.
Obama said that what he actually said was that if there were "actionable
intelligence reports" showing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, U.S. troops
should enter  the country and try to capture  bin Laden and al Qaeda
terrorists  -- an entry only if "the Pakistani government was unable or
unwilling" to  do so.

Huh?

That's what the media reported, Senator. If there were actionable Intel
that high-level terrorist targets were in Pakistan and Gen. Musharraf
were not willing to act, you would be. You would send in US troops into
another sovereign country to take out the terrorist targets.

Let's go to the tape...

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama
said  last Wednesday , "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. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when
we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If
we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and
President Musharraf will not   act, we will."

A lot of the disagreement seems to be about the word "invade," which
Obama did not use in his speech. According to dictionary.com, invade
could mean:

1. to enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany
invaded Poland in 1939.
2. to enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields.
3. to enter as if to take possession: to invade a neighbor's home.
4. to enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: viruses
that invade the bloodstream.
5. to intrude upon: to invade the privacy of a family.
6. to encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.
7. to permeate: The smell of baking invades the house.
8. to penetrate; spread into or over: The population boom has caused
city dwellers to invade the suburbs.

Certainly what Obama was proposing was not invading as Germany invaded
Poland in 1939, since the U.S. presumably would leave as soon as the
capture or killing of the al Qaeda operatives was completed, and
Pakistan would not be perceived as the enemy.

But I suspect Pakistan and the United Nations would consider such an
operation technically an invasion, especially if it were conducted
against Musharraf's wishes.  And I suspect we would view it the same way
if Pakistani forces flew into Dubuque, and either captured or killed
high-level members of an anti-Pakistani militia. After all, it's
considered an "invasion" of U.S. airspace when a plane encroaches on our
territory.

Certainly sending in Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and CIA operatives with
weapons and parachutes, shuttled in on a C-130 aircraft -- as would have
happened in the 2005 operation Obama faulted the Bush administration for
not carrying out (LINK)-- spelled out exactly the kind of military
action Obama was talking about.

Is there a difference in terminology depending on the size of the force?
The column that broke the news of this aborted op reported that "the
number of troops involved in the mission had grown to several hundred
with "various planners bulked up the force's size to provide security
for the Special Operations forces."   Said "the former senior
intelligence official involved in the planning" of the operation, "The
whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan."

But this is precisely the mission Obama says he would have OKed.....

What do you think? Did the media (and I) overstate the case by using the
term "invade"?

--jpt

UPDATE: I emailed our resident expert, Anthony Cordesman, who told me
that Obama is correct, what he's talking about militarily would not be
considered an "invasion."

"Technically," Cordesman writes, "an invasion is an incursion of an army
for conquest or plunder. Moreover, since Pakistan has both admitted that
hostile forces come from its territory to Afghanistan and said it cannot
stop all  of them, an  incursion to defeat the insurgents is probably
legal under international law.

"Life isn't fair, and neither are the laws of war."

He does offer the caveat that lawyers and human rights groups would
likely disagree with him, though.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/08/was-obama-propo.html

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