Obama over Pakistan

[Hein van Meeteren]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Wat moet ik hiermee? Obama zegt dat hij vindt dat de VS moeten "act" als
er intel is over Al Q'aida in de Pakistaanse bergen en vrind Musharaff
niets doet (overigens, ik ben in die streek geweest, je kan eerder
spreken over een niemandsland, Baluchistan etc, waarop Pakistan een
claim heeft, maar waar Pakistan nauwelijks gezag heeft...).
In Amerika is 9/11 een trauma, en geen presidenskandidaat kan het maken
om 9/11 te relativeren. Dus als de verantwoordelijke voor de 9/11 attack
kunnen worden uitgeschakeld, hoe bot dat ook s, dan zal geen president
dat laten. Zoiets lees ik in Obama's woorden. Ik lees niet dat hij de
Pakistani's een lesje westerse waarden komt leren.....
Overigens, een vreemde stellingname, Oto, voor iemand die een regime
steunt dat heel Oost Europa heeft geïnvadeerd, onderdrukt en
geterroriseerd. Ik zeg altijd maar: look who's talkin'......

Antid Oto schreef:
> Speciaal voor Hein (dan kan je later niet meer zeggen: wir haben es
> nicht gewust)
>
> 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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