"... Islamabad had already ordered the country's border crossings into Afghanistan closed, blocking off NATO supply lines, after the strike."
MEANWHILE: "Obama and family take in basketball game, chat with Bill Murray." He did comment on current events, noting that the tentative deal to end the NBA lockout seems to be "a good deal."
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Tells us where Obama's priorities are ...
Remember that Obama specifically campaigned on how he was going to be smarter and more effective fighting in Afghanistan and he was going to be more confrontational with Pakistan.
We see how that's worked out.
Obama promised to be a bad-ass toward Pakistan during his campaign speeches.
Even I knew that supply though Pakistan was an important issue at the time. This wasn't in any way a secret from anyone.
So...
Obama is keeping his promises.
Bravo!
RE: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
What if there is no basketball this winter??!!?
Come on - you have to have priorities!
Besides, Obama has been to "Pohkistan", so he has it covered...
With friends like Paki-land, who needs enemies?
Peter
Is Barry gonna go all honey badger on the Pakis? I guess he's ssupposed to be some kinda badass terrorist killer now, so I guess we'll see.
By tomorrow morning's talk shows they'll be blaming this on house republicans.
What a travesty. Doesn't everybody know that the President must be immediately and personally involved in seeming to be working on a response to a demand that the Pakistanis have made in the past.
This is no place for diplomats. The President must use his pulpy bullet, er, bully pulpit, personally. And after all, if he were to suspend everything and work on this issue day and night, none of his adversaries would ever say that he was grandstanding, or that he should leave it to the State Department. Never.
Makes that old Hillary ad look ridicuolous.
Who do you want answering the phone at 3AM? Hell, Obama isn't even going to be there to answer it!
This is one where I think conspiracy is the simplest explanation, i.e. a Pakistani somebody called the strike, but the target was not what the U.S. military thought it was.
I've read the news reports. It sounds like "never waste a good crisis".
What they want is more money! They truly do not care about the dead...if there are any dead.
Somehow, leading from behind starts to translate to leading from up his behind.
Another foreign policy success right beside being asked to leave Iraq because He was too bored with the negotiations to invest Himself.
Showing solidarity with the Occupation was much more important.
Time to bail out of Afghanistan and tell Pakistan the party is over.
This is the worst foreign policy since the Civil War.
Don't underestimate Obama's capacity for inflicting violence, especially if he feels even mildly slighted. Heady stuff, being commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world.
And a very dangerous scenario, given the size of his specific head.
Supply lines are cut off to all NATO troops? I'm glad I am back home. Things might be getting rough over there.
Mike_K said...
Time to bail out of Afghanistan and tell Pakistan the party is over.
This is the worst foreign policy since the Civil War.
That award probably goes to Jackson's seizure of Florida just to recover some runaway slaves.
As much as I'd like to, I can't fault him for not being in Captain Queeg-mode 24 hours a day. You could make the case that there's enough crises to keep him at his desk 24/7. People chipped at Bush for stuff like this, and it was tiresome then. It's tiresome to me now.
And to be honest, I feel better when he's NOT on the job. He can't do damage when he's off the clock. I say more hoops for the prez!
I would prefer the president to confine his negotiating skills and tactics to the nba.
Synova, you were crushing in the crypto-fascist-movie post today. I refrained from commenting because you were on fire. Kinda like not talking to a pitcher when he's throwing a no-hitter in baseball. BCHOF stuff today! You impressed me.
"Obama promised to be a bad-ass toward Pakistan during his campaign speeches."
Just one of the reasons not to vote for him.
That award probably goes to Jackson's seizure of Florida just to recover some runaway slaves.
At least that one turned out OK, if for the wrong reasons. Obama has the diplomatic black thumb; everything he touches, dies.
Pakistan just doesn't get it.
We're The USA, we're the nobel peace prize winning president. We can do whatever we want anywhere we want, anytime we want.
Get used to it.
We don't recognize borders or national sovereignty. Shout it from the rooftops, We are now the arbiter of justice in the world.
This is bound to end good for us... right?
We have the best of intentions, what could possibly go wrong?
Iran is going after Turkey if we or Israel attacks them?
By all means, let's have the Chicoms have that ability. Ir the Islamists. RME
BTW - Mexico doesn't honor our sovereignty either. IMPERIALISTS!
Lucien: What a travesty. Doesn't everybody know that the President must be immediately and personally involved in seeming to be working on a response to a demand that the Pakistanis have made in the past.
Oh lookie, a new Libtard sockpuppet.
Hey dumbass, the point is that this is a direct result of foreign policy Obama already had in place.
We told everyone it was a stupid idea, that the Pakis would shut down our logistics train into AfPak.
And here you are, with whatever the lastest weasel spin is to deflect any criticism of The One.
Yes, we know he has staff. Yes, we know some partisans will accuse him of grandstanding if he gets involved. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Its. His. Job.
So take your feeble and lame excuses and shove them up your ass. Libtard.
It seems to me that the elephant in the room when people discuss the US-Pakistan relationship is India. If we're really pissed with Pakistan, why not just let them see us whispering in India's ear? They may hate India, but if anything they'd damned-well better fear them (if they have any sense at all). We need not sever ties with Pakistan and declare them an enemy, just lead them to believe that we'll run our supply lines through Pakistan or India, their choice (and yes, I know India doesn't border Afghanistan; think about it).
I demand to hear what Herman Cain has planned to handle this mess.
And he better not hesitate with a full detailed answer.
The truth is no one knows exactly what to do with Crazy people controlling nuclear weapons.
But a second batch of them is arming the nukes in Iran while Obama fiddles.
That's foreign policy expertise for you.
Obama was always an opportunist. It may be the outcome of an unstable childhood; but, he never matured and accepted responsibility for his life. His most recent problems with personal finances was only the latest indication that his priorities were egocentric.
An important point to consider though is that the one map I saw briefly on tv showed that this appears to have occurred in one of the provinces that Pakistan had ceded to Al Qaeda.
@ Lucien
"What a travesty. Doesn't everybody know that the President must be immediately and personally involved in seeming to be working on a response to a demand that the Pakistanis have made in the past."
It would rather be nice if he were to treat things like this as perhaps being rather more important than yet another day on the golf course.
You know. Just once. Once. For giggles and a change of pace perhaps.
Pakistan is an abomination akin to the Confederate States of America.
Keep sticking it to the Pakis President Lincoln!
I just watched Independence Day, again. I like the part where the American President says to the alien something like 'We can talk this out. We can negotiate. What do you want us to do?" Where upon the alien says "Die". Apparently 0bama still wants to negotiate. Our presence in Afghanistan will be pretty precarious without Pakistani cooperation. They are nominally cooperative now. But hey, the bro-in-law's team won. Remember that when Michelle first met the 0ne, she introduced him to her brother. The two of them played some basketball together, and Michelle asked her brother what he thought of the 0ne. Can I say this? One brother gave a good report of the other brother, 'he can ball', and that was all Michelle needed to proceed apace.
Robert Frost gave us these lines:
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.
Ann: remind me again why 0bama was a better choice than that psuedo-Democrat, McCain.
@Fen: "We told everyone it was a stupid idea, that the Pakis would shut down our logistics train into AfPak."
Who are the "we" in this statement, and what is the "it" that is a stupid idea?
Is it invading Afghanistan, staying there, increasing troop levels, escalating the use of drones, killing Bin Laden, or what?
WV: adist -- cut off the S just to hurt you
What I really hated about the Republican Presidential candidates was their flippant attitude towards Pakistan.
We're killing their citizens and then have the gall to criticize their government for not helping us enough.
We should have been kicked out of there a long time ago.
Good for Pakistan.
Jason: Damn Straight Skippy. We should have stopped propping up the corrupt regimes that have been running Pakistan for years and years. They take our money, lie to us, then provide feeble support while outright supporting the Muhammadans who are interested in destroying us and our civilization.
If you are going to be outraged, be outraged that we have supported a government which has treated it's citizens as atrociously as Pakistan has. I'll be their corrupt police kill that many victims regularly.
@ Jason (the commenter)
"We're killing their citizens and then have the gall to criticize their government for not helping us enough."
It would probably help things more if you were a little more aware of what is actually going on.
Pakistani forces are pretty well shot through with hardliner Islamists and Pashtuns who like to play a game of attacking Coalition forces along the borders. Sometimes they'll do it in uniform, as they are regular Army, and sometimes they'll just dress up as the Taliban.
Whenever we respond the Pakistani Army & government complain about how Coalition forces are conducting attacks on Pakistani forces.
So this isn't a case of mistaken identity. Nor a case of friendly fire. It's a case of a bunch of Pakistani military deliberately conducting an attack and getting their just desserts for it.
Frankly if Obama et al had the cojones that God gave a mouse they would deal with Pakistan and stop this nonsense before it escalates any further. Right now Pakistan is trying to push hard to see what will happen. If we don't push back even harder then the result is going to be really very ugly.
@ Jason (the commenter)
That's right. And it is about time we started killing more of their jihad waging, Taliban supporting, nuclear proliferating, drug running minority persecuting American tax-payer money taking anti-American citizens. If Obama "lost" Pakistan (either by accident or by design) I say it is good for him and it sure is good for America.
The golfer and his/er administration lies, as a matter of ideological principle. Pakistani's lie, as a matter of so-called religious principle. Valery Jarrett is POTUS.
“Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. 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." -- obama, August 2007
It might be time to explain that if you can't control what goes on in your own territory, you're not a sovereign country.
Get back to us when you can.
Maybe a lot of other countries around the world will take a lesson from Pakistan and tell us to get the hell out of their countries.
It's overdue.
Leaving Ashkanistan with nuclear weapons id like leaving a 5 year old with a loaded .357, and a bottle of hooch. The only reason the camel jockeys haven't used them is because they're terrified of India.
Mushariff is a tentative ally at best. He sits on a throne of these stone aged tribesmen with only his aura of gravistas. If they see weakness they ill eat him alive.
And don.t think he doesn't know it.
But as usual, God zero takes the easy way out. "Hey! We can kill terrorist without and American body bags!" So the drones kill, and kil, and kill. And sometimes they kill the wrong people.
The problem with that policy is that it offends the notion of Islamic bravery. You're killing an enemy with no risk whatsoever to yourself.
So you not only get collateral damage, but you emasculate a culture too. Further enraging Islamic Rage Boy.
Good plan there Skippy.
President Nero surely is finding out just how difficult his job is. Directing things from the golf course or courtside shows his indifference.
Of course, many raised the flag on this pretender way back in 2007.
The media are even more gullible than most citizens it seems. When you have to pay to play (or, promote to retain access), this is what happens; a garbled, incoherent message.
So, for many of us that never once doubted our instincts, this record of failure and missteps is unsurprising.
nirm: And it is about time we started killing more of their jihad waging, Taliban supporting, nuclear proliferating, drug running minority persecuting American tax-payer money taking anti-American citizens.
That speech is perfect justification for them to kick us out. And perfect justification for any future terror attacks against us from the region.
We could have used the intervention in the region to show people Americans aren't as evil as they've been led to believe. Perhaps in some parts of Afghanistan that message is getting through, not that I believe anything we do there will last past our departure.
But in Pakistan? We've been pretty much all stick and no carrot. It's easy to talk tough, but we don't have the material resources to keep that approach up indefinitely.
@ Jason (the commenter)
"That speech is perfect justification for them to kick us out. And perfect justification for any future terror attacks against us from the region."
That paragraph would be more lucid if in fact we were -in- Pakistan.
But we're not.
We actually are not -in- Pakistan. We don't have major bases in Pakistan. We don't have large numbers of troops in Pakistan. What we do have are a small cadre of logistics specialists, some military trainers there to help the Pakistani Army, at their request mind you, and a boatload of civilian contractors of whom most are in fact ... Pakistani.
So bravo! You pointed out the essential issue of the day that America should not be in Pakistan.
Pity that we aren't actually in Pakistan because then your point would actually have some validity. And, as I pointed out earlier, it would help a great deal if you had a little bit of knowledge of what is actually going on.
@ Jason (the commenter)
"We could have used the intervention in the region to show people Americans aren't as evil as they've been led to believe."
Yeah boo America! How dare these damn Americans come here with their ... electricity. And their ... clean drinking water. And their ... sewage treatment systems. And their ... roads. And their ... literacy, education, healthcare and the first real prosperity that anybody has seen in over 2,000 years.
Boo America!
"Perhaps in some parts of Afghanistan that message is getting through, not that I believe anything we do there will last past our departure."
One major issue isn't Afghanistan but rather Pakistan because the Pakistanis believe that they can continue to bleed us and we won't respond. Personally I would target the upper echelons of the Pakistani Army and the ISI for assassination and give them a taste of what is to come.
You kill a few dozen of a man's contemporaries and let him know in no uncertain terms that he is next. That changes a person's outlook on life.
Worked for the Russians. People fuck with Americans all the time. Nobody fucks with the Russians.
"But in Pakistan? We've been pretty much all stick and no carrot. It's easy to talk tough, but we don't have the material resources to keep that approach up indefinitely."
Yeah boo America!
How dare we give them $4 billion dollars a year? How dare we funnel over $60 billion in supplies through their country giving massive amounts of employment to their otherwise non-existent economy?
Yeah who the hell do we think we are? Americans? How dare we?
rhhardin has left a new comment ...":
It might be time to explain that if you can't control what goes on in your own territory, you're not a sovereign country.
Good grief. You people are continuing to drag illegal immigrants in Texas/New Mexico/Nevada/California into every conversation. We're talking about Pakistan here. Try to stay on topic, please. Mucho gracias.
edwardroyce: That paragraph would be more lucid if in fact we were -in- Pakistan.
Note the title of the post.
edwardroyce: How dare we give them $4 billion dollars a year?
It's aid they have to spend the way we want, and which we keep shutting down.
Like I said, pretty much all stick and no carrot.
What I thought was *bad* about Obama's campaign chest-beating was a particular set of errors that Democrats (really, I'm trying to be fair) tend to make when it comes to foreign policy.
The first error is acting like the audience, at any given time, is not global. (Several democrats showed a blithe disregard for this fact when they publicly called the Iraqi government a "puppet" of the US or got on television and announced our troops were understandably committing atrocities and who can blame them.) What Obama was saying to his US audiences was heard by the foreign heads of state he'd be dealing with afterward. Foolishness!
The second error was in the failure to understand that people are proud and that the US is a very large, very imposing power and if we're going to deal usefully with anyone at all we've got to care for their pride. Foreign leaders have got to be given a way (this is the carrot!) to save face before their own people, particularly in countries like Pakistan that have severe internal issues.
This is far different from the "they'll like us again" popularity fantasy that Dems seem prone to. Well, they don't like us again, do they. And it wasn't as if that was something other than a given. The US is who it is and we are not going to be *liked* no matter who is president or who he bows to! It's a simple thing... the leader of every single podunk corner of the back-beyond has to appear strong before his or her people in order to hold power. (The consequences in some places of not holding power is death.) To do this it is necessary to be seen NOT to bow to the might of the United States.
This is one thing that Bush was extremely good at taking into account. He did walk very softly with those like Pakistan, and got what he could (the resupply and what not, we had access to other routes and airbases pre-Obama as well, in other countries than Pakistan, that we lost when Obama was elected,) and let them publicly act like they had the option of telling us no.
Our relations with Pakistan under Bush were not good, but Pakistan itself was relatively stable.
Obama was elected, told Pakistan to shove it, and the internal stability in that country took a nose-dive. A leader has to appear strong, and Obama had no care at all for that appearance. What happened shortly after? Regime change, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and more and more internal unrest and the recent assassination of Salman Taseer, and I honestly don't know what people are thinking.
The lack of *care* Obama shows is nearly criminal, and we were supposed to have thought that he had some special insight into the culture of this part of the world.
Didn't Obama say he was going to invade Pakistan to get the terrorist?
Well here is his chance! Invade a country with REAL nukes.
Bet that makes people wish Bush was still in office and only had to worry about those 'WMD' Saddam was supposed to have.
Remember folks, when there is domestic trouble, leaders tend to try to get peoples mind off it by adventures aboard.
Nothing more adventurous than a nuke war, right?
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