To establish right off that I am not an Obama "concern troll:"
- my wife and I have contributed a substantial amount of money to Obama
- I have driven from my home in Minnesota down to Iowa to canvass for Obama
- and we've marched in a parade here at home for Obama
- we have an Obama bumper sticker on our car
Now, on to the point:
I have a big problem with Senator Obama's recent foreign policy speech. Actually, that's not really correct. I read the speech today in its entirety, and most of it is more or less fine with me. Except for one part.
And that part is below the fold, along with my problems with it...
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 won't act, we will.
It's really the last sentence that is the problem, but I quoted the whole paragraph to provide some context.
Here are my issues.
- "Actionable intelligence." Would that be the kind of intelligence that said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? We're going to invade Pakistan (someone on an earlier thread quibbled with my use of the word "invade" to describe this, but what else would you call it when US forces enter another sovereign nation without its permission?), potentially kill innocent Pakistanis in the process, in order to potentially take out bin Laden, based on potentially bogus intelligence? Did we learn nothing from Iraq?
- So far, since the horrific attacks of 9/11, we've invaded 2 predominantly Muslim countries and in so doing, inflamed anti-American sentiment throughout the Islamic world. The net result: we've enabled al Qaeda to recruit more and more jihadists, and strengthened Islamic radicals in every Muslim country on earth. So Senator Obama's "new direction" for US policy is to invade a DIFFERENT Muslim country? It seems to me that the best new policy for the US would be for us to say that we will not invade ANY country unless that country has attacked us. I mean, what happens if we take this course, go into Pakistan after Osama bin Laden, and, (as realistically one must admit is more likely than not) fail to get him? Are we safer? Have we lessened global anti-Americanism and blunted Islamic fundamentalist recruiting? Or have we made everything worse?
- I realize that this position seems to be paying political dividends for Obama. Super. But that doesn't mean that he's right. I thought that most of us here are in favor of Democrats standing up for their principles, not crafting policies based on what will best appease Republicans or the mythical "center." If you agree with Obama, fine. But let's not go down the path of arguing merely about tactics. This is about a core principle of our foreign policy. Are we a country that preemptively and unilaterally invades other countries when we feel like it, or not?
I'll stop there for now, and get further into it in the comments. Obama supporters, please-- I'd love to have it explained to me how I'm wrong. Otherwise I am seriously reevaluating my support for Obama.