Will Obama's Militarism Obscure and Overshadow his Diplomacy?

[bigtree]

"The inheritance of our young century demands a new era of American leadership . . . We must recognize that America's strength comes not just from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from our enduring values." -Pres. Obama


Barack Obama made this remark at his first visit to the State Dept. announcing his new diplomatic team which included Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, and Richard Holbrooke and announcing his signing of three executive orders intending to reverse the Bush administration policies regarding torture, the Guantanamo prison, and the 'terrorist' suspects' detention policy overall.

There can be no doubt that these bold actions were undertaken in an ambitious review determined to put an end to policies which served in the Bush term to undermine any U.S. moral high ground which would lend credibility to his claims that he was 'spreading democracy' behind his dual government overthrows and military occupations. Indeed, there have been expressions of approval to the announcements from the Middle East which are encouraging signs that a new approach from the U.S. which respect laws and the primacy of life and liberty would be welcomed and greeted with the indispensable commodity of cooperation.

In the interim in which these policies' fate and direction are to be decided by the new administration, however, there will be certain effects and consequences of the 'enduring' military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan which have lost almost all of Bush's political veneer of protecting our national security or avenging the 9-11 attacks and have devolved into dubious nation-building schemes which suppose that regimes installed behind invading, marauding military forces will provide 'stabilizing' democracies as a bulwark against terrorist attacks.

In his remarks introducing his new, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, Pres. Obama outlined his intentions in Afghanistan with a decidedly balanced prescription of diplomacy, financial assistance, and military force.

"The Afghan government has been unable to deliver basic services," Obama said. "Al Qaeda and the Taliban strike from bases embedded in rugged tribal terrain along the Pakistani border. And while we have yet to see another attack on our soil since 9/11, Al Qaida terrorists remain at large and remain plotting."

"We will seek stronger partnerships with the governments of the region, sustain cooperation with our NATO allies, deeper engagement with the Afghan and Pakistani people, and a comprehensive strategy to combat terror and extremism," he told the State Dept. personnel gathered to welcome him.

To be certain, the new president's remarks are reassuring to the diplomatic institution - which had served for eight years as a mere advance PR branch of the Bush/Cheney Pentagon - that their efforts would be vital and instrumental to a president who intends to put their diplomacy at the forefront of his foreign policy. Both Sec. of State Clinton and the newly designated Holbrooke, in the days following, have made engaging phone calls around the region and have announced that Holbrooke and other diplomats would be traveling to Pakistan and other areas in the near future to flesh out the new relationships promised.

The danger for the Obama administration, in their efforts to lead with their diplomacy, is the prospect of their military engagements overshadowing whatever deals and aid they might manage to broker. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the entire structure of our presence there is based on the military occupation and its protection of the regimes installed behind the sacrifices of our military forces. It is that very military presence which has aggravated and alienated any of the citizens of these countries who find themselves outside of the circle of the protection and influence of whatever ground our soldiers manage to seize and hold.

Yet, in his remarks this Sunday, Vice-Pres. Biden made it clear that the planned 'surge' of 20,000, or so, troops into Afghanistan are intended to do little more than hold and expand whatever ground they can wrest from the resisting population. Admitting to Bob Schieffer on CBS's 'Face the Nation' that the plan to increase the force there would cause an 'uptick' in the numbers of dead U.S. soldiers, Biden explained why.

The Obama administration has "inherited a real mess," Biden said. "We're about to go in and try to essentially reclaim territory that's been effectively lost," he said.

Essentially, the Obama administration has accepted the basic premises of Bush's occupations and are preparing to manage them to some notion of success. New brigades of soldiers are to be deployed around the unpopular Afghan President in Kabul and to reinforce the frontline arrayed against the resistance at the Pakistan border which has been counter-productively inflated with every new U.S. expression of 'shock and awe'.

As in the region's response to the U.S. military's latest, deadly armed drone attacks across Pakistan's sovereign border - which even Afghan's president protested for its indiscriminate killings of innocent men, women, and children - the continuing flailing of our military forces against the resistance to them in Afghanistan will always threaten to obscure any intended benefits from diplomacy.

The assumption of the mission of these forces, backed by the rhetoric of the new administration, is the same reflexive posturing against the specter of al-Qaeda that the Bush WH used to justify their own consolidation of power in Afghanistan and Iraq behind their military expansionism, or nation-building.

In both countries, it's become clear that there are myriads of elements of resistance having no relationship with al-Qaeda which are striving for nothing more than their own self-determination in their own country, outside of American interests. It's no coincidence that our military presence and aggression has served to draw many of those elements further away from whatever we intend for their country and caused them to defensively align with whatever resistance forces they can advantage themselves of.

Even as the Obama administration moves to tear down the symbols and mechanisms of the previous WH and Pentagon, the remnants of the occupations and our nation's aggressive military posture endure.

More than 600 detainees are still being held at the US Bagram Theatre Internment Facility in Afghanistan. No mention has been made of plans to close it. In fact, and expansion of the prison is planned to hold 1,100 illegal enemy combatants under the same anti-democratic circumstances of indefinite detention without charges, counsel, or trial that's famously opposed at Guantanamo.

And, if we expected that this new administration would find room to reduce our military deployments abroad, that prospect vanished with the Pentagon's admission a few weeks ago that the overall numbers of deployments are actually expected to increase in the near term, not fall, despite anticipated reductions in Iraq.

In his remarks at State, Pres. Obama was undoubtedly reflecting on his mentor, Lincoln, who stated at Edwardsville, Illinois, on September 11, 1858:

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoast, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle."

"Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit, which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere." Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your down doors."

"Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage," Lincoln warned, "and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."

It will be helpful if Pres. Obama remembers these sentiments as his plans for diplomacy threaten to become obscured and overshadowed by the predictable alienating consequences behind his expectations that continuing (albeit, tweaking) Bush's militarism will help accomplish those.

[aquart]

1. No point in speaking softly if you ain't carrying a big stick.

[bigtree]

3. It does matter how these military attacks are perceived

. . . outside of what the administration is saying.

[anonymous171]

2. Diplomacy doesn't work if you can't make good on your threats/promises.

[bigtree]

7. It's not clear who our forces are actually threatening

Is the violence directed against our troops (and the violence our troops are intended to defend against) coming from resistance to our opportunistic occupation of their territory or is it purely al-Qaeda?

It will make a great difference in impact on whatever diplomacy is attempted just which communities and regions of Afghanistan are subject to our military attack and submission. The same will apply in Pakistan, as well.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. So .... every four years we need to wave our big dick?

Everybody knows we can knock them back to the Stone Age. Why the need to redemonstrate?

[anonymous171]

32. I wasn't advocating Bush foreign policy.

I was just stating that having a military presence overseas is not necessarily a bad thing.

[KoKo]

36. Sadly, psychologically ....a new President does have to wave his dick...

I wish it wasn't true but as long as we allow Presidents to get us into wars each successive President has to show he has the "Big Dick." Otherwise, the media and the "Powers that Be" undermine him and he is gone. If you look at all the Presidents we've had...they either come in and invade a place like Haiti, Panama or that island where there were American students who were "threatened" or we bomb the hell out of somewhere during an administration when the poll numbers get in trouble.

Obama was no way going to come in and pull our troops out of everywhere and empty the CIA run torture chambers and declare "War is Over...War is Over." It just wasn't going to happen, particularly given what Bush Criminal Family had worked so hard to set up.

It will take time...and changes will probably be done "behind the scenes" where the Limbaughs, Feiths, Kristols and others will not be able to catch on until we've gradually disengaged ourselves. That's my hope, anyway. I think they are "waving the "big stick/big dick" because it's necessary right now to defend themselves until they can get their policy for "change" in place. If Obama & Clintons turn out to be the "same old ...same old" then we need to turn them out and keep seeking. They are still a hell of a lot better than what we've been living through. Or, at least their "potential" is, IMHO.. :shrug:

[stillcool]

4. Will we be a kinder, more gentle Empire?

The US Empire Will Survive Bush
http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/USEMpire_Will_Survive_LeMonde.htm
By Arno J Mayer
Le Monde diplomatique
October 2008

The United States may emerge from the Iraq fiasco almost unscathed. Though momentarily disconcerted, the American empire will continue on its way, under bipartisan direction and mega-corporate pressure, and with evangelical blessings. It is a defining characteristic of mature imperial states that they can afford costly blunders, paid for not by the elites but the lower orders. Predictions of the American empire's imminent decline are exaggerated: without a real military rival, it will continue for some time as the world's sole hyperpower.

But though they endure, overextended empires suffer injuries to their power and prestige. In such moments they tend to lash out, to avoid being taken for paper tigers. Given Washington's predicament in Iraq, will the US escalate its intervention in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia or Venezuela? The US has the strongest army the world has ever known. Preponderant on sea, in the air and in space (including cyberspace), the US has an awesome capacity to project its power over enormous distances with speed, a self-appointed sheriff rushing to master or exploit real and putative crises anywhere on earth. In the words of the former secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld: "No corner of the world is remote enough, no mountain high enough, no cave or bunker deep enough, no SUV fast enough to protect our enemies from our reach."

The US spends more than 20% of its annual budget on defence, nearly half of the spending of the rest of the world put together. It's good for the big US corporate arms manufacturers and their export sales. The Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, purchase billions of dollars of state-of-the-art ordnance. Eyes and ears of a borderless empire

It Never Happened
By Harold Pinter
Z magazine, February 1997
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/Never_happened.html
Sometimes you look back in recent history and you ask: Did all that really happen? Were half a million "Communists" massacred in Indonesia in 1965? Were 200,000 people killed in East Timor in 1975 by Indonesian invaders? Have 300,000 people died in Central America since 1960? Has the persecution of the Kurdish people in Turkey reached levels approaching genocide? Are countless Iraqi children dying every month for lack of food and medicine brought about by UN sanctions? Did the military coups in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Chile result in levels of repression and depth of suffering comparable to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and the Khmer Rouge? Has the U.S. to one degree or another inspired, engendered, subsidized, and sustained all these states of affairs? The answer is yes. It has and it does. But you wouldn't know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest . The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them. No body ever has . Of course, it' s probably more than a newspaper or TV channel's life is worth to do so. It must be said, that as the absolute necessity of economic control is at the bottom of all this, any innocent bystander who happens to raise his / her head must be kicked in the teeth. This is entirely logical

---------
Lastly, an elegy. Curtains are drawn, lights go out. It never happened. In 1979 the Sandinistas triumphed in a remarkable popular revolution against the Somoza dictatorship. They went on to address their poverty stricken country with unprecedented vigor and sense of purpose. They introduced a literacy campaign and health provisions for all citizens which were unheard of in the region, if not throughout the whole continent. The Sandinistas had plenty of faults but they were thoughtful, intelligent, decent, and without malice. They created an active, spontaneous, pluralistic society. The U.S. destroyed, through all means at its disposal and at the cost of 30,000 dead, the whole damn thing. And they're proud of it.
The general thrust these days is: "Oh, come on, it's all in the past, nobody's interested any more, it didn't work, everyone knows what the Americans are like, but stop being naive, this is the world, there's nothing to be done about it and anyway fuck it, who cares?" But let me put it this way-the dead are still looking at us, waiting for us to acknowledge our part in their murder.

[bigtree]

8. hopefully

I don't expect for this administration to be able to restrain or resist every imperialistic impulse; or even expect that to be their overriding ambition.

[stillcool]

10. I don't think there are many United State's actions...

that have been taken on impulse. Our imperialistic goals have been, and will continue to be a priority for our government. I can understand how one can alter the means to the end, but I don't see how one changes what has been our priority for decades upon decades. Do you?

[bigtree]

11. I think that 'empire' can be advanced through trade

. . . and through mutual aid or assistance.

I don't agree that expressions of military superiority or dominance must necessarily have primacy in all of that.

[stillcool]

12. The reality of our military and it's prominence..

in our government necessitate conflict, or at least the threat of conflict, no? Look at how much money we spend on 'Defense', and how much defense industries eat up the national budget. My view of the world dominance of our military and our history has me fearful of assassination to any President who stands in the way of American Supremacy. The most I hope for is a more peaceful route to achieving those goals. I think that the reason why Republicans stay in power, even when they are out of power, is because they represent the philosophies and enact the policies for a global super power which has been the bedrock of our government since WWII.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Reliance on the military is what is bringing America down.

Or, perhaps, the past tense is more appropriate.

We continually pump money into our highly overestimated military to fight unwinnable wars which is bankrupting us, financially and morally.

Just like the other empires that preceded us, we have become dependent on our colonies for our sustenance and expend our wealth defending them to assure the tribute they pay us, and we need.

We can no longer afford to do so. But, the politicians, forever erecting bogeymen to terrify us, continue to take the easy and politically expeditious path of flag waving nationalism even at the cost of our freedom, our lives, and our fortune.

The chickens of our rapaciousness have come home to roost.

[bigtree]

13. To plunder, butcher, steal,

. . . these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.

--Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. I'm reading the "Complete Works of Tacitus" right now.

There's quite a bit there about a falling empire that is applicable to the situation now.

[bigtree]

15. lol

great minds :dunce:

[Alcibiades]

17. The wars are winnable

The idea that we can occupy any country that does not want us there is a bad one. Winning isn't the point: it's keeping the occupation going as long as possible.

At least, that's how it's been under Bushco. If Obama orders the military to actually beat the Saudi extremists and we do so, I, for one, will be happy.

[anonymous171]

6. Diplomacy without military backing will fail. The UN is great example of this.

If the UN had a standing army it would be taken much more seriously.

[ljm2002]

9. You keep repeating this mantra...

...about the necessity of military force to back up diplomacy. Yet, as reflected in the OP, the real story is that we use our military as a first line of action, not as a backup to diplomacy. The military is driving the agenda, not enforcing an agenda driven by diplomacy. You'd have to be wilfully blind not to see it IMO.

We are out of balance. The military juggernaut has its own logic and its own imperatives, and they continue to drive our foreign policy.

I only hope that Obama can -- and will -- stem the tide somewhat.

[anonymous171]

16. That is a problem that has to change, I agree. nt

[bertman]

18. Perhaps the relevant question now is can we dial down the military spending and

the military presence around the world without being viewed as weak by others who might want to challenge our empire's standing?

Certainly we can divert hundreds of billions of the dollars that are currently in military programs and put them into constructive ventures such as infrastructure rebuilding and green projects without jeopardizing our security at home. But, can we divert the dollars from the military/intelligence projects that keep the "unwashed masses" under control in turbulent spots like the Middle East, Africa, or our southern hemisphere? There is always a boogieman who is waiting for the opportunity to move into the void filled by a receding military presence.

Whether you and I consider those boogiemen to be threats to American security is irrelevant. It's whether the imperial rulers consider those threats a danger to the imperial business model.

Unless the imperial overlords are willing to accept a new model of power projection that allows trade/commerce to supplant militant colonialism, I fear that President Obama is going to be confined to a narrow set of options for putting America back in the good graces of the rest of the planet. Beautiful oratory and empty promises of change have a short shelf-life when it comes to international relations.

And as a previous poster mentioned upthread, any President who tries to move too quickly or too vigorously to control the controllers is liable to lose more than the next election.

Recommended and kicked.

[bigtree]

19. .

[Time for change]

21. You've described perhaps the biggest problem that confronts our country and the world

I don't know what it will take to tone down our country's militarism. As others have said, it will probably take a long time to change attitudes that our country has held for a very long time. But we have to start somewhere. I do hope that Obama will NOT let his militarism overshadow his diplomacy. I am hopeful that he will do that and get our country turned away from the militaristic imperialism that has characterized us for so long. If this doesn't happen before too long it could well mean catastrphe and the end of world civilization as we know it.

[Vattel]

22. Excellent post.

[ro1942]

23. when the money is gone

love you work tree. what really scares me is what the money and power hungry elite will do with this corp. army when the money gets short. by the way i guess the native Americans and the french resistance were terrorist. the USA and Israel don't want peace in the middle east, they want to control it. it's all about empire. Obama is the perfect front man top of the line, best ever.

[grantcart]

24. Afghanistan will require a wholistic multilateral approach.

Using a term like "Obama's militarism" at this point is really laughable. A wholistic approach realizes that the Afghan people are going to need massive support to turn away from not only aggressive efforts by militaristic religious zealots but also a reemerging triabal narco state. They are going to need social, educational and economical support and the more that comes from non governmental agnecies staffed by nationals from neighboring or other Islamic countries the better. However a military effort to buy safety and time for those developements is an essential part of it and not "militarism". When you offer support to stop terrorizing elements from killing school teachers it is not militarism.

The smaller the US footpring the better, but helping to restore Afghanistan to where it was 50 years ago as a secular Islamic society is an essential goal and completely the opposite of the American effort in Iraq.

[bigtree]

25. these folks wouldn't laugh off the term

Supporters of the Pakistani Islamist party Jamat-e-Islami protest U.S. drone attacks in Karachi on Sunday.


or, these folks . . .




or, these folks . . .


A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were travelling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found

[grantcart]

26. and the fact that some of these people cannot draw a line between the people

that are the objects of the attack are the same people responsible for the assassination Benazir Bhutto is not lost on the vast sensible majority of Pakistanis.

Part of my work for the UN took me to Pakistan and it is possible to raise a street crowd on any issue and it is always easy to get people angry on soveriegnty issues. The fact that the banner is in perfect English and is aimed for the NYT and is not in local script might have been a clue to you.

Despite the headlines by radicals, extremists and uneducated tribal members Pakistan has a large sensible secular middle class that is firmly behind the secular state that was envisioned by Jinnah. The Pakistanis are very proud of being friends of the US and while you may not remember such events, the massive aid that the US gave to the mountain areas destroyed by earthquake is well remembered with passion.

Just because factions will exploit events to try and enhance their standing for the upcoming by elections please don't be deceived by the impression that the different democratic factions are not in strong support of the US eliminating the leadership of the truly militaristic madmen that engineered 9/11 and the assassination of Bhutto and the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis. You should also not assume that these same factions have not given a green light to the US administration to eliminate mass murderers just because they don't announce it in a press release. You should assume that Obama administration understands how to appeal to both progressive leaders and the "street" and is not taking reckless militaristic actions by targeting folks that all civilized groups want eliminated.

edited to improve the meaning of the first sentence.

[bigtree]

28. dude, read the Pakistan press

there's absolutely nothing in there about the outreach the State Dept. made in the past few days . . . nothing but outrage about the recent drone attacks. That's not going to translate into the support for the U.S. interests that have been defined by this administration as critical to their mission in Afghanistan and in enlisting Pakistanis in apprehending the fugitive 9-11 suspects.

Likewise, the collateral killings of innocents by our forces in Afghanistan have alienated whatever moderate factions from supporting U.S. interests in preserving the propped-up regime in Kabul, much less align with us against their country folk.

Both Karsai and the Pakistani president have specifically decried the killings of civilians. It wasn't the first time they've been put in that position.

These military escalations and the resulting suppressive raids and bombings aren't going to 'appeal to the streets' and 'progressive leaders' in that region any more than they have already. It's clear that there has been a counter-productive effect of fueling the resistant violence and fostering even more individuals willing to align with whatever resistance offers them sanctuary.

You describe some ideal outcome in Afghanistan which is not the reality for the majority of those who reside there.

[grantcart]

30. Are you kidding me?

You should actually read the Pakistani papers before urging somebody to read them.


What was Zardari's reaction to this outrageous violation of Pakistani soveriegnty?


He thought that they "were counter prodcutive" and "hoped that the US would stop" such attacks and then had lunch with the US ambassador.

They also report that the President then had a luncheon with the US Ambassador. 'Dude' even in diplomacy 101 this is not a strong indication of disagreement. Reading between the lines you would get the opinion that the Pakistanis know who the targets are and gave a green light, but that is guessing. What is not guessing is that the President Zardari's reaction was the mildest possible reaction to a foreign attack on his soil that he could possibly give. Here is a hint: when the Pakistani President is angry he will call the ambassador in for tongue lashing and recall his ambassador in Washington for consultations.

Even if they took out the people that murdered his wife he is obligated to make a public statement against compromises of soveriegnty.


I can tell you that if your are simply going to be reading the signs on an organized protest or perfunctory statements in the press as an indication of the government's real intent then you don't understand how governments in that region (or really anywhere) think or operate with their allies on issues that have sensitive domestic ramifications.


Here is an example. in 1978 the Government of Malaysia took a very public stance against boat people, they received 600,000 and wanted to scare any more from coming. So they took several thousand and publicly reloaded them on boats and in front of the press showed the world how barbaric they were because they dragged these boats out when many were unseaworthy and it was obvious that many would die.

At the same time there were thousands of Khmer Muslims that were sitting in refugee camps in Thailand and had no chance of returning to Cambodia or being resettled elsewhere. So the Malays publicly attacked refugees and at the same time took in ten thousand Khmer Muslims. To this day the resettlement has been kept as a secret.


You can read Zardari's lukewarm statement here http://www.zimbio.com/Asif+Ali+Zardari/news/bDTrZvwxEvQ/Pakistani+President+Asif+Ali+Zardari+Saturday

click on the link.


Now as for trying to link civilian deaths by NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan to Predator attacks on Al Queda leadership in Pakistan shows that you think it is all the same kind of place suffering from all the same kind of action. The people in the area don't see it that way.

The overuse of air strategy in Afghanistan by NATO simply reveals that a wholistic strategy is missing and that is what Obama wants to address. It is, however, completely unrelated to the carefully planned attacks on Al Queda leadership in Pakistan.

Did you really think that Obama was going to take aggressive action in Pakistan that the Pakistan leadership wouldn't privately applaud even if they can't publicly do so? Does that really sound like the intelligent President we have been observing all this time?

[bigtree]

31. I don't know what the strategy is behind these attacks but I know the results are the same

They've been going on for a while now, with no apparent improvement in any of the 'stability' that's been touted as a benefit of the NATO raids and bombings. It's been 7-years.

My point in the OP is that the continuing, escalating militarism will have an escalated, negative effect on any of the outreach and diplomacy that the Obama administration has planned. And, if you want me to believe that a 'sensible secular middle class' is cheerleading the cross-border attacks in Pakistan which have killed civilians, then I guess I'm rooting for the 'uneducated tribal members'.

'Radical', huh?

[grantcart]

33. targeting foreigners who have come into the remote areas of Pakistan

to involve ignorant and uneducated peasants in murderous war based on the historical perspective of the 15th century by trying draw Pakistan into a wider war by means of transforming their children into suicidal warriars has nothing to do with the wider war and the problems it entails.

Because the Predators are targeting the command structure of Al Queda Pakistan is putting up only a performa objection to the strikes.

The point of your OP was that we were alienating every single person in Pakistan including the President by these moves and that is simply not true, they are the same people that killed his wife, are stringing suicide bombers and trying to ignite a war with India and every rational person in Pakistan is hoping for their destruction.

It is tragic that Al Queda brings their families with them but that is the case. Clinton's understandable reluctance to not strike when Bin Laden was in a known larger group unfortunately missed an opportunity to take him out but that was before 9/11 not after.

Your the one that is cheerleading the oportunism of foreigners who are trying to manipulate and radicalize poor ignorant tribal folks. Its not the first time I have seen this. I also heard the voices of the liberals in their comfortable homes who waxed about the purity of the Khmer Rouge as they emptied the cities. It wasn't shared by the people who had to bear the burden of that terror or the liberals that actually were in the camps with the Khmer. We 'gave thanks' to the liberators. In that case it was the Vietnamese Army who came in to end the insanity.

The 'sensible secular middle class' is happy to have whatever help it can have to stop the people who are responsible for 9-11, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the attacks on Bombay and the ongoing attempt to ignite a war between Pakistan and India.

Your point of the OP is that Afghanistan and Pakistan is the same place and that all military action is the same and all the enemies are similar and it is all counter productive and that all of the people of Pakistan and all of the Pakistani Newspapers and the Pakistan President are all in agreement with you.

So let me spell it out.

1) The realities of Afghanistan and Pakistan are completely different and the people in each country see themselves in completely different situations.

2) The military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan and the military strikes against Al Queda leadership are two completely different things.

3) The people of Pakistan are not tp be confused with the media images of public demonstrations or the people filling up the Madras.

4) Any citizen of any country finds the actions of a larger country entering their country for a military action as an embarassing and unacceptable option. Nevertheless the leadership of Pakistan would be delighted if the remnant group of foreigners that continue to initiate suicide attacks and assassinations in its borders would be wiped out. The reaction of President Zardari was perfunctory at best.

What is not radical is to just mash everything together and not have to make any distinctinos. Fortunately for us and for the people of Pakistan Obama is willing to take appropriate action when he has actionable intelligence.

[bigtree]

35. you're distorting the facts of what we know about these raids

. . . including the recent drone attacks under Obama.

There is an ongoing dispute about the nature of the 'targets' of the attacks. You can write all of the essays about use of force you want, but until it's established that these were some kinds of threats to the U.S. I refuse to accept that those types of attacks are warranted.

And I'm not unreasonably conflating the attacks. There are extensive reports that go with each of them. I've bothered to read them and you can clearly see that it is the U.S. who conflates the 'targets' and considers everyone they kill 'insurgent' or 'militant' (much like you are insisting here with claims like your accusations that the targets of the drone attacks killed Bhutto) and agents of al-Qaeda.

You misrepresent the drone attacks as an attack against 'al-Qaeda' as if you were dictating the policy of the previous administration verbatim. Everyone they kill is 'al-Qaeda' until locals manage to prove them otherwise.

"Actionable intelligence?" You'll apparently believe anything, then.

If there is to be a change in policy which respects the citizens of these countries, these dubious strikes and raids have to stop. If they don't the imperialism and military suppression you seem to believe is so necessary and correct will interfere with all of the careful diplomacy.

[BlooInBloo]

27. (facepalm)

[bigtree]

29. clown

[Mari333]

34. the united states military empire chest thumping will be its downfall

just like every other empire has fallen. its already on the decline.
anyone who suggests we continue to browbeat other countries to submit to our empire should enlist immediately and put their feet on the ground in afghanistan. otherwise they are keyboard warriors who are willing to send other people's kids to do the dirty work for corporate warmongers. and that is all it is..really...corporate wars.