ChristiansUnite Forums

Obama says he might send troops to Pakistan
Democratic hopeful said Musharraf should do more about terrorists

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “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-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Excerpts ahead of speech
The excerpts were provided by the Obama campaign in advance of the speech.

Obama’s speech comes the week after his rivalry with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton erupted into a public fight over their diplomatic intentions.

Obama said he would be willing to meet leaders of rogue states like Cuba, North Korea and Iran without conditions, an idea that Clinton criticized as irresponsible and naive. Obama responded by using the same words to describe Clinton’s vote to authorize the Iraq war and called her “Bush-Cheney lite.”

Thousands of Taliban fighters are based in Pakistan’s vast and jagged mountains, where they can pass into Afghanistan, train for suicide operations and find refuge from local tribesmen. Intelligence experts warn that al-Qaida could be rebuilding here to mount another attack on the United States.

Musharraf has been a key ally of Washington in fighting terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but has faced accusations from some quarters in Pakistan of being too closely tied to America.

The Bush administration has supported Musharraf and stressed the need to cooperate with Pakistan, but lately administration officials have suggested the possibility of military strikes to deal with al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

Destabilizing?
Analysts say an invasion could risk destabilizing Pakistan, breeding more militancy and undermining Musharraf. The Pakistani Foreign Office, protective of its national sovereignty, has warned that U.S. military action would violate international law and be deeply resented.

A military invasion could be risky, given Pakistan’s hostile terrain and the suspicion of its warrior-minded tribesmen against uninvited outsiders.

Congress passed legislation Friday that would tie aid from the United States to Islamabad’s efforts to stop al-Qaida and the Taliban from operating in its territory. President Bush has yet to sign it.

Obama’s speech was a condemnation of President Bush’s leadership in the war on terror. He said the focus on Iraq has left Americans in more danger than before Sept. 11, and that Bush has misrepresented the enemy as Iraqis who are fighting a civil war instead of the terrorists responsible for the attacks six years ago.

Pakistan has said, NO to US troops. And Obama wants to charge into a country with...nukes??

He's against the war in Iraq and wants to bring our troops home from there. Only to deploy them, to invade an allied country??

Of course this is also the guy who one one hand pledges to open a face to face dialog with the vilest dictators of the world in his first year of presidency. 

BUT he's afraid to debate on the FOX news channel...

Don't you just love politicians that know nothing of world affairs.

 ;D   ;D   ;D

I know this isn't really funny, but it sure is ridiculous!

We haven't been attacked again since 9/11, so I guess that we did everything wrong.

This is about like this BOOMING ECONOMY needing to be fixed. Just the thoughts about what some want to do will slow the economy down. AND, the idiotic rhetoric by our politicians is encouraging terrorists around the world. After all, the terrorists have just about finished whipping the free world and sending them home with their tails tucked between their legs. This is fabulous terrorist recruiting material, and we'll be fighting terrorists on our own soil soon enough.

YEP - it sure sounds smart to alienate an ally with nuclear weapons. I would say that Obama needs to attend the Three Stooges War College as a prerequisite to running for President. After all, a graduate of TSWC would never make a mistake like this!

LOL ...  I think that many of our politicians need to attend the TSWC.

Nope, I dislike them, cause they think they know everything.

I thought this was crazy when I heard Obama say it last night on the news!  Sure would be a good way to get the terrorists even more gungho against the USA.  Obama takes us out of Iraq and into Pakistan.... ???

Unfortunately the terrorists are already in Pakistan. They consider portions of it (along the Afghanistan border) as being a safe haven. Their are tribal leaders in that area that go out of their way to protect them. Attacking Pakistan though would be a terrible mistake as DW said. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons and would not hesitate to use them on us. At the moment we have a somewhat friendly halfway alliance with them. I think that the reason that they have not put more pressure on the terrorists than they have is that they are afraid of an uprising against them and that more of their own people would join in with those terrorists. It is a difficult balance for the president of that country to keep.

It appears that Musharraf is a reasonable man who has been a good ally, but we should all know that he's sitting on a razor-wire fence and is barely able to keep his country reasonable. We should also know that many radicals have tried to kill him many times because he has been an ally in the war against terror. Without Musharraf, Pakistan might become unstable pretty quickly, and nobody knows what would happen. I'm almost positive that it wouldn't be good.

I honestly think that Musharraf has done all he can while sitting on top of a powder keg. We really don't want the fuse activated. His opponents in the country would love to go radical Islam, so it wouldn't be wise to help his opponents in any way to unseat him. Politically, we must act in ways that allows Musharraf to remain in power unless we want big bombs to start going off through the area that would effect the entire world.

You're exactly right, brother. Without Musharrah Pakistan and Afghanistan would be much worse than the situation in Iraq. It would put nuclear weapons in the hands of the terrorist. Obama definitely does not understand this. If he does then he is really playing to the terrorists instead of the U.S.

Yes, I realize that.  Sorry my post was not clearer....I just modified it.  I meant about Obama taking us out of Iraq and into Pakistan being crazy and would only escalate the anti-American mindset of the terrorists.

Fortunately, Obama will not be our next president.  Talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire! To even consider entering Pakistan is absurd.

Course we all knew this was coming.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Pakistan criticizes Barack Obama

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 3, 6:56 PM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani officials called Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama irresponsible for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes in Pakistan against al-Qaida.

Hundreds chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag in the street to protest the remark.

Obama's comment turned up the heat on already simmering anger among Pakistanis about the issue, after senior Bush administration officials said last week they too would consider such strikes if intelligence warranted them.

Further inflaming the situation was a comment by Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican whose bid for the White House is considered unlikely to succeed, that the best way he could think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the holiest of Islamic sites, Mecca and Medina.

U.S. officials quickly distanced themselves from Tancredo's remarks.

In Miran Shah, a major town in the lawless region that borders Afghanistan, about 1,000 tribesmen condemned recent Pakistani military operations in the area and vowed to repel any U.S. attack.

"We are able to defend ourselves. We will teach a lesson to America if it attacks us," local cleric Maulvi Mohammed Roman told the rally.

In Karachi, Pakistani's largest city, about 150 people chanted slogans against the United States, Obama and Tancredo at a demonstration organized by Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of six hard-line religious parties. Protesters set fire to a U.S. flag.

"Those who are talking about attacking our holiest places are committing blasphemy. The punishment for this offense is death, and death only," said coalition lawmaker Mohammed Hussain Mahanti.

In a major policy speech Wednesday, Obama said as president he might order strikes in Pakistan's tribal zone to get terrorists, including those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again," Obama said. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Top officials in the government of Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, bristled at Obama's comment.

"It's a very irresponsible statement, that's all I can say," Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. "As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections ... at our expense."

Bush called Musharraf Friday to congratulate him on the 60th anniversary of Pakistan's independence, but also mentioned "recent statements emanating from the U.S. regarding possible U.S. action inside Pakistani territory," the foreign ministry said .

Bush "said that such statements were unsavory and often prompted by political considerations in an environment of electioneering," the statement said, adding that Bush said the United States fully respected Pakistan's sovereignty.

However, the White House took issue with part of the Pakistani statement, saying the U.S. president never termed the political statements "unsavory," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely about the president's private conversations. The official said Bush said that he realized Musharraf has been hearing a lot of things in recent days, but that U.S. policy remains that Washington wants to work together with Pakistan. Bush reiterated that the only voice that counts, and that Musharraf need worry about, is his, the official said.

Tancredo told a gathering in Iowa on Tuesday he believes a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. could be imminent.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do," he said.

In Washington, the State Department reacted with unusual venom to Tancredo's remarks, which some diplomats fear could damage U.S. ties with the Muslim world and hurt efforts to counter Islamist extremism.

"Let me just say that it is absolutely outrageous and reprehensible for anyone to suggest attacks on holy sites, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or those of any other religion," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

Pakistan used to be a main backer of the Taliban, but threw its support behind Washington following the Sept. 11 attacks. It has deployed about 90,000 troops in its tribal regions, hundreds of whom have been killed fighting militants.

But a controversial strategy to make peace with militants and use tribesmen has fueled U.S. fears that al-Qaida has been given space to regroup.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afghan said Friday he would open a debate in the national assembly next week on recent U.S. criticism of Pakistan.

It was a matter of "grave concern that U.S. presidential candidates are using unethical and immoral tactics against Islam and Pakistan to win their election," Afghan said.

 Pakistan criticizes Barack Obama (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_re_as/obama_pakistan;_ylt=AtwVPM1H4aTqHBLYTgZutUGs0NUE)

Some people just don't know when to keep their mouths shut.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

What a way to "win friends and influence people"!  (Remember that book?!)

I think that Obama failed to read that one.

For a person that is supposed to be a people person he sure did flub this one.

AMEN!

It really appears that most of our politicians have lost their mind and collectively don't have one. This most certainly includes the ones with so-called experience. If things keep going like they are, their approval rating will be a negative number.

A negative number might be a good thing. Then they won't get any votes except from those that have also lost their minds.

That maybe a bad thing, quite a few have lost their minds. ;)