With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.
The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops.
The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign. At the same time, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back some of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, which he has criticized as counterproductive.
“The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign. At the same time, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back some of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, which he has criticized as counterproductive.”
It’s called triangulation – paying off his electoral debts to the left that helped him sink Clinton, while he carries on with Bushitler’s policies. Does he have a clue what to do with these “suspects”? They’ll be back killing Americans before you can say ‘Surf’s Up!’ to a waterboarder.
Meanwhile, sharia is being implemented in Pakistan, scarcely 100 miles from the capital.
Actually, if you remember, he PROMISED during the campaign that he would attack sites in Pakistan. Gosh, a promise he actually kept!
By the way, Azusa, your ad-hominim epithet against Bush is inappropriate, and if it were used against Obama, I’d be willing to bet you would be screaming for the heads of those who made the statement. where is the respect for the office if not the man who holds the office?
#1 azusa,
“while he carries on with Bushitler’s”
Do you have a clue about civility?
Sadam Hussein is to President Bush II as Osama Bin Laden is to President Obama. President Obama would love to get Bin Laden and would go into Pakistan to get him. Pakistan is dangerous territory in that they absolutely do have weapons of mass destruction.
#3: I was quoting DK style, as I thought readers would recognize.
Azusa,
Quoting without citation and passing the quote off as your own is plagiarism, as my children are reminded at the beginning of every school year.
It was still highly inappropriate and unnecessary and a false comparison, and as I said, if made about Obama by another poster, would you still defend it?
LIbrary Jim, Azusa LIKES Bush. He was being sarcastic.
And as a liberal, I’ve never called Bush Hitler. The contexts between America and Germany are much different.
But its true, Obama is keeping a promise. And its a mistake. Fortunately Gates and others are considering direct negotiations with the Taliban in exchange for more information about Bin Laden.
# 7: ‘likes’ would be an exaggeration; my support for him has always been ‘faute de mieux’, though I consider him a fundamentally decent person. But yes, I was being ineptly sarcastic and consider myself chastened by my failure to communicate here (a bit like Bush?).
I will give up sarcasm for Lent./