Obama fires back at foreign policy critics - CNN.com


I like Obama's stance on this, but is he serious or is he just looking for votes.
I'm also questioning as to what he defines as "actionable intelligence".

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

Many times I believe Americans will have to take back the country and start a new government.

I think he's serious, personally. I like his instincts, which to me are more important in terms of foreign policy than experience. Our worst foreign policy blunders have been undertaken by very experienced Presidents(LBJ, Nixon) and some of our best moments came from inexperienced Presidents(Lincoln, Kennedy).

Foreign policy is just not something you can get much experience in other than to actually be President or Secretary of State. Guys like Joe Biden and John McCain touting their foreign policy experience is bogus. They haven't done diplomacy or had to make decisions on war and peace(except collectively with Congress). They are more experienced in the same way that any university professor of foreign studies is more experienced: they study this stuff and they travel a lot.

If Obama doesn't see why or how this is controversial, he's even more of a lightweight candidate than I already think he is.

Violation of Pakistani sovereignty is an act of war. What part of this does Obama not quite understand?

with the democrats that will vote in the primary he is screwing himself royaly

but

i totally think what he is saying is spot on

Violation of Pakistani sovereignty is an act of war. What part of this does Obama not quite understand?


Not necessarily, although technically you are right.

In practice, it doesn't work that way. Mexican police and military sometimes cross our border but we don't go to war over it.

Secondly, the government doesn't control the areas we want to go into anyway. They don't have sovereignty in those areas to be violated except in the technical sense.

That is not a pertinent comparison. The US-Mexico border is not a reasonable comparison to the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Riposte!

Not necessarily, though technically you are right!

However, do you think you (or the USA) could sell this finely nuanced point on the Arab street or at the UN?

Invading Iraq is one thing - nobody liked Iraq or Saddam. But Pakistan is very much an Islamic nation and I don't think that the populace over there, or other Muslims elsewhere, will be quite so open to such a questionable and debatable technicality.

Any blatant and militant US violation of Pakistani soveriegnty is potentially a dangerous and explosive issue - one that could easily cause the overthrow of the present Pakistani government and the replacement with a violent and radically minded Islamic one.

Thus, Obama is playing with fire here for discussing it in public. Authorizing secret 'special ops' over the Pakistani border is one thing, firing cruise missiles across is another entirely.

Who cares what those people think?

They are all too infatuated with Starbucks, Eminem and Matt Damon's latest movie.

We have got them under our control. HA HA HA.

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I think Obama is flexing his political muscles ... for votes.

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However, do you think you (or the USA) could sell this finely nuanced point on the Arab street or at the UN?


Bin Laden killed 3000 Americans. Pakistan was unable to get him. We were. If the Arab street doesn't like it, then they have made themselves our enemies.

Any blatant and militant US violation of Pakistani soveriegnty is potentially a dangerous and explosive issue - one that could easily cause the overthrow of the present Pakistani government and the replacement with a violent and radically minded Islamic one.


Very unlikely. Support for Islamist government pretty much starts and ends with the tribal areas. There is no way an Islamic government could survive in the cities, which are militantly secular.

But he's messing it up though.

Let's face it he's a one term Senator who'd served 2 years of his termbefore he started to run for President, he has no experience so his blunders are to be expected.

Wants to meet with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Castro (Presidemts of enemies of ours) and wants to invade Pakistan which is an ally of ours.

If he had already won the Democratic nomination and this was for the general election, I'd say he was after votes. But since this seems like the sort of thing that can only hurt his chances in the primary, I'm inclined to suspect that this is his actual stance.

Maybe he thinks that because he's the left of Hillary he has a better chance in the primary and can afford to flex his muscles a little?

Plus the dems do hate Pakistan so maybe this does play to his base a little?

w claimed to have "actionable intelligence" when he conned us into the Iraq invasion. I am really not anxious to go down that road again just because Obama is a democrat.

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The most important political office is that of private citizen.
Louis D. Brandeis - First Jewish Supreme Court Justice

Huh? US able to get Bin Laden? You speak in the past tense?

Arguably, the anger of the Arab street is at the root of the 9/11 attack. And the Arab street didn't choose to be an enemy of the USA - the USA has put themselves into a position to be naturally hated by the Arab street.

And the USA has already made many enemies (perhaps too many). Making more of them is not a good policy by any measure.

That's what was said about Iran pre-1979.

The activist wing of the Democratic party that is most likely to vote in the primaries contains the most strident anti-war types. There's no way Obama can be appealing to that set with this rhetoric.

In my mind, he's lurching back and forth like an amateur here. His last foreign policy exchange caused him to look weak and too liberal, agreeing to meet with Fidel and Kim without any preconditions and whatnot. So now Obama swings the pendulum to the opposite side and errs on the side of looking too much the warmonger and anti-liberal.

These are common foreign policy errors coming from a neophyte.

Obama is out of his league here. He should stick to his nice warm and fuzzy speeches that make people feel good. That appears to be his principal talent.