[Peace-discuss] Pres Obama: attack Pakistan

[Ricky Baldwin]

So now the question is, where wouldn't he send troops?
-Ricky

August 1, 2007 Wednesday 12:37 PM GMT

HEADLINE: Obama says he would send troops into
Pakistan to hunt down terrorists

BYLINE: By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:

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."

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.

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.

"He confuses our mission," Obama said, then he spread
responsibility to lawmakers like Clinton who voted for
the invasion. "By refusing to end the war in Iraq,
President Bush is giving the terrorists what they
really want, and what the Congress voted to give them
in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at
undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."

Obama said that as commander in chief he would remove
troops from Iraq and putting them "on the right
battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." He said he
would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan
and increase nonmilitary aid to the country by $1
billion.

He also said he would create a three-year, $5 billion
program to share intelligence with allies worldwide to
take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.

On the Net:

http://www.barackobama.com

LOAD-DATE: August 1, 2007


       
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