georgeob1 wrote:Thomas wrote:georgeob1 wrote:Well, the Democrats can always reject her in favor of Obama. Thus we can substitute an invasion of Pakistan for nuclear retaliation against Iran.
1) An invasion isn't the same as total obliteration by a nuclear attack.
2) What Obama proposed was a small-scale operation, narrowly tailored to take out Osama Bin Laden. He didn't give details at the time, but it sounded much like the mission that took out Noriega in Panama.
I don't like what Obama proposed either, but I dislike it much less than what I'm hearing from Clinton today.
Pakistan is nothing like Panama - in terms of population, military capability and its strategic situation among its neighbors. In terms of the absurdity of the two proposed actions, there isn't much to differentiate them. Moreover, there is no such thing as a "small-scale" invasion over the north-western border of Pakistan. Both propositions reveal equivalent levels of absurdity in terms of their intrinsic merit and with respect to the evident cynicism involved in making them.
Obama didn't propose an invasion
over West Pakistan into the rest of the country. The scenario he had laid out was that the US learns about the cave bin Laden is hiding in, and that it's near the Afghan border
in West Pakistan Bin. It then starts a search-and-whatever-the-opposite-of-rescue-is operation, I'm guessing maybe a few hundred men, which may or may not succeed in arresting or killing Bin Laden. That's a Panama-sized scenario, a mere extension of things the US is already seems to be doing, and Islamabad already seems to be tacitly tolerating.
It's a bit awkward for me to defend a proposal that I have already said (twice) I don't like.
