Last Friday, President Obama OKed a Predator strike killing at least 15 in Western Pakistan. And Afghanistan village elders claim 22 non-combatants were killed in a U.S.-led raid. The anti-war lefts' reaction: silence.
This isn't a critique of either Obama or our military. Just a comment on what a difference it makes not having George W. Bush to kick around anymore.
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Assistant Village Idiot:
This is bittersweet for conservatives. At one level, we’re thrilled that Obama gets it, now that he’s looking at the daily security briefings. That was always the case, as most Democrats who actually had the real information usually signed off on the Bush Administration actions. Once terrorists move from being pawns in the American political game, mere abstract counters where people get to preen about how noble they are, to actual dangerous people in our custody who want to kill Americans, what to do with them becomes much more problematic. Obama is smart enough to understand the situation and adjust. That’s a good thing.(via Instapundit, Wizbang)
It is more than a little irritating, however, to see Obama given a pass, or even praise, for the very things even he attacked Bush on. All that rhetoric about fascists, and cabals, and BusHitler, that made the rounds over the last few years -- what was that all about? All that relief progressives feel about not having to worry about Bush-Cheney anymore -- was there ever anything more to it than feelings?
3 comments:
This is just too beautiful. When Obama said before the election that he would go after high value targets in Pakistan, the Right pasted him as a naif. Then Bush started doing exactly that - the Right got very quiet.
Bob, you're full of crap because you aren't getting what they pasted him as a naif FOR.
The issue in question was doing what he's talking about in PAKISTAN, thus abrogating the national sovereignty of someone who has, so far, been at least a moderate ally in all this, AND the fact that it's clearly at odds with all the Dem rhetoric about Iraq:
If you argue that you can't justify invading Iraq, how can you then claim that attacking places in Pakistan -- without Pakistani permission -- is acceptable?
Even if you disagree with the argument on going into Iraq, the answers clearly and obviously apply to BOTH situations.
And THAT is what the GOP gave Obama shit over.
As is often the case, you're either a liar or an idiot, because either you know this or you should in order to be commenting on it.
Which is it, bob? Are you lying or just too stupid to know what you're talking about?
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I think it says a lot that no one of worth in the GoP will reverse THEIR positions on any of these things, and now claim that Obama should *not* be doing them when Bush was.
Contrast Clinton and Project Echelon, Clinton and Extraordinairy Rendition, and so on, ad nauseum.
The GOP'll score all the points they can off of the fact that Obama is now hypocritically ignoring all the rhetorical CRAP that's been biliously spouted over the last 6-7 years (after assiduously ignoring and even justifying the same things when done under Clinton, mind you), but at no point will they argue in favor of stopping it, just because now it's the Dems doing it -- again.
Iraq has nothing to do with this except by contrast: There was no active Al-Qaeda/Taliban in Iraq before we went in there. Pakistan, by contrast, helped create and supported the Taliban for many years.
Pakistan has pretty much surrendered any claim of sovereignty by letting Al-Qaeda/Taliban to setup shop in it's territory and attack U.S. forces in Afganistan. In this case, they are very analogous to Afganistan in 2001 - not Iraq in 2003. The lesson here is the same as in Gaza - attacks launched from your territory will be answered by responses on your territory.
And it is absolutely true that the Republicans got all in a tangle when Obama stated he'd go after high value targets in Pakistan, yet said nothing when, months later, when Bush did the same thing.
Oh, and take your stupid, juvenile, insulting crap and put it back where it came from.
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