December 2008
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Michael Burleigh
Obama's Foreign Policy
Wednesday 16th July 2008
Obama's desire to pull troops from Iraq is getting more coverage than his desire to extend the war against Al Qaeda into Pakistan. While he can certainly use America's huge subsidies to Pakistan to pressure them into properly securing their nuclear arsenal, I don't think he has thought through the political implications of more US activity than there is already over the Afghan border. Apart from the unfortunate echoes of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War- where the solution always seemed to lie in yet another country- there is the technical problem of bombing the wrong people (perhaps some Pakistani Frontier Corps soldiers) not to speak of how the Pakistani population will react to overt US military intervention.
9:27 am
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COMMENTS
jlinville
July 18th, 2008
10:07 AM
10:07 AM
Obama's recent statements on the stabilization of Afghanistan are, nonetheless, an improvement on his helpful suggestion last year that if things didn't improve the US should considering bombing and invading Pakistan... by which he meant presumably the restive and independent provinces in the northwest.
Apropos, in the wake of a small US outpost being overrun on July 13 by a large coordinated Taliban offensive in Nuristan, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan's Northwest Provinces, and the loss of nine US soldiers, Western troops are being massed right now on the Afghan/Pakistan border opposite North and South Waziristan.
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