5stringJeff
11-30-2008, 07:15 PM
Obama, the war hawk?
US president-elect Barack Obama said on Sunday, on 60 Minutes, that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden will be his top priority. He made similar commitments on the campaign trail, as when he insisted that, if given actionable intelligence, he would go after al-Qaeda hiding in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Today, the two countries are inextricably linked by a spreading Islamic insurgency. Afghanistan is in danger of a "downward spiral," according to a draft report of the National Intelligence Estimate, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pro-Taliban militants regularly cross Pakistan's highly porous border with Afghanistan to attack US and NATO troops.
Mr Obama will have an important opportunity to save this failing mission. But will he be better than President George W. Bush? If he sticks to his campaign pledge to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and to take the fight into Pakistan, his policies will be a continuation — and possibly an escalation — of Mr Bush's policies.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9805
US president-elect Barack Obama said on Sunday, on 60 Minutes, that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden will be his top priority. He made similar commitments on the campaign trail, as when he insisted that, if given actionable intelligence, he would go after al-Qaeda hiding in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Today, the two countries are inextricably linked by a spreading Islamic insurgency. Afghanistan is in danger of a "downward spiral," according to a draft report of the National Intelligence Estimate, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pro-Taliban militants regularly cross Pakistan's highly porous border with Afghanistan to attack US and NATO troops.
Mr Obama will have an important opportunity to save this failing mission. But will he be better than President George W. Bush? If he sticks to his campaign pledge to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, and to take the fight into Pakistan, his policies will be a continuation — and possibly an escalation — of Mr Bush's policies.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9805