WaPo Editorial: "Chasing Terrorists" re Obama, Clinton, et al

[Adelante]

IN MAY 1998, President Bill Clinton announced that his policy would be "to capture terrorists, no matter where they hide." After al-Qaeda attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, there was widespread agreement that neither Mr. Clinton nor President Bush had pursued that policy with sufficient dedication. The Sept. 11 commission recommended that, for every actual or potential terrorist sanctuary, the United States "should have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all elements of national power" (italics added). So why is everyone from Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton to Republican Mitt Romney beating up on Barack Obama for endorsing that common-sense position?

In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center last week, delivered after a National Intelligence Estimate reported that al-Qaeda had reconstituted menacingly in the mountainous Waziristan region of Pakistan, Mr. Obama said that he would condition military aid to Pakistan on its willingness to go after foreign fighters and the Taliban. He continued: "I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. 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-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

-snip

Mr. Obama recently has taken a number of foreign policy positions with which we disagree, but on this it strikes us that he has the better of the argument -- both on substance and on the importance of debate. Faced with such "actionable intelligence," of course any president will weigh risks against potential benefits, and it's impossible to predict that calculus. The costs of action -- in civilian lives, reputation or an ally's stability -- may be too great. It's crucial, as the Sept. 11 commission went on to say, to "reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help." But the principle that the United States will defend itself by going after terrorist enemies in foreign countries, even without those nations' permission if necessary, is, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. pointed out later in the Democratic debate, already U.S. policy. Does Mr. Romney really want to equate such self-defense with "unilateral attack" on an allied nation and repudiate it as U.S. policy?

Ms. Clinton's advocacy of greater discretion may make sense for a president -- but not for a presidential candidate. These are the issues candidates should be debating: Is the United States in a generational conflict with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists? Is the appropriate response primarily military or law enforcement? What's permissible, or wise, in the realm of capture, rendition and detention of terrorism suspects? And, if Mr. Obama is wrong, what would they do about the terrorist training camps in Waziristan? We'd like to hear their answers to that not-so-hypothetical question.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080802085.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[rfranklin]

1. Clinton did not pursure terrorists with sufficient dedication?

He instructed the CIA to kill bin Laden. He kept submarines with missiles on ready off the coast of Pakistan waiting for a sighting of bin Laden. He blew up a camp and barely missed bin Laden. Bush promised to capture bin Laden and then months later said he was not concerned about bin Laden. Bush has been waging a "War on Terror" and has not found or killed any of the supposed ringleaders of the 9/11 plot in six effing years!

Oh boy!


edited to correct mistake in effing spelling

[Adelante]

2. Agreed nt

[wyldwolf]

3. you beat me to it. And I think Wesdem know this

Clinton's record on pursuing terrorists is pretty solid.

[Adelante]

4. Yes, I would never say differently

I do think Obama is in the right in this particular instance, though.

[wyldwolf]

6. it really isn't a matter of being righ. It's a matter of telegraphing it

[Inuca]

8. "Telegraphing" something that.....

... anybody that cares to know already knows???

[Adelante]

9. "In the right" may not be the matter or the proper term, okay

And I have no doubt whatsoever that our candidates would have the correct (to me and you) response in office and in the event of actionable intelligence, which is to follow what US policy is supposed to be and go after the bastards wherever they are, and if a diplomatic arrangement couldn't be reached, do it anyway. The trouble, as we know, is Bush hasn't done it, at least not effectively, not that other Dem candidates wouldn't do the same thing as Obama said he would do.

But "telegraphing" isn't the matter, either. It would be for a president in office, and none of the Dem candidates would dream of telegraphing such an intention in real time, but for a candidate, who has no way of effecting such an action, either way, it's just telegraphing a platform point. So what? I think voters need to know things like this, how a candidate intends to govern, how a candidate intends to deal with terrorism and war. So I think the matter of "telegraphing" is so much smoke.

[WCGreen]

14. It's unfortunate that the Movie Wag the Dog was released at

about the same time Bin Laden started to ramp up his attacks on US targets...

I remember all the republicans saying that Clinton was just Wagging the Dog to take the publics mind off his personal problems...

[jmp]

5. Question: If a terrorist is living in say ... Germany

And the Germans refuse to lock him up or extradite him to the US ... do we drop a JDAM on the guy's flat?

We did say anywhere right? :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

7. what many people haven't considered is this...

The US has a history of officially seeking diplomatic solutions while sending covert assasins into countries to take out targets. In fact, I recall reading somewhere back in 2000 that that was Al Gore's plan for Saddam.

The point is, you don't broadcast it in an effort to look tough. That's what Obama did and that's what Bush does.

[Perky]

11. I think that is a silly hypothetical

Germany would most certainly go after him.

[jmp]

15. It's sort of already happened.

That's why I chose Germany.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/18/news/germany.php

http://www.eubusiness.com/Living_in_EU/al-qaeda.7/


Who wants to drop the first JDAM?

[Adelante]

10. "Since when did going after al-Qaida become a controversial platform?"

That's what I want to know, too.

Obama is correct to stand by his statement because what he originally said makes perfect sense:

"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."

Since when did going after al-Qaida become a controversial platform? Bush, Cheney and Giuliani have based their entire political identities on the vague assertion that they will hunt down the terrorists and kill them, but Obama suggests we might actually want to do this and he is hit for being naïve.

The truth is that Bush and Company gave up on catching bin Laden four years ago to focus on what they thought would be an easier time in Iraq. Intent on solidifying her hawkish credentials, Hillary went along for the ride.

Obama, running for the Senate, spoke forcefully and with common sense about the folly of going to war with Iraq. It was that sense of conviction that propelled him to the national stage, and the same qualities are apparent in his comments on Pakistan. He hasn't mastered nuance, and he doesn't say things perfectly, but he happens to be right. How can anyone argue with the assertion that if bin Laden and Taliban leaders are operating inside Pakistan, and Musharraf doesn't have the capability or will to go after them, we should do it ourselves? No candidate should be permitted to dismiss this as a "hypothetical."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-spiegel/obamas-commanderinchie_b_59828.html

[Adelante]

12. I agree with what Josh Marshall says here

So what is this back and forth about Obama and Pakistan about?

What this has boiled down to -- and this became even more clear after Tuesday night's labor-hosted debate, when Biden and Dodd acted as Hillary's proxies -- is Hillary, in league with the party's foreign policy establishment, trying to make Obama, implicitly or explicitly, concede an error, that he misspoke.

Precisely what he misspoke about is largely beside the point. The key is that they get him to concede that in the complex and serious world of foreign policy big-think, where words have consequences, he made an error. Of course, it's almost good enough if most observers decide that Obama screwed up. But once he concedes it himself, if he does, he stipulates from now through the end of the Democratic primary campaign that his inexperience in foreign policy is a basic premise of the campaign upon which the battle between him and Hillary will be waged. He can learn, improve, make progress, whatever, but his inexperience compared to Hillary will continue to be the reference point throughout.

But I think he's done a pretty good job so far refusing to get put in that box. And the truth is that I think Obama's actual words are so clearly unobjectionable that this is all Kabuki theater of a particularly strained and disingenuous sort. All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.

Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.

[eweaver155]

16. Yes, Bush evidently Heard what Obama was saying and is trying to do just that

Put pressure on Pakistan to fight terrorism in order to get Aid from America. Now Why does it take someone like Obama to point out what we should have been doing all along. Now Bush is listening. It makes me wonder.

:shrug:

[fujiyama]

13. Hillary's statement about not debating hypotheticals was laughably idiotic

That's the whole point of debates and running for political office! It's about dealing with what ifs.

But...on a flip side, it shows how she might weasel her way out of tough questions...which in some ways could be good (I'm reminded of Dukakis' moment - what would you do if Kitty were murdered...). But she also shows how incapable she is of getting beyond the status quo...

As for republicans, fuck them. Fuck them. FUCK THEM! Especially that half wit Romney. Each time that SOB opens his mouth, I hate him more.