The US had intel that they were there and where they were and the DOD and CIA wanted to strike. Bush refused to allow the strikes (shades of the crap the right gives Clinton hell about, don't ya think)?
Obama did not say he would strike as the only option, he said if Pakistan did nothing, he would do something.
As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
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.
And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America's commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists' program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair -- our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.
Beyond Pakistan, there is a core of terrorists -- probably in the tens of thousands -- who have made their choice to attack America. So the second step in my strategy will be to build our capacity and our partnerships to track down, capture or kill terrorists around the world, and to deny them the world's most dangerous weapons.
We have a partnership agreement with Pakistan and they have promised actively eradicate the terrorists, they have not been holding up their end of the agreement, yet we continue to finance them, make trade deals with them and give them military equipment. We have never asked them to give up their nukes.
So Obama said he would have a proactive foreign policy which includes talking to the heads of states of the nations that most trouble us. I think it's time someone tries to address the troubles in the world. He sounds like he is willing to try.
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