The 'don't ask don't tell' deal with Pakistan
The suggestion that things will be closer with Obama seems strange since he campaign on being more aggressive in Pakistan than President Bush. I guess, like much of the world, the Paks have unrealistic attitudes toward Obama. They are very likely to be disappointed. I suspect that Obama's administration will make very few changes in our war effort in Afghanistan.The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.
The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.
The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.
Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.
Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.
Civilian deaths remain a problem, Zardari said. "If the damage is women and children, then the sensitivity of its effect increases," he said. The U.S. "point of view," he said, is that the attacks are "good for everybody. Our point of view is that it is not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people."
A senior Pakistani official said that although the attacks contribute to widespread public anger in Pakistan, anti-Americanism there is closely associated with President Bush. Citing a potentially more favorable popular view of President-elect Barack Obama, he said that "maybe with a new administration, public opinion will be more pro-American and we can start acknowledging" more cooperation.
The official, one of several who discussed the sensitive military and intelligence relationship only on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S-Pakistani understanding over the airstrikes is "the smart middle way for the moment." Contrasting Zardari with his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the official said Musharraf "gave lip service but not effective support" to the Americans. "This government is delivering but not taking the credit."
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Obama, Odinga & Kenyan Jihad
ReplyDeleteby Kurt Schulzke on February 25, 2008
Last night, I reported on Barack Obama’s active support of Kenyan candidate and Obama cousin Raila Odinga. What escaped mention was Odinga’s explicit plan to turn Kenya into an Al Qaeda terrorist incubator. A close analysis of Odinga’s MoU with Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi shows that — if Odinga had been elected as Kenyan president in the fall of 2007 — he would have made it impossible under Kenyan law for “any Muslim arrested for or suspected of Terrorism” to be tried anywhere but Kenya under Kenyan law.
Kenyan law, in turn, would henceforth be exclusively Shariah law in “Muslim declared regions” — the “coast” and “North Eastern regions” of the country – see the map, below — now visited by hundreds of thousands of western tourists each year. [See Odinga, Abdi & Obama: Which Islamic MoU is real? for an updated, detailed discussion of two competing versions of the agreement.] Obama and Odinga supporters want to label as a “lie” the MoU version discussed here. However, the evidence suggests the opposite is true.
It is no coincidence that this area of Kenya borders Somalia – for many years an Al Qaeda stronghold — site of the Clinton administration’s Bay of Pigs-redux, in Mogadishu, the event that serves as the basis for the movie Black Hawk Down. Also noteworthy is Kenya’s proximity to Tanzania, focus of much of George Bush’s efforts to save Africa and, arguably, where Bush is today most loved in the world.
In these “Muslim declared” regions, the Odinga-Abdi agreement would outlaw – among other things – Farmer’s Choice, pork, other “haram products” and “women’s public dressing styles considered immoral or offensive to the Muslim faith” for all women, not just Muslims. At the same time, Odinga would establish a Sharia law court in every Kenyan “divisional headquarters.” One foreseeable result of these machinations is that Al Qaeda would be safe-havened in Kenya, free to foment mahem and terror around the world. Little wonder that Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama for president.
The question every Democrat should be asking is how any American president – as Barack Obama seeks to become – could support a scheme so obviously designed to further the global jihad? Restated: With Americans like Obama, who needs Al Qaeda?
Conservative Republicans face a related question: In light of this information, could you in good conscience not vote for John McCain in November if the Dems stupidly choose Obama as their “daddy”?