{"id":11675,"date":"2007-08-02T10:20:38","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T14:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11675.html"},"modified":"2007-08-02T10:20:38","modified_gmt":"2007-08-02T14:20:38","slug":"white-house-on-obama-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/white-house-on-obama-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"White House on Obama, Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up for a moment on my earlier item, I was struck by the White House’s response<\/a> to Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism policy with relation to Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Q: I gather, Tony, from your answer to Martha that you don’t think very much of Barack Obama’s suggestion, he’d send U.S. troops into Pakistan to take care of those safe havens.<\/p>\n

TONY SNOW: Well, let me just say we think that our approach to Pakistan is one that not only respects the sovereignty of Pakistan as a sovereign government, but is also designed to work in a way where we are working in cooperation with the local government. So we think that our policy and our approach is the right one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But that’s part of the problem here; the Bush administration doesn’t have a consistent policy. On the one hand, the president has said emphatically that he wouldn’t pursue<\/a> terrorists inside Pakistani borders.<\/p>\n

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier this week, you told a group of journalists that you thought the idea of sending special forces to Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden was a strategy that would not work. Now, recently you’ve also —<\/p>\n

THE PRESIDENT: Because, first of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation.<\/p>\n

Q Well, recently you’ve also described bin Laden as a sort of modern day Hitler or Mussolini. And I’m wondering why, if you can explain why you think it’s a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden, wherever he is?<\/p>\n

THE PRESIDENT: We are, Richard. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question. They were asking me about somebody’s report, well, special forces here — Pakistan — if he is in Pakistan, as this person thought he might be, who is asking the question — Pakistan is a sovereign nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend said the exact opposite on Fox News two weeks ago.
\n<\/p>\n

WALLACE: If our enemies are regenerating their safe haven in Pakistan, under the Bush doctrine of preemptive military action to take out any threat, why aren’t we doing everything we can — special operations forces, pilotless drones — why aren’t we doing everything we can to take out that safe haven?<\/p>\n

TOWNSEND: [L]et’s remember that the federally administrated tribal area is an area of Pakistan that’s never seen the writ of the Pakistani government. It’s never extended that far. President Musharraf has got over 80,000 Pakistani military troops in the FATA and working with us they’ve sustained hundreds of casualties in this fight. We’re working with them, but the president has been clear. Job number one is to protect the American people, and there are no options that are off the table.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the White House policy is that we wouldn’t send troops to attack terrorists inside Pakistani borders except for those times when we send troops to attack terrorists inside Pakistani borders.<\/p>\n

Snow said the Bush gang’s approach is the “right one.” Here’s a follow up: which approach would that be?<\/p>\n

Indeed, it’s also worth noting that the White House talking points say that al Qaeda has gotten stronger in recent years because Pakistan allowed the terrorist network to establish a new base. As Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell recently said on Meet The Press<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“In Pakistan, where they’re enjoying a safe haven, the government of Pakistan chose to try a political solution. The political solution meant a peace treaty with a region that’s never been governed — not governed from the outside, not governed by Pakistan.<\/p>\n

“The opposite occurred. Instead of pushing al-Qaeda out, the people who live in these federally- administered tribal areas, rather than pushing al-Qaeda out, they made a safe haven for training and recruiting. And so, in that period of time, al-Qaeda has been able to regain some of its momentum.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And which wacky group of people endorsed the Pakistani peace treaty? That would be the Bush White House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before Snow condemns Democratic policies, maybe he can help explain his boss’ policy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up for a moment on my earlier item, I was struck by the White House’s response to Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism policy with relation to Pakistan. Q: I gather, Tony, from your answer to Martha that you don’t think very much of Barack Obama’s suggestion, he’d send U.S. troops into Pakistan to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}