{"id":14683,"date":"2008-02-25T09:15:28","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T14:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14683.html"},"modified":"2008-02-25T09:15:28","modified_gmt":"2008-02-25T14:15:28","slug":"when-the-right-balks-at-pursuing-al-qaeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-the-right-balks-at-pursuing-al-qaeda\/","title":{"rendered":"When the right balks at pursuing al Qaeda"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming. I’d long assumed that if there were one thing the left and right could agree on, especially when it comes to foreign policy and counter-terrorism, it’s the pursuit of al Qaeda terrorists.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, Barack Obama’s pronouncement in August hardly seemed controversial. He stated his belief that the U.S. would pursue high-value terrorist targets, even if they hid in Pakistan’s tribal areas. We would notify Pakistani officials of our efforts, Obama said, but we wouldn’t necessarily wait for anyone’s permission — which is fully in line with existing U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n

For reasons that seem to defy common sense, much of the right has been whining ever since, suggesting Obama wants to “invade” Pakistan, and cares more about attacking al Qaeda than respecting Pakistan’s sovereign borders (the latter point is largely true). The successful attack<\/a> on Abu Laith al-Libi last month seemed to lend credence to Obama’s policy.<\/p>\n

And yet, the right still isn’t happy. Here’s<\/a> the National Review’s David Freddoso, joining John McCain in questioning an aggressive terrorist-pursuit policy.<\/p>\n

As much as I appreciate the idea of a dead terrorist, I don’t like what we did in Pakistan, and I really don’t like the fact that we’re bragging about it, or that a presidential candidate would openly discuss it as an option.<\/p>\n

….But so powerful is Obamania that liberals can now praise even George W. Bush for doing something they would oppose under any other circumstances \u2014 all because of Obama’s ill-considered comments last year. That I cannot respect.<\/p>\n

The logic for this Pakistan operation clearly flies in the face of every argument against invading Iraq — international law, sovereignty, respect for other countries, our standing in the world, etc…. That Obama’s supporters would hold it up as some kind of model is deeply puzzling to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not nearly as puzzling as this entire line of thinking.
\n
\nWhy would liberals oppose targeted strikes against dangerous terrorists? What about Obama’s comments was “ill-considered”? How are these strikes in any way similar to invading and occupying Iraq?<\/p>\n

As Kevin Drum put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The dynamics here are certainly turning deeply weird, aren’t they? Freddoso may have a point about liberal reaction (though a drone missile attack in tribal territories is hardly comparable to a massive invasion and multi-year occupation in the heart of the Arab world), but it looks like conservatives might have the mirror opposite problem. Is McCain going to paint himself into a corner and start claiming that he opposes covert attacks just because Obama has said he supports them? And will conservatives then be forced to follow along?<\/p>\n

This is going to be one peculiar campaign if everyone starts bending themselves into a pretzel over this, with liberals defending covert strikes and conservatives trying to paint that attitude as reckless and naive. I can’t wait.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s truly bizarre. One gets the distinct impression that the right opposes Obama’s counter-terrorism position, not because he’s wrong, but because he’s a Dem whose opinions must be reflexively rejected regardless of merit. If Obama wants to pursue top al Qaeda operatives into Pakistan, Republicans argue, then the right answer is to not<\/i> pursue top al Qaeda operatives into Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Put it this way: what do you suppose the rhetoric would be like if the situation were reversed. If McCain had articulated Obama’s strategy, and Obama had taken up McCain’s argument. What would we be hearing right now? You know exactly what we’d hear — that only Republicans are willing to get tough with al Qaeda, Obama isn’t willing to follow AQ wherever they hide, one side’s tough and one side’s weak, etc.<\/p>\n

And yet, the situation is reversed. How completely unexpected that the right would embrace a weak-on-terror platform in an election year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, I didn’t see this one coming. I’d long assumed that if there were one thing the left and right could agree on, especially when it comes to foreign policy and counter-terrorism, it’s the pursuit of al Qaeda terrorists. With this in mind, Barack Obama’s pronouncement in August hardly seemed controversial. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683","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=14683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}