Obama's Pakistan Policy

Destabilizing Pakistan with these airstikes on suspected terrorist hideouts will be costly in the long run. Will the price be too high? Cernig say yes.

But secondly because such attacks really are morally unsupportable given the way they are planned and carried out. One attack inside Pakistan has already missed its target and killed entirely innocent civilians instead. We know from events in Afghanistan that the USAF seems to have a terrible predeliction for bombing wedding parties because some tribal enemy fingers the neighbouring village as being a nest of militants. And I simply don't believe the possible death of a "possible terrorist leader" is worth three children's lives under any circumstances. There's no point to reclaiming the moral high ground by closing prisons and banning torture if you're going to hand it away again with indiscriminate airstrikes - and airstrikes are by their nature indiscriminate despite what the PR brochures on "precision" bombs might say.

McCain's Musharraf Problem

John McCain, so-called maverick of the Republican Party, supports Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and thinks he deserves "the benefit of the doubt."

Mr. McCain, speaking in New Hampshire, also sought to convey leader-to-leader chemistry when he called Mr. Musharraf a “personally scrupulously honest” man who deserved “the benefit of the doubt” on uniting Pakistan.

I like McCain, but what fucking planet is this guy on? Has he done any homework how the Pakistan government spends the money the U.S. gives to its military? Don't personal scruples include, not manipulating the Constitution of his country to maintain political power? If McCain says we should play ball with the powers that be in Pakistan (a position I understand) regardless of what their personal scruples might be, then so be it. That is a rational, and truthful reading of the situtation as it currently exists. But Musharraf and his government have been squandering the funds provided by the U.S. government. ... More to come ...