Hostilities in Afghanistan are being conducted by hostiles who retreat and base themselves over the Pakistani border.

If Musharraf exercises sovereignty over the area, then it's his duty to quell these hostiles. He has not done so, because he is either unwilling or unable.

If unwilling, then Pakistan is a de facto ally of these hostiles. Enough said.

If unable, then Pakistan does not, in fact, exercise sovereignty over the region in question, and has forfeited its right to object to other powers' use of force in the area.

Or, as Obama said, Musharraf needs to control his territory, or we'll do it for him.

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-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005.

dude why? like the mistake was not taking them out before 911 when the &%&%ING drone was hovering over thier head?

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

I smell a resolution.

More like:If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets, President Clinton would not act, we will.”

dude like ripped off "W" from 2000!!!

That said, the consequences of a U.S. invasion of Pakistan are hard to predict. Musharraf’s government would surely fall and the successor would likely be Muslim extremists.

James,

You need to drink more coffee before you post. First you say "the consequences of a U.S. invasion of Pakistan are hard to predict", then you proclaim "Musharraf’s government would surely fall".

You have done a very nice job of contridicting yourself.

I don't think Obama is calling for a US invasion of Pakistan. More likely surgical strikes and an end to Bush's "safe haven for Bin Laden" policy.

It is hard to see where this would go. But it would put us on track fighting our actual enemy, and perhaps lead to justice for the thousands of Americans murdered on 9-11, something Bush seems to have forgotten about.

Presumably, Senator Obama no longer has any issues with "unilateral" action and not bothering with the UN.

Since Al Qaeda attacked us on our own soil, essentially nobody except the true lunatic fringe objected to our invasion of Afghanistan. If Pakistan refused to get serious, and we needed to invade to get at Al Qaeda there, I'd hope to see similar support.

This is completely different from the concept of a preemptive invasion against a country which posed no threat to us or our allies. THERE, you'd better have some international legitimacy. It is very very sad that even at this point, there are people in Bush's camp who still claim not to get the difference.

My BS is no more ignorant than your BS. Probably less so, in fact.

Or were you just spouting ignorant bs for political gain?

Somebody's been drinking the Bush Kool Aid. If we pulled out of Iraq, the Shiite militias would destroy Al Qaeda in Iraq in about two weeks. They would simply round up all foreigners and leave their remains scattered about Baghdad with holes drilled in their skulls by power tools. They play by a completely different set of rules.

James is right. Bush did promise to pursue the terrorists wherever they are and they are in Pakistan. Mr. Musharaff should fulfill his promises or we should fulfill them for him.

It wouldn't require a full scale invasion, which would be as stupid as the Iraq invasion. Al Qaeda could be pursued by special forces raids and air strikes.

Great argument. I'm sure that Obama is some Manchurian Candidate programmed at birth by our enemies to destroy us, what with the funny name and all. When he gets the Presidency someone in the Middle East will press some do-hickey to turn him on, or even better some subliminal message implanted during and episode of Keith Olberman and POOF! he'll begin bombing Kansas.

Strangely, in the comments above lamenting our decision to invade Iraq, the name of Saddam Hussein doesn't come up once. I was always under the impression that Saddam's past record using WMDs, destabilizing the area, ignoring the UN resolutions to disarm, and the threat, however not quite yet imminent, inferrable from those acts was why we invaded Iraq.

He was raised in the world's largest Muslim country and was educated in a madrassa.

When he says he would be willing to "invade" Pakistan, I take it to mean that he would send troops in there to protect his homonymic comrade, Osama.

This guy shouldn't be trusted. He is going to make this country's experience with John Walker Lindh seem like a field day.

What he proposes is a really bizarre foreign policy.

Really? Under our current foreign "policy" (more of a drunken stagger from self-made crisis to self-made crisis, but hey), we invaded one country that was directly involved with the 9/11 attacks and harboring/supporting AQ, then withdrew the vast majority of our forces after eliminating the (semi) functioning government (but not the actual organization or mastermind of those attacks) in order to invade a completely different country that had _nothing_ to do with the 9/11 attacks and _wasn't_ an AQ source until _after_ we invaded.

But Obama suggests sending troops to where bin Laden most likely _is_, and _that's_ considered bizarre...

Yep. I've deleted it. - ed.