Obama to Pakistan: As President We Will Invade You

Why isn’t Illinois’ Senator-in-Absentia Barack Obama calling on us to invade Canada? We all know there may be a number of terrorist types hiding up there, busy at well-paying day jobs until they strike. Invading Canada is just about as good and sound an idea as invading Pakistan, the subject of Obama’s get-tough-on-terror speech (video), delivered yesterday in Washington, D.C. The speech, remiscent only of the "We Will Bury You diatribe delivered to the USA by the late USSR dictator, Nikita Kruschev, perhaps predictably, earned the scorn of the other Democrat candidates, Vice-President Cheney, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States and, of course, was front page news in Pakistan.

Obama is reputed to be a very smart guy, so at some level he must understand that, as a general rule, nations don’t invade their allies. With news media focused on candidate fundraising however, the only reason I can think that he would promote this hare-brained invasion idea would be to raise ever-more millions from an American populace who believe that they don’t need to know much about foreign countries because they have people in Washington (e. g. Presidents, Congresspersons, Senators, staffers and the like) to do that for them. God save them from a foreign policy crafted by Obama.

Obama, under the direction of political consultant David Axelrod, is using a number of focus groups to get his message on target, and popular speeches raise campaign dollars, no matter how ill-advised. The problem is, you can’t get to moral high ground—and don’t get me wrong, Obama sees himself as the best and most moral candidate—by taking the low road and falling in potholes along the way. At its worst, Obama plays directly into the hands of the propaganda arm of Muslim hardliners who have been trying to convince more moderate Pakistanis that an American invasion is only a matter of time.

Obama’s speech is particularly troubling and insensitive as he delivered it in Washington on the very same day that America’s new ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, was working hard to extend the hand of friendship with an official tour to Lahore, pictured above.

The best thing I’ve read on Obama’s sheer stupidity in promoting an invasion is here, with a biting satire of Obama’s recent gaffe on his plan to meet with some of the heads of the biggest thug nations on Earth here. One can only hope that the people of Pakistan, who have been having their own debate about the value of free speech, realize that free speech includes the ability to show oneself as a complete and utter jackass, as Obama did yesterday.

Update: Get up to speed on what's happening in Pakistan by reading this special report from England's Guardian.

Further Update: This recently released report provides an excellent, in-depth analysis of the situation in Pakistan.