In his inauguration speech, President Obama accused the pre-inaugural America of choosing "safety over ideals". This no doubt a reference to Al Qaeda's constitutional rights, secret camps, 'water boarding', etc. Obama has now chosen to knowingly assume the risk of killing innocent civilians in order to help enhance our safety.
Are we to now believe that George Bush's 'evil' waterboarding in the name of our safety, (detainee emerges alive, un-injured, scared, and wet) is more of a compromise of our ideals than Barack Obama's killing of civilians (who end up dead)? Keep an eye on the media for their interpretation, if any.
In August of 2007, Barack Obama criticized George Bush's policies in Afghanistan with this comment: US Troops ... "just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."
In the last few days, Barack Obama's administration used missile strikes on a village (or compound) in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, killing a number of civilians, and 'causing enormous problems there'. Welcome to the club, and to the real world President Obama. To be fair to Obama, several militants were killed in the attack also.
Perhaps now Obama would care to extend the same fairness and apology to George Bush, whose policies Obama now officially continues as his own administration's policy ... with the same mixture of needed positive results and inevitable local backlash within the innocent civilians bombed. An additional apology should be forthcoming to the US military personnel mentioned as "killing civilians".
The continuation by Obama of Bush's policy of missile strikes on militants in Pakistan is not simply the opinion or perception of this blogger. President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have all stated in the last few days that this IS the policy of the US Government.
US missile strikes in Pakistan will continue-Gates
Biden vows more strikes inside Pakistan
"senior Obama administration and Capitol Hill officials say the Predator strikes are effective, and there is no plan to discontinue the program"
These attacks coming just before Obama's interview on Al-Arabiya TV in which he criticizes his country in front of the Arab world, and tells the Muslim world that America is their friend.
He has now learned the perils of simultaneously telling the Islamic world the we are friends of the friendly, and then killing the Muslims and Arabs who are not. The 'friendly' Muslims react badly to this needless to say. Some of Obama's goodwill within the Arab and Muslim world has already been squandered as a result. Sound familiar? Pakistani and Muslim newspapers, internet sites, and blogs are chocked full of Obama bashing as a result of the missile strikes, and tribal leaders within Waziristan are demanding the Pakistani government stop cooperating with the US. Even Al Qaeda has accused him of killing Muslims. What was that about "unclenching their fist" Mr. President?
President Barack Obama accused his pre-inaugural America and it's president of not making hard decisions. Care to revise that statement Mr. President? Mr President, the point of this blog is to illustrate that your predecessor had the same issues as you, yet you chose to chastise him for votes. He handled it the same way as you are now forced to do. You are both right in your handling of this particular aspect of handling our (and the world's) safety.
