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McCain and Obama

Republicans don't give a crap about Pakistan and only see Pakistan as a geo-political instrument that they can use whenever they need to. Republicans are the very reason Pakistan is in this mess in the first place starting from Ronald Reagan and Charlie Wilson. The whole Covert war using Pakistan cost them 1/4th of what it would have taken for them to take the soviats headon.

Democrats aren't bad and they tend to leave Pakistan as it is. Clinton didn't interfere much with Pakistan and the world was much better of with him than it is with Bush. The number of terrorist attacks have almost increased more than 5 times since 9/11, wonder where all those terrorist attacks were before?

Pakistan Army will never be able to deafeat the Taliban as long as you have some militry and intelligence officials sympathizing with them. McCain isn't going to do anything and what you'll get are the SAME things that happened in the last 8 years. Also Obama never said he was going to ATTACK Pakistan he was referring to the Northern region borders and tribal areas where extremists run wild and no doubting that.

Also not to mention Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden actually has a soft side for Pakistan and understands Pakistani Politics and the situation more than Mccain. He and John Carry both was here and overlooked the Election Process in February.
 
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Hi Friends,

It doesn't really matter who wins the game here. All it matters is what kind of policy shift takes place for the countries that are engaged in different forms with USA is al that counts. For Pakistan - most pressing issue right now is elimination /reduction of security threat viewed by countries allover the world. Secondly stabilize the law and order before unruly elements take reins of the civil administration. Possibly the situation has become far too critical to do mud-slinging in the name of anti-so and so country propaganda. The responsbility of keeping our home (country here) is primarily our first duty before we discuss larger issues facing the world. If my home is not in order who do I blame? My neighbourer or my enemy, or my fair weather friends?None. Let me be the head and act like a head of my family when my home needs to be set right. All that matters I be composed and help myself in every way to set my house right before I can takeon higher duties/challenges. Need of the hour is to set our priorities right. If I keep harping on blame game, I could sure be the victim from start to end wthout any tangible improvements in my life and my home. I hope the message is clear for us which is infront of us.
May God bless all of us with peace and prosperity!!!

Mark McDonough
Toronto
Canada:cheesy:

LOL. Nice first post man. :tup:
 
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Barnett R. Rubin 10.02.08

I have supported Sen. Barack Obama for president for well over a year, mainly on the strength of his positions on international affairs--I judged him the candidate most likely to restore America's position in the world. The first presidential debate reinforced that view, especially on the issue I know best: Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaida. The vice-presidential debate Thursday, between Sen. Joe Biden, who has focused on this region for years and whose criticisms of the McCain-supported policy have proved valid, and Gov. Sarah Palin, who knows nothing of this deadly problem, can only reinforce the difference between the tickets.

Sen. Obama knows that on 9/11, America was not attacked by "terrorism," but by al-Qaida. The core leadership of that global network remains where it has been since 1996: in the border areas spanning Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yet before those leaders had been killed or captured, before Afghanistan was secured, before the Pakistan military reversed its policy of Taliban support, McCain acted as cheerleader for moving intelligence assets and Special Forces from South Asia to Iraq--a move so rushed and irresponsibly precipitous that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, threatened to confine all Special Forces there to base if further intelligence resources were removed. As long as we have four times more troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan, we cannot even start to remedy this situation. What's more, Sen. McCain refuses a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq even though the Iraqi government itself has demanded one.

Though McCain has no plausible plan to increase troops in Afghanistan, he agrees that more should be sent. And what should they do there? According to McCain, duplicate the "same strategy" that "succeeded" in Iraq. That strategy consisted of increasing troops in Baghdad to control sectarian violence; moving those troops into neighborhoods to provide security to the population; and paying the Sunni tribes of Anbar (the Awakening) that were willing to shift from fighting the U.S. occupation to accepting its aid to strengthen themselves against the foreign extremists of al-Qaida and the Shi'a-dominated government in Baghdad. Not a single element of this strategy is applicable to Afghanistan except the crude idea of "more troops." There is now no open sectarian or ethnic conflict in Kabul. And whom would the U.S. forces pay to fight the Taliban? The Taliban's own tribes?

The Iraqi insurgency was based in Iraq--but the Afghan insurgency is based in Pakistan. Iraq provides no lessons for dealing with the cross-border insurgency. But McCain has no policy toward Pakistan other than to continue the Bush administration's failed cooperation with the Pakistani military; he even maligned the elected government overthrown by Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 1999 as a "failed state." I was in Pakistan a week before that coup, and it was not a failed state. It was a state whose military was planning to unseat its elected government because that government might cooperate with the U.S. against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Obama, however, not only promised more troops and said where he would get them, but outlined the other components of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy necessary for success: help the Afghan government provide more for its people; implement an effective strategy to curb the illegal drug industry; build a partnership with Pakistan based on more than a deal with a military dictator; and open diplomatic dialogue with Iran, Afghanistan's western neighbor, with whom the U.S. cooperated closely in the 2001 campaign against al-Qaida and the Pakistan-supported Taliban government.

In previous debates, Sen. Obama acknowledged Sen. McCain's plan to "muddle through in Afghanistan." Moreover, the debate showed that McCain's ideas are still no more than a muddle, while Obama plans to refocus on securing the area from where we were attacked using all the tools of American power.

Barnett R. Rubin is director of studies and a senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation and the author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. He served as an adviser to the Special Representative of the Secretary General at the U.N. Talks on Afghanistan in Bonn in 2001.
 
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John McCain's impetuosity is either thrilling or disturbing. Barack Obama's cool is either sober or detached. It's clear now how each would govern.​

By Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 27, 2008

October came early this year. In presidential politics, the penultimate month almost always brings surprises, or at least big news. In 1980, the Carter-Reagan debate that put the Gipper in the White House was not held until seven days before the Nov. 4 election. In 1992, Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh chose the last weekend of the race to indict Reagan-era Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, wounding George H.W. Bush, who was seeking re-election. In 2000, a Fox station in Maine broke the story of an old DUI of George W. Bush's, news that Bush's advisers believe hurt him in the popular vote against Al Gore. Four years ago, in 2004, a videotape of a very-much-alive Osama bin Laden stymied John Kerry's bid by sending worried voters back to the seemingly tougher Republican ticket (despite the fact that the very same Republican ticket had been unsuccessfully searching for the very same bin Laden for more than three years).

With the troubled markets and the ensuing debate over the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, October started in September. By suspending his campaign and threatening to postpone the foreign-policy debate in Oxford, Miss.—after a campaign in which he's taken hawkish stands on Russia, Iraq and just about everything else—John McCain quickly emerged as Mr. Hot, a candidate who makes no apologies for his often merry mischief-making. (See Palin, Sarah H., selection of for further evidence.) With his measured responses to the news of the season and his steady insistence on projecting a cerebral image, Barack Obama came off as Mr. Cool, at once impressively intellectual and yet aloof.

The three tests of recent weeks—the vice presidential nominations, the conflict in Georgia and now the financial crisis—have raised, in a serious way not always evident in presidential politics, the key question: how would each man lead? Our view is that if you are among the 18 percent or so of undecided voters (the current figure in most national polls), we think you now have more than enough on which to decide. McCain and Obama see the world differently, and you can see how; they behave in their own skins differently, and you can see how. The drama of the autumn has served perhaps the noblest end we could hope for, shedding light on how each man would govern. McCain is passionate, sometimes impulsive and unpredictable; Obama is precise, occasionally withdrawn and methodical.

It would be comforting, of course, if there were such a man as Mr. Just Right, but human nature is rarely so accommodating. Politicians, like the rest of us (only more so), tend to overcompensate. Obama cannot afford to be seen by voters as an Angry Black Man, but he sometimes appears calm to the point of passivity. At moments during the past two weeks of dizzying market gyrations and grim economic tidings, he seemed more like a bystander than a player. This may, in fact, have been the wise choice, both for the country and for his political fortunes. He understood that, by butting into the delicate negotiations between the White House, Treasury and Congress to shape a rescue package, a presidential candidate risked injecting politics and partisanship into a situation that demanded statesmanship and discretion.

On the other hand, McCain may have figured he had nothing to lose by plunging in. As his running mate, Sarah Palin, mangled her canned answers to Katie Couric and showed up on YouTube submitting to anti-witchcraft ministrations from a Pentecostal pastor, McCain was rapidly losing his postconvention bounce. McCain is an improviser and, on occasion, a hip-shooter. A former Navy pilot, he has not always demonstrated the soundest judgment. (Of course, Obama enjoys a natural advantage from not having been in public life as long as McCain: you can't be criticized for making decisions when you haven't been in the arena to make them.) In his most recent book, "Hard Choices," McCain describes how, on his last bombing mission over Hanoi, he heard the warning tone of an enemy SAM missile locking on to his plane. Bravely, or rashly, McCain did not take evasive maneuvers but rather kept on flying straight in an attempt to deliver his bombs on target. The missile blew off his right wing, and he spent the next five years in captivity. Over the subsequent years, mostly spent in politics, McCain has learned to "jink and juke," in pilots' parlance, but he sometimes still demonstrates a willfulness that can be admirable, or just foolhardy.

Watching McCain swoop and veer over the past two weeks has been enough to induce vertigo, even among his admirers. He began by saying that the "fundamentals" of the economy were "strong" and then, ridiculed by Obama, declared that the economy was "in total crisis." He took an angry populist tone against Wall Street and the regulators and proposed a 9/11-style commission to investigate what had gone wrong. He said if he were president, he would fire SEC Chairman Chris Cox. Informed that the president cannot fire the head of the SEC, McCain pronounced Cox to be a "good man," while still calling for his resignation.

Obama, meanwhile, kept his statements about the crisis measured, citing principles that should be taken into account in any bailout package but not offering a grand explanation for why one was needed. Throughout, he was quietly talking to Hank Paulson on a daily basis and grew to like Bush's Treasury secretary so much that he told CNBC he was thinking of keeping him on for at least a transition period.

A lifelong admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, McCain likes to be "in the arena," which may be why he asked the White House to summon a meeting of all the principals last Thursday—Republican and Democratic Hill leaders, top administration officials and the two presidential candidates.

McCain took no position at the meeting, while Obama, at least according to some published accounts, peppered Paulson with questions. McCain was apparently positioning himself to play, once more, the Man on a White Horse—riding to the rescue by forging a compromise that the House Republicans could live with. But he seemed to be winging it. Democrats denounced him for staging an elaborate photo op that served only to upset fragile negotiations. Notably, no Republican Hill leaders spoke out in defense of McCain. "They don't like him very much," acknowledged one McCain adviser.

The temperaments of the two candidates both have virtues, both vices. History can belong to the bold—to the Churchills and the Reagans, to men who stand when others sit or surrender, to men who seem to move through the world to a soundtrack of trumpets. But history also belongs to the careful, and to the prudent. Churchill needed FDR's caution and his competing intellectual understanding of the war and of the world that was coming into being; Reagan required George H.W. Bush's grasp of diplomacy and sense of balance to complete the end of the cold war and create a new (and, for Bush 41 and for Clinton, successful) model for American military action in a post-Soviet world.

McCain is not the first Republican to seem too hot. Richard Nixon's temper haunted him, and Bob Dole's reputation as a "hatchet man" doomed any chance he had of beating Bill Clinton in 1996 (Clinton had his own purple rages, but compensated with gushes of warmth). "Barry Goldwater was not particularly angry," notes Princeton historian Julian Zelizer, "but Lyndon Johnson made him seem that way—someone who was too hot and could not be trusted with the bomb."

Democrats, on the other hand, have suffered in recent years by seeming too cold. Two-time loser Adlai Stevenson (1952 and 1956) was brainy but so aloof he could not relate to voters. Michael Dukakis came across as a chilly technocrat who wouldn't protect his own family from criminals, and Al Gore never overcame the impression that he was insincere and a little geeky. John Kerry came across as an effete aristocrat who pretended to like NASCAR racing.

Obama has a tendency to sound like a windy professor. In the Friday-night debate, he was cool but to the point and unruffled when McCain condescended to him as naive and callow. McCain was more emotional and personal, but his jokes fell flat. The candidates were encouraged to address each other directly, but only Obama did, and the effect was to make McCain look like the standoffish one. (McCain's advisers say they had warned him against looking at his opponent, fearing Obama might rile him.) Obama made no attempt to joke, other than to mock McCain for singing songs about bombing Iran. But he seemed perfectly comfortable standing up to his opponent.

Still, leadership is measured in even more primal ways. The burden of the Democratic Party, one that it has to shed in the next 40 days or risk losing yet another race, is elemental. "We forget that voters want a daddy and not a mama, and no matter how big the 'caring' issues are—education, health care—at the end of the day they want a president who is going to defend the country and not take too much of their money away from them," says Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman and head of the Democratic Leadership Council. Whoever can strike that chord best is likely to win in November, regardless of whether his spirit runs hot or cold.
 
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By Syed Mansoor Hussain

Many believe that the US is now beyond racism. This might be true to a great degree, especially in what are referred to as the ‘blue states’, but is definitely not true in the Old South

The table is set for the upcoming general elections in the US. We now have ‘McPalin’ up against ‘Obiden’. McPalin is not a new moose-burger on the McDonald’s menu and Obiden is not a new brand of beer. Though they probably could well be.

Ever since the Democratic primaries, when Obama supporters targeted Bill and Hillary Clinton as the ‘Billary’ team, I got into the habit of combining the names of the two top candidates on either side. So, on the Republican side we have McCain and Palin — McPalin — and on the Democratic side we have Obama and Biden — Obiden.

At this point in time, conventional wisdom suggests that the Democratic ticket should win. This assessment is based on three important factors.

First, the incumbent president is a Republican and has the lowest approval ratings of any president in over fifty years.

Second, the economy has become the major issue and the Democrats are usually favoured when it comes to running the economy.

Third, the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket produced at best a dead cat bounce in the polls for the Republicans.

However, there are still four weeks to go. And as is often said, a day is a lifetime in politics. Objectively speaking, there are only a couple of things that can throw the presidential elections to the Republicans. (No, I do not mean anything like a redo of the Florida recount in 2000!)

Important but not vital events that can alter the course of the election campaign are the debates between the major candidates. The recent debate between the vice presidential candidates has offered some stability to the Republican campaign and refurbished the image of Governor Sarah Palin. What effect this will have remains to be seen.

The debates between the presidential candidates are of greater importance but are unlikely to make a real difference unless the election is very close. Ultimately the election is won in the ‘Electoral College’ — on a state-by-state basis — and as such national polls, though important, do not tell the entire story. And so far the Democratic ticket seems to be ahead in the Electoral College predictions.

Barring any personal pitfalls, the one thing that the Democrats have always worried about in the presidential elections is something called the ‘October surprise’. Four years ago, a few weeks before the general elections, a tape by Osama bin Laden appeared and diverted the attention of the US electorate from the disastrous war in Iraq to homeland security issues that according to many observers cost Senator Kerry the election.

The recent increase in US incursions into Pakistan territory is most likely a last ditch attempt by the Republican administration to find or kill a major Al Qaeda figure and create an October surprise to bring national security back to the forefront. Unfortunately for the Republicans, short of a major terrorist attack on the US mainland, the economy is most likely going to remain the primary issue on which this election will be fought and won or lost. During general elections, a bad economy usually favours the Democrats.

Here the Republican choice of vice presidential candidate deserves some examination. Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska offers no major advantage except for the fact that she is a woman, and was perhaps chosen to attract female supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton that were dissatisfied with the nomination of Senator Obama. However, recent polling data seems to suggest that this is not working. But that is not the whole story.

If Senator McCain wins, he is because of his age likely to be a single-term president. In that case, four years from now, it might very likely be the then VP Palin running against Senator Clinton in the general election. And if McCain loses, then four years from now a much more ‘prepared’ Governor Palin will take on President Obama. Clearly the Republican Party is betting on a woman as their future candidate for the next couple of presidential election cycles.

The interesting thing to watch over the next four weeks then is whether Governor Palin campaigns in battleground states and congressional districts where the elections are expected to be close and if her presence there makes a difference. Whatever Democratic pundits might say, the fact is that Governor Palin has emerged as an asset for the Republican Party and has definitely energised the Republican base.

Besides the ‘Palin Effect’ discussed above, what also needs to be mentioned is the so-called ‘Bradley Effect’. The Bradley Effect stated at its most basic is that pre-election polls showing an African American candidate leading by a big margin are often proved wrong come election time. What this implies is that voters when asked in polls might state their willingness to vote for a black candidate but some of them vote along racial lines on Election Day anyway.

Many believe that the US is now beyond racism. This might be true to a great degree, especially in what are referred to as the ‘blue states’, but is definitely not true in the Old South. I am afraid that racism will play a role in this election but hopefully it will be limited and at best be most manifest in those states that traditionally vote Republican anyway. If my home state of New Jersey goes Republican, I will start to worry a lot.

Whatever happens, this presidential election is definitely a trendsetter. Hillary Clinton came very close to becoming the first woman to win a major party nomination. Barack Obama is the first non-white major party nominee. Sarah Palin is the first woman nominated by the Republican party on its national ticket. And for the first time in almost fifty years, the US will elect a sitting senator as President.

The Pakistani intelligentsia is as usual completely obsessed about which one of them is better for Pakistan. More on that next week.

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com
 
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McCain, Obama Clash Over Economy FL_mccainobama_100808.jpg
October 08, 2008
Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama clashed repeatedly over the causes and cures for the worst economic crisis in 80 years and the Iraq war Tuesday night in their critical second presidential debate.

Both candidates shied away from the rancor and character attacks of the days leading up to the face-off.

The crumbling U.S. financial system dominated the face-off, as McCain fought to stem his slippage in the polls. That apparently prompted him to propose a striking $300 billion program for the federal government to buy up bad home mortgages and allow homeowners to keep their houses.

McCain said: "Until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy, and we've got to get some trust and confidence back to America."

McCain said he would direct the federal government to buy mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage providers. The loans would be replaced with fixed-rate mortgages, ostensibly at a loss to the government.

McCain also said America's troubled economy would require the government to scale back benefits now enjoyed by older Americans, and both men agreed that U.S. government entitlement programs - social security retirement payments and medical insurance for the elderly - had to be overhauled.

Neither candidate offered new proposals on the Iraq war, which McCain supports and Obama has opposed from its inception.

The 72-year-old four-term Arizona senator said Obama would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq in defeat. Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, said the war was draining the U.S. Treasury of $10 billion a month, money that was needed to put a floor under the country's failing financial system.

While standing back from angry confrontations that were presaged by the vitriol-laced days immediately before the debate, McCain did quip at one point that trying to pin down Obama's tax plan was like "trying to nail Jell-O (gelatin) to the wall."

Obama shot back, "Sen. McCain, I think the Straight-Talk Express lost a wheel on that one," referring to the name McCain has applied to his campaign bus and jet.

The debate at Belmont University allowed voters to ask questions from the hall and via the Internet while NBC television's Tom Brokaw moderated.

With the stock market plunging, retirement plans evaporating, tens of thousands of homes in foreclosure and unemployment climbing, McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, spent the days leading to the debate attacking Obama's character, hoping, as the Arizona senator's campaign said, to "turn the page" on the devastated economic landscape.

But the pages appeared glued shut.

The Dow Jones Industrial average continued its decline, dropping more than 5 percent Tuesday, despite the $700 billion financial bailout package President George W. Bush signed into law Friday. The top congressional budget analyst said pension plans have lost as much as $2 trillion - or 20 percent overall - in the past 15 months. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the nation's central banker, said: "The outlook for economic growth has worsened."

Bush, whose handling of the economy has proved an enormous drag on fellow Republican McCain, was able to say only that "we're going to come through this."

"Have faith, this economy is going to recover over time," said the president, whose approval rating is near a record low.

Apparently taking to heart U.S. polling that showed Obama a clear favorite on economic issues and with a growing lead overall, McCain's campaign deployed Palin to carry the message that Obama is not the kind of person who should be in the White House.

Over the weekend she said Obama sees America as so imperfect "that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," a reference to 1960s-era radical Bill Ayers.

Ayers helped found the violent Weather Underground group, whose members were blamed for several bombings when Obama was 8 years old. Obama has denounced Ayers' radical views and activities.

Obama and Ayers live near each other in Chicago, and once worked on the same charity board. Ayers hosted a small, meet-the-candidate event for Obama in 1995, at the start of his political career. Multiple news accounts have said they are not close. The Obama campaign called Palin's remarks outrageous and grossly exaggerated.
:lol:
Palin, however, continued her attacks Tuesday at a campaign stop in Florida.

"This election is about the truthfulness and judgment needed in our next president," Palin told supporters. "John McCain has it, Barack Obama doesn't."

Obama answered the initial attacks quickly. As if expecting the assault, his campaign fired back with a 15-minute Web "documentary" that resurrected McCain's links to a financial scandal two decades ago.

Just months into his Senate career, in the late 1980s, McCain made what he has called "the worst mistake of my life." He participated in two meetings with banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, a friend, campaign contributor and savings and loan financier who was later convicted of securities fraud. :P
The Senate ethics committee investigated five senators' relationships with Keating. It cited McCain for a lesser role than the others, but faulted his "poor judgment." :eek:
 
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sory, "John McCain had won...:partay:you've heard wrong news...

Where did you get the information? Anyways, why are you happy? do you want McCain to win?.

As I am aware, McCain would probably be a 2nd Bush. This is the guy that sings "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" and controversially may start WWIII.

Do you want this guy to control USA? :)
 
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Totally disagree with the viewpoint expressed by durran3.

The Republicans have always been good to Pakistan, ever since the fifties, and the days of Eisenhower when they armed Pakistan to the teeth. It is the Deomcrats who have never fully appreciated Pakistan as an ally. How can we forget Bill Clinton's attitude towards Pakistan, and how we literally had to grovel to let him visit us when he visited India.

Whenever there has been a REpublican govt, it has mostly been good for Pakistan, as our aid has always significantly increased. How we mismanaged that aid is another question.

One of the reasons had always been the closeness of the Pakistan and US armies, and the fact that the Republicans as a party are closer to the military establishment than the Democrats.

Although the Jewish vote is wooed by both parties, they have a stronger influence on the Democratic Party than the Republican one, which is also a reason for the Democratic party's ambivalent and sometimes hostile attitudes towards Pakistan.

Even now, the Democratic candidates like Clinton, and Obama had been making Anti Pakistan noises and if the democrats win power, there will be a shift in policy. Pakistan will face mortal danger if the Democrats come to power, while with the REpublicans we can see more of a pragmatic relationship in teh future.
 
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* Republican McCain accuses Obama of threatening to invade Pakistan
* Democrat Obama vows to kill Bin Laden
* Obama says Afghan government should do what it needs to​

WASHINGTON: Despite sparring over Pakistan in their second debate on Tuesday night, the two presidential candidates ended up saying the same thing, though in somewhat different words.
While Democrat hopeful Senator Barack Obama said the United States should only take action inside Pakistan if the government there was unable or unwilling to do so, Republican Senator John McCain was more conciliatory, recommending that the US use soft language with Pakistan but carry a big stick.
Both candidates favoured working with Pakistan in the hunt for Al Qaeda and other groups allegedly operating out of Pakistan’s Tribal Areas into Afghanistan and threatening the lives of US military personnel.
McCain opted for “working and co-ordinating our efforts together, not threatening to attack them, but working with them, and where necessary use force, but talk softly, but carry a big stick”.
Accusation:
He accused Obama of threatening to invade Pakistan, a charge the Democratic contender denied, stressing that he had only recommended that the US go at it alone if Pakistan was unable or unwilling to move despite actionable intelligence.
McCain warned that any precipitate action against Pakistan would create adverse public opinion.
Vow:
They were both equally determined as to how they would deal with Osama Bin Laden. Obama said, “And if we have Osama Bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill Bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”
McCain couched his position in more amenable terms, saying, “Now, our relations with Pakistan are critical, because the border areas are being used as safe havens by the Taliban and Al Qaeda and we have to get their support.” He favoured the strategy followed by Gen Petraeus in Iraq ’to get the support of the people’.
He went on to propose, “We need to help the Pakistani government go into Waziristan, where I visited, a very rough country, and get the support of the people, and get them to work with us and turn against the cruel Taliban and others. And by working and co-ordinating our efforts together, not threatening to attack them, but working with them, and where necessary use force, but talk softly, but carry a big stick.”
Afghan government:
Obama said, “It’s so important for us to end the war in Iraq to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that’s funding terrorism. But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can’t coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he’s making peace treaties with the Taliban. What I’ve said is we’re going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our non-military aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these terrorists.”
Obama was at pains to establish that contrary to McCain’s charge, he had never threatened to invade Pakistan. He said, “I want to be very clear about what I said. Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan. Senator McCain continues to repeat this.”
 
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Listen..............the Dems and Republicans are the name of the same brute's with varying levels of courage.

Both love their pork, are corrupt and the real people running this "superpowers" foriegn policy is the rouge CIA. These jokers just say "nay"!
 
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U guys didnt hear Obama correctly. He said that US should take out the Al Qaida and taliban lieutenants if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to do it. See the video again.
 
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