i thought McCain was saying that they would start on lower talks first and continue if good things come out of it. it's not like they are ignoring them. and you know that a LOT of Pakistan soldiers have died fighting in those lawless area right? what more support do you need? have more people killed? they didn't have to fight them you know.
Nope. McCain clearly stated time and time again and basically scoffed at the idea of talking with Iran.
I don't know many people who refuse to talk to Iran at all now, and no one who matters that does. But that misses the point. The risk of losing Pakistan as an ally is far, far greater than anything Iran can do to us.
well, i heard him mentioning that they have met with Iranian ministers in Iraq already. maybe i misheard?
Your conception of Pakistan is simplistic to put it mildly. If you want to learn some things read Dexter Filkins' reports from Pakistan in the Times Sunday Magazine earlier this month, available here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07pakistan-t.html
Again - the fact that you think of Pakistan (to the extent that the entity even exists in the sense that you understand it) as simply "an ally" shows that you don't really know what you are talking about here - see the article above.
McCain for one refuses to and he made it clear tonight. And that matters a lot! Once again, Pakistan's role as an ally is greatly exaggerated to serve a political purpose. We are talking about the same country that has been hiding Al Qaeda operatives for years now. An ally does not do that. And to top it off, you don't reward them for the mischief by giving them billions in aid.
wow, that's a long article. i read the first page. so ya, it's not surprising that the Pakistani soldiers at the border was helping the Taliban. but i remember i heard news a while ago that the ex president sent in soldiers but were badly defeated.
if their soldiers are being defeated, we gotta go over there and do it ourselves. i dont want another 9/11 happening here, or anywhere else.
If anything, it shows that he has the confidence required of an American president. Since when is it a crime to be self-assured as a presidential candidate?
Right, and McCain wasn't a bit condescending himself with his constant 'Senator Obama just doesn't understand...' throughout the debate...
Funny, because McCain, and virtually every-single-other-candidate-for-president-ever has used the exact same line when talking about themselves during a campaign! HOW TERRIBLY ARROGANT THEY ALL ARE/HAVE BEEN/WILL BE.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/gradingthefirstpresidentialdebate;_ylt=AmGxZ0S_RCw1BZXkD27byV6s0NUE Obama impressed!
At least McCain had the respect required to call his opponent by his title. The "John, John, John" was a disrespectful ploy to try and show himself as somehow just as ready to lead. It was flippant.
I feel like I'm McCain-style name-dropping when I do this and I don't like to do that, but one of my best friends' father is in the Pakistani Parliament, and was an adviser to Benazir Bhutto. I met President Zardari when my friend brought him to Beaumont two years ago. To be fair, most of what I hear about Pakistan is filtered through a PPP bias, but I get a constant stream of it. I knew about most of what was in the article and none of it surprises me, but Pakistan has a chance to make it better. Almost everyone thinks that Zardari will obey the constitutional limits on the President, so that the much more moderate Parliament will regain control. Whether or not we give them some monetary support is immaterial, but we can't undermine their efforts. The United States would be hurt severely by an openly hostile Pakistan. Can you imagine if Mexico decided they didn't think the US was doing enough to stop the gun trade and started having cross-border raids on suspected MS13 outposts in the US? That's how the Pakistani people feel about US actions in Pakistan.
Obama wants to chase Bin Laden into the lawless border regions of Pakistan. How is that anything like Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine? Pakistan is an ally by coercion, let's not mistake Pakistan with our real allies in the world.
