Do you support our military actions in Pakistan?

The people of Pakistan do not want an American military presence in their country. Thats an undeniable empirical fact.

My question is, do you think our military should be able to ignore the will of the Pakistani people and conduct covert military operations there? Should we be able to go into countries and apprehend criminals we dont like regardless of how the people of that country feel about it? If the Pakistani government OK's a military operation does that automatically make it OK regardless of whether or not the people support it?

terrorists.

:popcorn:

The Pakistan / India / Britain thing goes back a couple of centuries.

The town UBL was caught in was even named after a Brit.

Maybe I'll write more tomorrow.

Bin Laden was, and then Bin Laden escaped with notice from their government, we could have been at war with Pakistan today. Something tells me the people of Pakistan would approve of that outcome even less.

So you are saying that we should be able to ignore the Pakistani people and do whatever we want because we know whats best for them?

Pakistan government refuses to kill and explicitly or implicitly harbors, or for the US to be at war with the country of Pakistan.

Something tells me the result would not be close.

What are you talking about in regards to war with Pakistan? How do we end up at war with Pakistan and what does that have to do with us respecting the desires of the Pakistani people?

him, the most likely outcome would have been for Bin Laden to escape with the assistance of the Pakistani government. At which point we could have very well been at war with Pakistan.

If the desires of the Pakistani people involve providing save haven to terrorists that attack this country, then they are responsible for the consequences that follow from those desires. Now, in reality, I don't think those are the desires of the Pakistani people, which is why were you to pose the question as I suggested, the result would likely not be close.

If America was aware of Bin Ladins location and gave that location to the Pakistani government and the Pakistani government than let him get away, America would then automatically go to war with Pakistan?

How does that make sense? I literally dont understand how that is a logical conclusion to that hypothetical situation. Are you saying that America would be so angry at Pakistan for failing to catch Bin Ladin that we would go to war with them? Can you please explain how and why we would enter into a war after something like that happened?

I'm not saying it would be "automatic." But it would not necessarily be unlikely either. It has little to do with anger and more to do with self defense. Obviously, we would attack any country that attacked us directly (within hours).

As for a country that has aided, abetted, harbored, and helped escape the leader of a terrorist organization who has declared war on our country and is currently plotting terrorist attacks on our country, it probably wouldn't happen within hours. It took about a month before we were at war with Afghanistan for harboring Bin Laden. Pakistan would probably deny it at first (as did the government of Afghanistan immediately after 9/11), and we would likely make demands that would be very hard for the Pakistani government to accept (involving our government leading an immediate investigation of their top military leaders and intelligence officials). But Pakistan could accept such demands, so war would not necessarily be automatic. But I wouldn't say it was very unlikely either. And even if they did accept such demands, the result of the investigation could very well cause war (which is probably why they would never accept our demands in the first place).

Obviously, this is speculation. But I don't think it is unreasonable speculation. We were at war with Afghanistan within a month. If a country knowingly harbors terrorists who have declared war on America, they should certainly not discount war as a possibility (and that is the understatement of the century). Obviously, whether war came about would depend on the extent of the word "knowingly" and "harbors" in that sentence, and to the extent they would agree to our demands for a US-led investigation/etc.

But ultimately, the people in the US and Pakistan who don't approve of our operations against terrorist in Pakistan should be careful what they wish for -- that the alternative to targeted operations is not-so-targeted operations.

might as well add Pakistan too. Shit, we've been at war with 'groups' of people there and basically doing whatever we want to without their govt giving too much of a shit...why now? Was Usama some kind of hero to the Pakistani people? I doubt it.

that the Pakistani people would not approve of the consequences that would likely follow from such a result.

his/her country is harboring OBL...I would think any sane person in any country would feel that way. The point people are making is what are the ramifications for what we have done now? Will other countries follow suit and do the same thing? Maybe their 'enemy' is our friend, how will we respond? This was a game changer imo.

The "same thing" would involve a country that is harboring terrorists. Most countries do not knowingly harbor terrorists. When alerted to the presence of terrorists who have declared war on the US, most countries assist the US in capturing them (or capture them without US help).

In any event, most countries outsource much of their security to the US (implicitly by spending little money on defense), as Barney Frank points out time and again. So the situation is unlikely to apply to another non-US country on one side, and unlikely to apply to very many countries outside Pakistan on the other.

And proving that Pakistan knowingly harbored a terrorist and just saying they did are two completely different things. I bet a lot more countries harbor terrorists then you think. Just using America as THE example fails the test...you cannot equate everything to our standards. Unless you've lived in 200 other countries, then I stand corrected. Security in most countries is internally run by the local governments. Spend little money on defense, compared to America really doesn't quite cut the standards either. Most countries spend little on the military, because they have other more important needs. America is the only country that wastes trillions of dollars on its military. That is why they sacked Osama so easily.

have told Pakistan of Bin Laden's location, I'm sure the US would be watching closely enough to have all the proof they needed if he subsequently escaped.

"I bet a lot more countries harbor terrorists then you think."

Let's just say that if the US demanded another country's assistance in capturing a terrorist, there are few countries that would refuse. Pakistan is likely one of them (even if they refuse implicitly, by helping them escape).

"Most countries spend little on the military, because they have other more important needs. America is the only country that wastes trillions of dollars on its military."

Isn't that entirely my point in that regard? That's precisely why the US will likely continue being the only one going after terrorists in the way they are doing so now.

Until some nation gets pissed off about the violation of their sovereignty (we are lucky that Pakistan is our 'ally'). We can't just dismiss what we did as 'just cause', because the USA says so. The world doesn't work that way. I'd like to think most countries would help us out, but seems they don't. We also can't have endless wars, 'just cause' we want to kill the bad guy.

After all, Afghanistan was harboring Bin Laden, and they weren't our ally. It took us only one month to go to war with them.

What we did isn't "just" solely because we said so. It is just based on objective factual predicates (that Bin Laden was a declared combatant against the United States, that Bin Laden led an organization that has declared war on the United States, that the organization is currently planning attacks against the United States, and that therefore our entry into Pakistan was justified in self defense.)

Now ultimately, it is going to be our country that judges these factual predicates when deciding where to deploy our military (rather than some international court judge). So in that respect and in that respect alone, you could see it as "because we said so." (You say "the world doesn't work that way," but I think as an empirical/historical matter it certainly does work that way, regardless of your or my opinion on the matter.) But what we said (about the factual predicates) also has the advantage of being truthful, so our actions weren't "just" solely because we said so. They were just because they were based on truthful factual predicates.

over the past 10 years, to act as a partner in fighting terrorism. Yet it seems he was right under their noses the whole time and they had no idea he was there? As far as the people themselves, are concerned, people don't always agree with what their government does, same goes on in our country. They don't get a vote, and neither do we. Our governments decide. However for 20 billion dollars, and this is the agreement we had with the Pakistani government, we certainly didn't get our monies worth. I do think President Obama did the right thing conducting a military operation there and taking bin laden out.

I don't think one really exists. I believe that was the problem we had with our previous administration who was it seems always looking for the B&W solution. The world is a complex place, this area of the world may be more so than others and as such may provide fewer opportunities for simple answers.

Am I pleased that OBL has had his going out of business event... Yes.

Would I be happier if it was done differently... Perhaps, but I wasn't there looking at the intel, the situation or have to make the call, with a multitude of factors in play.