Unbefuckinglievable

Barack Obama says he'd authorize troops to go into Pakistan to chase down terrorists because he thinks the Pakistani government is unwilling to do it.

I think my biggest problem with this is a basic misunderstanding of how we create more terrorists. Attacking Baluchistan or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas is akin to kicking a hornet's nest, then casually ambling TOWARDS the nest coated in sugar.

That Americans are not ridiculing this insane rationale for action highlights one of the most fundamental problems with the Long War...that people think that with some free market economy and internet connectivity, that we can win the war because suddenly people in Central Asia can watch two girls kissing on YouTube and we will turn them all into good little capitalist democrats.

Between unilaterally withdrawing from Iraq, a course of action that ignores some basic realities of how to fight counterinsurgencies and not incidentally is an act of war against a country which is, regardless of popular belief, an ally, is one of the most inept things I've heard in a while.

As much as we have problems with Musharraf as a national leader, the alternative pickings are pretty slim. Sometimes surrogate warfare means you don't have the luxury of dealing with Mother Teresa and Joan of Arc. There's not enough damn Schlitz in the freezer to write that check...and it would make the Long War into the Forever War.

That would be akin to saying "bring it on" while dropping dehydrated pork patties all over the Middle East as our military charges into northwest Pakistan to the tune of the Team America theme song.

When I think the American public has the stomach for the kind of sustained bruising fight that it would produce, maybe I'd be less dismissive of this spitball of a course of action, but I distrust the American electorate to the point where I'm afraid this might actually get some traction.