Barack Obama Vows To Kill Bin Laden, Conservatives (and Some Liberals) Cry Foul

[NYCGirl]

Oliver Willis in the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-willis/barack-obama-vows-to-kill_b_58765.html

-snipped-

For articulating this common sense, basic position, Senator Obama is being attacked from the right and left.

The right's position, as usual, is not less intellectually honest. The same group of people who support and continue to support the misguided and morally wreckless invasion and occupation of Iraq are all of a sudden aghast at an endorsement of common sense military force because it happens to be advocated by a Democrat. Obama said "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." Wow, that crazy bastard. They support Bush's ill-fated "surge" but not the killing of terrorists. Why? Because a Democrat said it. They've taken this opportunity to claim Obama wants to invade Pakistan, but he didn't say that. He said he wanted to kill terrorists. Why is the right against killing terrorists? Just because George W. Bush has repeatedly let Osama Bin Laden slip through our hands (like at Tora Bora), that's no reason to get huffy when a Democratic candidate refuses to follow in those footsteps.

On the left, the critique is at least rooted in something resembling honesty, but it's almost as ridiculous. At least one pundit on the left, Jerome Armstrong of MyDD says that Sen. Obama supports unilateral war on the middle east with this speech - but Sen. Obama said no such thing! Again, the Senator is simply echoing the concerns of the vast majority of Americans in that he will actually follow through on the post-9/11 rhetoric to bring Bin Laden and his ilk to justice. If we have to cross Pakistan's border to kill Bin Laden, so be it.

Sen. Obama proposed a common sense foreign policy alternative to the Bush doctrine of terrorist appeasement. This should be cheered, not derided.

http://www.oliverwillis.com/