The Case Against Obama

1. Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis. The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn't "precise" or "surgical" as he would have Americans believe. It kills hundreds of innocents, including children. And for thousands of more innocents who live in the targeted communities, the drone war makes their lives into a nightmare worthy of dystopian novels. People are always afraid. Women cower in their homes. Children are kept out of school. The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders. Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment. At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists. It is a cowardly, immoral, and illegal policy, deliberately cloaked in opportunistic secrecy. And Democrats who believe that it is the most moral of all responsible policy alternatives are as misinformed and blinded by partisanship as any conservative ideologue. 
2. Obama established one of the most reckless precedents imaginable: that any president can secretly order and oversee the extrajudicial killing of American citizens. Obama's kill list transgresses against the Constitution as egregiously as anything George W. Bush ever did. It is as radical an invocation of executive power as anything Dick Cheney championed. The fact that the Democrats rebelled against those men before enthusiastically supporting Obama is hackery every bit as blatant and shameful as anything any talk radio host has done.  
3. Contrary to his own previously stated understanding of what the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution demand, President Obama committed U.S. forces to war in Libya without Congressional approval, despite the lack of anything like an imminent threat to national security.

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Things don't look good for Pakistan

Why do people keep saying this stuff?

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned the killers of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as "cowards afraid of democracy".

It was a "tragic hour" for Pakistan but terrorists must not be allowed to "win there, here or anywhere", he added.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary David Miliband called the apparent suicide bombing a "senseless attack".

Seriously, it's kind of embarrassing, isn't it? The Bhutto assassination is very sad for her family and probably heralds a lot of trouble. Bhutto was meant to be a popular secular politician who could bolster Musharraf in the forthcoming elections. Now, her supporters are accusing Musharraf of deliberate negligence if not active involvement, and worry that he'll call off the elections.

If he does, attempts by the West to build a proverbial shining democratic beacon in Pakistan go into remission. If he doesn't, who is likely to win? Will the secular groups spend so much time quarreling with each other that more fundamentalist Islamic groups benefit?

Whatever. The assassination was undoubtedly the work of careful planning and concerted effort by groups who had a definite goal of what they want to happen as a result of this. Do these political speeches give any indication that the politicians really have a grasp on the situation here? Do we really think that the people who killed Bhutto were "cowards"? Or "afraid" of democracy (rather than just out to sabotage it)? Or that the act was "senseless"?

How can you win any kind of fight, when you keep insisting to yourself and everyone else that the enemy is "irrational" and acting without motive or strategy? Just for once I'd like to hear a politician get up and say "Damn! We were beaten this time. Better pull our socks up before the next round." Just for once I'd like to imagine a media who wouldn't dive in and punish such an admission as a "gaffe" and start a witch-hunt against the offending politician.