Aug 7, 2007 1:29pm

Was Obama proposing an “invasion” of Pakistan?

The Sioux city (Iowa) Journal today reports (HERE) that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, says his foreign policy speech from last week (CLICK HERE FOR MORE) was the victim of "misreporting."

"I never called for an invasion of Pakistan or Afghanistan " he said. Obama said that what he actually said was that if there were "actionable intelligence reports" showing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, U.S. troops should enter the country and try to capture bin Laden and al Qaeda terrorists — an entry only if "the Pakistani government was unable or unwilling" to do so.

Huh?

That’s what the media reported, Senator. If there were actionable Intel that high-level terrorist targets were in Pakistan and Gen. Musharraf were not willing to act, you would be. You would send in US troops into another sovereign country to take out the terrorist targets.

Let’s go to the tape…

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama said last Wednesday , "but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

A lot of the disagreement seems to be about the word "invade," which Obama did not use in his speech. According to dictionary.com, invade could mean:

1. to enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
2. to enter like an enemy: Locusts invaded the fields.
3. to enter as if to take possession: to invade a neighbor’s home.
4. to enter and affect injuriously or destructively, as disease: viruses that invade the bloodstream.
5. to intrude upon: to invade the privacy of a family.
6. to encroach or infringe upon: to invade the rights of citizens.
7. to permeate: The smell of baking invades the house.
8. to penetrate; spread into or over: The population boom has caused city dwellers to invade the suburbs.

Certainly what Obama was proposing was not invading as Germany invaded Poland in 1939, since the U.S. presumably would leave as soon as the capture or killing of the al Qaeda operatives was completed, and Pakistan would not be perceived as the enemy.

But I suspect Pakistan and the United Nations would consider such an operation technically an invasion, especially if it were conducted against Musharraf’s wishes. And I suspect we would view it the same way if Pakistani forces flew into Dubuque, and either captured or killed high-level members of an anti-Pakistani militia. After all, it’s considered an "invasion" of U.S. airspace when a plane encroaches on our territory.

Certainly sending in Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and CIA operatives with weapons and parachutes, shuttled in on a C-130 aircraft — as would have happened in the 2005 operation Obama faulted the Bush administration for not carrying out (LINK)– spelled out exactly the kind of military action Obama was talking about.

Is there a difference in terminology depending on the size of the force? The column that broke the news of this aborted op reported that "the number of troops involved in the mission had grown to several hundred with "various planners bulked up the force’s size to provide security for the Special Operations forces." Said "the former senior intelligence official involved in the planning" of the operation, "The whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan."

But this is precisely the mission Obama says he would have OKed…..

What do you think? Did the media (and I) overstate the case by using the term "invade"?

–jpt

UPDATE: I emailed our resident expert, Anthony Cordesman, who told me that Obama is correct, what he’s talking about militarily would not be considered an "invasion."

"Technically," Cordesman writes, "an invasion is an incursion of an army for conquest or plunder. Moreover, since Pakistan has both admitted that hostile forces come from its territory to Afghanistan and said it cannot stop all of them, an incursion to defeat the insurgents is probably legal under international law.

"Life isn’t fair, and neither are the laws of war."

He does offer the caveat that lawyers and human rights groups would likely disagree with him, though.

User Comments

He’s just trying to save face. Unsuccessfully.
In his defense, he sees foreign policy through a critical lens, and this is important. The U.S. needs a candidate with a nuanced and sophisticated worldview to challenge existing assumptions and to lead us. That’s Obama’s appeal.

Posted by: cordelia525 | August 7, 2007, 2:15 pm 2:15 pm

Yes. The term invasion means to the average American that Obama wants to attack the sovereign state of Pakistan, something similar to what we did with Iraq and Afghanistan.
What Obama wants to do is to attack high level Al Qaeda operatives, if there is actionable intelligence that the Pakistanis won’t act on, in an area that may be within the borders of the state of Pakistan, but is in no way under control of the Pakistani government.
The area where Al Qaeda flourishes is under the control of local tribes; Dubuque isn’t controlled by tribes.
Notice how the NY Times and Washington Post avoided the term invasion

Posted by: jb1125 | August 7, 2007, 2:24 pm 2:24 pm

Ignorant comments. Pakistan has 80,000 troops in this area. If fraction of pakistanis say 0.5 % becomes nuts and support al queda, does he knows number we have deal with. He should go back to scool and study history of this part of world.

Posted by: Praful R Shah | August 7, 2007, 2:36 pm 2:36 pm

Obama isn’t creating a third front for the war on terror, which invasion implies, he’s taking out terrorists in Pakistan.

Posted by: Larry | August 7, 2007, 2:37 pm 2:37 pm

Obama is the face of inexperience. His views on foreign policy make me shudder. He needs to chill awhile, pay his dues, get some more experience and come back in a few years. Instead, he’ll make a jerk of himself, ruining any chance of running again.

Posted by: DaveM | August 7, 2007, 2:54 pm 2:54 pm

I believe the media ALREADY knew that Obama’s comments were not meant as an “invasion” of Pakistan. Obama’s election would meant not only a CHANGE OF POLITICS but how the media perceives the electorate. A lot of PUNDITS and political REPORTERS would be OUT OF A JOB.
And we wouldn’t want that, would we?
After all, all the American people got was GEORGE W. BUSH?

Posted by: Tommy Ates, Austin, TX | August 7, 2007, 2:57 pm 2:57 pm

No, you reported it, and we decided.

Posted by: reyonthehill | August 7, 2007, 3:19 pm 3:19 pm

In a word, no. Linguistically speaking, words have a denotative (dictionary) meaning and a connotative meaning (what the word brings to mind). To give the best possible interpretation to Sen. Obama’s comments, it appears that he used the denotative military definition of “invade,” as Mr. Cordesman points out. However, even denotatively, most people wouldn’t recognize that definition and would instead think of their own connotations of the word, usually something along the lines of definitions 1-4 in the dictionary.com list.
For Sen. Obama to parse his language so minutely allows him plausible deniability to modify the remarks–to explain that what we heard wasn’t what he meant. As Cordelia525 stated, it’s a face-saving tactic, but not a successful one, since it diminishes his reputation as a forthright, plain-spoken politician.

Posted by: chuck | August 7, 2007, 3:28 pm 3:28 pm

reyonthehill,
They reported the verb “INVADE” which Obama DID NOT say.
There are LIMITED ways a person can INTERPRET such a word – most of them, negative.
Like Gore, Dean, & Kerry, the MEDIA owes the OBAMA campaign an apology…

Posted by: Tommy Ates, Austin, TX | August 7, 2007, 3:30 pm 3:30 pm

The war would be no issue without the champion of the constitution RON PAUL
Both Democrat and Republican “front runners” are all for more war.
Hillary has stated she wouldn’t be against preemptive war on Iran. Now Obama has stated he would preemptive strike Pakistan.
70+ percent of Americans want us out of the war, that is why the Dems were elected. They’ve been doing nothing but stalling ever since. People are awakening to this fact.
The media doesn’t want us to think about the real issues. Research what the candidates actually stand for. Don’t buy into the two party system hoax. Both sides can be corrupted. The corporate media wants to preselect a candidate for us.
On ABC’s own poll for the past GOP debate Ron Paul now soars far above all the rest with some 36,600 votes to who they claim is the leader Romney at pathetic 4,400 votes.
Support the spirit of democracy, Ron Paul the only Pro-Peace candidate for President in ’08!

Posted by: Mr. B | August 7, 2007, 3:56 pm 3:56 pm

Posted by: Mr. Bobby D | August 7, 2007, 4:08 pm 4:08 pm

Ron Paul is un-electable and irrelevant.

Posted by: DaveM | August 7, 2007, 4:12 pm 4:12 pm

Any candidate still has a chance this early in the election.
Freedom requires people take action.
Get over your self-defeatist media brainwashed attitude.
Choose your own candidate in ’08

Posted by: Frank T. | August 7, 2007, 4:38 pm 4:38 pm

DaveM
“just talking about terrorists”
Gee, that argument could be used to support Bush’s leading us into Iraq.
No different, more War Mongering.
We the People have spoken. 70 + People want us out of the war.

Posted by: Frank T. | August 7, 2007, 4:42 pm 4:42 pm

In the eve of WWII Japan attacked Perl Harbor it did not INVADE the USA. Nazi Germany bombed England at will the invasion never took place.
Yes, you grossly misreported Obama’s comments by saying he would INVADE.

Posted by: erickz | August 7, 2007, 6:40 pm 6:40 pm

i thought i was the only one who ‘caught’ the gist of what obama said and i IMMEDIATELY said to my tv set, ‘he’s willing to throw troops into the mountains?!…” he clearly said what he said and nobody needs to ‘spin’ it or ‘misrepresent’ it. he said, clearly, that he’s willing to put u.s. troops into the mountains of afghanistan. i am NOT willing to see that done, no matter what. period. not even if ‘they’ fly another plane into another building and ‘they’ are standing at the entrances to their caves. barak obama is not ready to be the president of the united states while we are at war, and that’s where in place and time we happen to be living right now, and will be on election day 2008, and on inauguration day 2009.

Posted by: ChrisSanDiego | August 7, 2007, 9:05 pm 9:05 pm

sorry, i meant pakistan, not afghanistan.

Posted by: ChrisSanDiego | August 7, 2007, 9:09 pm 9:09 pm

oh, and one last thing. going into the mountains? do we really need to find ourselves in the middle of yet another civil/border war, this one in between pakistan and afghanistan and the kurdish populations on both sides split among the kurdish ‘moderate’ vs ‘religious crazies’? and in the rocks and cliffs and caves and valleys of a mountain range the two countries themselves can’t police or keep track of insofar as borders are concerned? oy.

Posted by: ChrisSanDiego | August 7, 2007, 9:14 pm 9:14 pm

More War Mongering to Sponsor the Military Industrial Complex Machine!
More Dead Troops, More Dead Iraqis.
Seriously People, The Level of Hypocrisy in this Country is at a Critical Mass. How much Evil Will We the People Allow???
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
Get Active! Join Your Local Meetup . com Group for Ron Paul! Sponsor his Campaign!

Posted by: Eddie Franklin | August 7, 2007, 10:23 pm 10:23 pm

Does anyone realize that there were NO, not one Car Bomb before we went into Iraq?
And there were NO Al Qaeda there untill we moved in, and they’ve been recruiting ever since?
And that the main reason why these militias are fighting is because one or the other of them is supporting us being there?
Kind of shoots the whole “if we leave things will get a whole lot worse” excuse out of the water doesn’t it?
It’s all about the money, extended war means more war profits. And meanwhile the Democrat “alternatives” are picking up where the current administration left off, pounding the war drums.
Lets get someone different this election. Someone who will stand for the will of We the People.

Posted by: Mr. Robertson | August 7, 2007, 11:08 pm 11:08 pm

BETTER QUESTION:
Why is it that Obama CAN’T speak freely about Pakistan without causing “instability” to it, but Hillary CAN speak freely about Iraq without causing instability to it? (ie. she and her entire party are talking about withdrawal every chance they can get, and when the Bush admin warns they may aggravate the situation there, she and her entire party hotly respond that political debate should not be suppressed due to Whitehouse “scare tactics”)
Why the hypocritical double standards?

Posted by: sanman | August 7, 2007, 11:41 pm 11:41 pm

Right. Obama didn’t say ‘invade’, and Clinton didn’t have ‘sex’ with that woman. Hillary and John didn’t conspire to keep other Dems out of the debates when they thought no microphones were around. And Ron Paul is so much more than a trivia answer that no one will remember in a year. Right.

Posted by: SteveW | August 8, 2007, 3:10 am 3:10 am

Obama is obviously naive in international politics. He believes no military option is always the right option, and would be Al Qaeda’s dream president. The news of this war has been horrificly misrepresented to be lousy. Yesterday’s AP was consistent with that, ‘August on track to be higher Iraq fatalities than July’. This title was released after 4 fatalities were reported and on the 7th of August. It’s absurd to release an on track statistic when 3/4 of any period remains. The democratic party would let a mass murder occur in Iraq after a premature US pullout. Oh well, it’d be just like the cambodia massacre so no big deal.

Posted by: michael | August 8, 2007, 7:26 am 7:26 am

I am gobsmacked that the people who lead and who aspire to lead the USA are so damn stupid. Aren’t nearly 4000 body bags enough for you?
Here is Obama insinuating that he would be willing to send US troops into a sovereign nation, Pakistan, without its permission for whatever reason. That is an outright act of war and obviously Obama does not understand that apart from this being a highly illegal act, there certainly would be repercussions, probably more body bags going back to the USA.
And then there’s Hillary Clinton, stating that she wouldn’t be against preemptive war on Iran. On what grounds, pray tell? I cannot think of one solitary reason why Iran should be attacked by anybody. Iran has the legal right to enrich uranium – that’s not a pretext for attack. The USA has not produced one shred of evidence to show that Iran is supplying Iraqis with roadside bombs or anything else, so that’s not a pretext for attack. Even if Iran withdraws from the NPT and indeed works on nuclear weapons, it has the right to do so if it is no longer bound by that treaty, so that’s no pretext for attack either. ALl this shows is that Hillary Clinton is no different that Dubya Bush and his gang of warmongering neocons. They think they have some divine right to dictate to other nations what they can or cannot do, instead of minding their own business.
As for Dubya, that fool is demanding that Iran do the impossible – prove a negative. He wants Iran to prove that it does not have any intention of causing instability in Afghanistan. How the hell can anybody prove such a thing? It’s the same tactic that the gullible US public swallowed about Iraq, when Dubya demanded that Saddam Hussein prove that he didn’t have WMD, even though Iraq was scoured from top to bottom by the UN for years with no smoking gun eventuating. I want to see Dubya prove that he isn’t a half-wit – now that’s an impossible task.
So this is what the American public have got. A village idiot as President, a couple of Presidential contenders that want to break a myriad of international laws and who will not learn that attacking sovereign nations will only result in more US lives lost. Is there a solitary candidate who is not a raving looney? Maybe Ron Paul is the one, but he stands no chance of becoming President because the American voters will not elect somebody intelligent into office. Shame about that.

Posted by: Ziggy | August 8, 2007, 10:11 am 10:11 am

Ok, So al-qeada was in every country but Iraq, Are you libs that arrogant.
As far as Obama, he has shown his incompetence and nieveness. Talk with our enemies and invade our allies, good speech Obama, NOT!

Posted by: spock | August 8, 2007, 1:54 pm 1:54 pm

Mr.Obama,s comments about Pak a soveriegn country.One of the power-drunken damocrats,he assumes he is the President although deep down in his heart he knows he can never become President of this great nation of ours.There is a saying in Indian language God does not give nails to a bald man.I don,t think he knows the history of that part of the continent.

Posted by: M.Alam | August 8, 2007, 2:00 pm 2:00 pm

Ziggy–so the U.S. electorate shamefully fails to elect intelligent Presidents? Nixon was a mastermind, and also a cold, calculating crook. Carter was a brilliant engineer, and a micro-managing failure as President. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar who sodomized an intern in the Oval Office. Oh, but your example of an intelligent candidate is Ron Paul. He’s running on a ‘cut and run’ platform in a party that has a ‘strong military’ philosophy. When he loses the GOP nomination and runs as an Independent, he’ll take votes from the Democrats, who, for all their faults, come closer to his goals in Iraq. As the Guinness guys say, “BRILLIANT!!”. Oh, and Iran has a perfect right to enrich Uranium, in your view. I suppose its President has the right to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and to vow that he will obliterate Israel–and you think OUR President is a ‘village idiot’? What a finely honed political philosophy you have–Peace, Love, and Paranoia.

Posted by: SteveW | August 8, 2007, 5:02 pm 5:02 pm

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Posted by: Michelle Cooper | August 8, 2007, 5:08 pm 5:08 pm

The more I learn about Obama, the less I respect and like his position. This week, he’s managed to do it again.
Barack Obama makes much ado about Clinton’s taking money from Washington lobbyists, but seems to ignore his taking money from Illinois lobbyists. Apparently, he believes that a lobbyist’s locale limits his reach.
Second, Barack Obama’s the only presidential candidate to make political contributions from his PAC to elected officials in New Hampshire and Iowa. Is this not an attempt to influence the system from means other than his message of hope?
Barack Obama is a hypocrite who somehow believes that people should ignore his 69 votes on Iraq (which are identical to Clinton’s with the exception of one vote) and focus on his rhetoric of change. I look forward to the day that voters stop accepting his lies and check out things for themselves.

Posted by: Jai Marshall | August 8, 2007, 6:24 pm 6:24 pm

Okay very conservative crowd. Osama in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Yes. Osama mastermind of 9/11. Yes. Saddam bad guy but not in bed with Al-qaeda. YES. We invaded Iraq. That is we sent in troops dsimantled a government and then conceeded power the way we wanted to.
Barack says get the people responsible. Not dismantle the government (a dictatorship did we learn anything in 86 years), and arrest those responsbile so they pay the price for the crime of 9/11.
As for lobbyist money etc. You read an article and you come up with a conclusion. How about this. Th eproblem with the money is if you get it you vote a certain way. Has he voted a certain way? Bush got it hell they all have in some form or another. Supporting a law which says that it no longer exists should be discussed.
Injecting criticism just because you do not like a policy is fine. But Bush started a war to protect us. Clinton fired missles trying to kille Osama. Carter sent in Marines. Reagan invaded Grenada. Vietnam oh heck all of it. Bad mistakes here and there we may agree or disagree. Obama is the first cat to tell us not just act like he can whenever he wants.

Posted by: D Evans | August 8, 2007, 8:29 pm 8:29 pm

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Posted by: Focus Monthly Contact Lens | August 10, 2007, 9:23 am 9:23 am

The first time I heard the name,Barack Obama, on the radio, I thought terrorists bombed Morocco,(Morocco Bomber). So that’s not good. His name just doesn’t cut it. Then, I heard whole bunch of idiotic remarks from this guy, such as wrestling China to the mat. Laughable. I can’t imagine what would happen if someone like this guy would become the next president. Whoever trying to enlist him as a running mate would not be elected as well.

Posted by: frank | August 16, 2007, 8:43 pm 8:43 pm

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Was Obama proposing an “invasion” of Pakistan?

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