Andrew Sullivan on Obama's Foreign Policy

"Obama Leads In Foreign Policy, Bush Follows" writes The Atlantic Magazine's Andrew Sullivan on 9/12/08 about Bush's adoption of Obama's recommendations that the US shouldn't observe the territorial integrity of Pakistan and should launch military actions against al-Qaeda as it sees fit, regardless of what Pakistan may want.

And Andrew means this as a compliment to Obama!

Without going into a great deal of detail here, it is, after all, a Sunday and atheists also need a day of rest, and one can read more about this here, let me ask the following: exactly what kind of world do we live in where one of our presidential candidates is lauded for advocating the violating of international law, a mirror of what the Bush regime did in invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq?

Is it better because al-Qaeda is really in Pakistan?

Do you think that this strategy of antagonizing the invaded country's people by killing innocents (such as we have done and continue to do in Afghanistan and Iraq) is going to create hostility to al-Qaeda? How does this work?

Even if you do succeed in killing off some of the al-Qaeda leaders, it's really elementary logic that the key sources of support and ongoing recruitment for anti-state terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda (what keeps them in business and makes them more than a fringe group) is precisely the state terrorist actions that led to and maintain the Iraq invasion and that undergirds the expansion of this into Pakistan and escalating it in Afghanistan - as Obama wants to do.

You don't kill off a movement by creating and expanding upon the grounds that provide the ongoing recruitment into that movement. You don't douse a fire by drowning it in gallons and gallons of gasoline.

But then, even if this is elementary logic, that doesn't mean that everyone's going to see it, does it? It's easier to go through life with blinders on, except when a Mack Truck barrels down on you from the side and you don't see it. By then it's too late, isn't it?