But really, it’s a fool’s errand, to expect maturity in a presidential election. It’s why I’m tempted not to vote every four years.

From AT: ““Even a missile strike requires the highest level of authority,” a special operations officer with Afghanistan experience said.

Asked who would have to sign off on a mission into Pakistan, he replied: “The president, no doubt in my mind. The president.”

One of the two candidates at the debate the other night is going to have to decide our future Pakistan strategy and they both talked right past the point in my opinion. I thought the two candidates’ discussion of our raids/bombing of Pakistan during the debate was almost quizzical in their lack of understanding.

McCain was trying to lambaste Obama for daring to say out loud that we could dare attack Pakistan — completely ignoring the fact that we have been attacking Pakistani territory repeatedly for years with hellfire missiles and just days before sent in JSOC troops on a raid, as if none of this had ever made the news, was a top secret, and Obama was violating some kind of secrecy.

In response, Obama restated his position that if known Al Qaeda leaders are in Pakistan we should be able to attack them — completely ignoring that we have been recently attacking Taliban targets in Pakistan, not UBL or Zawahiri, and that our current policy it is dangerously destabilizing our relations with Pakistan because it directly violates their sovereignty as you rightly point out here.

I really don’t want to get into a discussion about who is right or wrong here but I think it is high time both of these candidates had a real discussion about the current Administration’s Pakistan policy with the facts that are already public and actually addressed the issue at hand instead of talking around it in circles. The situation is not that secret and we deserve better.