The following is a Facebook conversation between two of my buddies, the first of whom has some very elucidating views about foreign policy (see if you can spot all the fallacies!):
First Friend: “The drone strikes in Pakistan are a reason not to support Obama? Yea, it sucks to live in North Waziristan but the US President has an obligation to put the highest priority on protecting American’s lives. The Pakistani government created this mess because they can’t control their own country while at the same time refusing to let anyone else do something about the extremists using their country as a safe haven (Osama). The drone strikes are a compromise between allowing the extremists who attack Ameicans in Afghanistan to operate freely and not completely destroying ties between the US and Pakistani governments by directly sending in US troops”
Other Friend “Terrorism can’t be defeated. Bothering people in their own land, killing civilians, just perpetuates the infinite cycle of pissing people off and creating more terrorists. With all the money we spend on defense we should be able to protect America without even having to leave our own turf. Our soldiers shouldn’t be in Afghanistan to begin with.”
First Friend “Our involvement in the Mid East is a whole nother issue with which I agree with what you’re saying but Obama didn’t get the US into the shit storm over there on his own. Maybe you can say extremism can’t be defeated but violent terrorism can to an extent. I mean after 9/11 who would have been optimistic enough to predict that not a single other American would die inside the US because of Islamic terrorism? So obviously something the US is doing is working in regards to this.”