In the early morning hours of January 23rd, 2009 a U.S. spy plane killed 15 individuals in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. It was Barack Obama’s first blood and the U.S.’ first violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty under the new administration.
As the U.S. government fired upon alleged terrorists in the rugged outback of Pakistan, Obama was back in Washington appointing Richard Holbrooke as a special U.S. representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, like the remote-control bombing that claimed human life that day, Obama’s vision for the region, in the embodiment of Holbrooke, was not a drastic departure from the failed Bush doctrine.
“[Holbrooke] is one of the most talented diplomats of his generation,” Obama said during a press conference at the State Department during the same month. In his speech Obama declared that both Afghanistan and Pakistan will be the “central front” in the War on Terror. “There, as in the Middle East, we must understand that we cannot deal with our problems in isolation,” Obama stated.
Despite Obama’s insistence that Holbrooke was qualified to lead new efforts in the War on Terror, history protested.
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