For a few days people must have noticed that I have starting sporting a button on my blog which loudly proclaims ‘I Support Obama‘, and consequentially many friends have questioned my reasoning to opt for the Democratic candidate instead of the sweet talking McCain. Firstly I accept the fact that as a non-American whatever I say or do will not matter on the outcome, but if there are still any undecided voters and are willing to be swayed by my position then so be it, but I feel its important to support the candidate which I feel could be best for Pakistan
The conclusion I have achieved is most definitely debatable, I choose to look beyond mere words and see a possible solution for the mess in Pakistan. For me Obama represents a fresh change in the White House, it is my understanding that they both propose ‘approximately’ the same line of action for Pakistan. Obama wishes to quickly clean up the terrorism threat in Pakistan, while McCain proposes a slow but extensively drawn out plan of action, which I feel actually means a long term American presence in Pakistan. If they are both generally coming with the same mindset then I feel I would carefully put my eggs into Obama’s basket.
My reasoning is based on a couple of articles that I contributed to Al-Jazeera Election coverage. The first was written immediately after the First Presidential debate while the next one just recently after the Vice Presidential face-off. I must admit that I was unable to physically watch the second presidential debate, but the transcripts I have read on Pakistan show the general position is fairly the same
Continue Reading
