Umm... What about Sovereignty?

While I don't mean to sound like a squeamish internationalist liberal, I do have to wonder why in the recent dust up over Obama's remarks no one is talking about Pakistan's right as a sovereign country to decided who can and cannot enter its airspace and wage attacks against the Taliban or al-Qaeda and its allies.

I realize that there are serious threats that exist in Pakistan, particularly along their porous northwest border with Afghanistan, and that those threats are regrouping, and that the Pakistanis are incapable of eliminating them, but do we want to be in the habit of taking military action ourselves whenever we think we have actionable intelligence, whatever that is?

I have not made up my mind on this so I actually do not know.

Countries who participate or orchestrate atrocities, mass killings, and genocide deserve to have their sovereignty violated by nations or other governmental bodies interested in saving lives. But its not entirely clear this justifies unilateral attacks on countries, if they object to it, even if they are harboring threats. I would like to see Obama -- and others -- debate and articulate well-defined criteria for tackling countries that willing or not incubate threats.

After all, the U.S. attacking Afghanistan or even the lawless territories of Northeastern Pakistan is very different than opting to strike say Russia for having the same problem. I think thats a function of there being different standards for different nations. We need to be honest about that understand how it guides our thinking.