You don't announce that you're going to attack another country...

You just politely show up at the door to their seat of government, knock on their door and blow them to smithereens when they open it to see who is there.

I know this is slightly late, with the Presidential debate having been last week and the impending vice-presidential debate which has been analyzed thus far as Biden being in debate camp to get on the same page as Obama, and Palin being at debate camp because she is unfamiliar with the issues (That qualifies you to be President in the event your running mate dies, right?). But I was reminded of it by a post a friend of mine made regarding John McCain saying that he would not announce that he would attack another country.

McCAIN: So it’s not just the addition of troops that matters. It’s a strategy that will succeed. And Pakistan is a very important element in this. And I know how to work with him. And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them.

OBAMA: Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here’s what I said. And if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know, that, if the United States has Al Qaida, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.

We're talking Bush doctrine here. Pre-emption. Rather than telling Pakistan (in this case), "Hey that Bin Laden guy is hanging out right across the border dancing around going Nyah Nyah and shooting spit-balls at us, we're going to go across and nab him." We'll just show up and get him and while we're at it we'll bomb the crap out of you without telling you why first.

And what happened to formal declarations of war? Don't those matter anymore.

My friend is right, the statement "What senator Obama fails to understand is..." is rather condescending.