And this man wants to be Commander in Chief? (MORE: AP COVERS FOR OBAMA)

**scroll to the bottom for updates**

Say what?

Obama defended his push to prosecute a tougher military effort to root out al-Qaida on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which drew criticism from primary rivals for sounding too bellicose.

“Now you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we’ve got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there,” Obama said.

Campaign spokesman Reid Cherlin said Obama was not endorsing the current Bush policy, which consists solely of air raids and bombing of civilians.

I’m not saying civilians aren’t sometimes killed in the middle of a war zone, but I am saying that it is not the policy of the US military to deliberately target and kill civilians.

Senator Barack Obama is unfit to be CIC for a lot of reasons, but especially if he thinks it’s US military policy to deliberately target civilians. This is a blatant and blanket accusation of war crimes not just from Obama but from his campaign spokesman, too. They sound an awful lot like Rep. John Murtha and Senator John Kerry, don’t they?

Colorado Patriot wonders: “Does he have any idea what’s going on over there?”

I wonder if he’s ever heard of precision-guided weaponry?

Read more via Captain Ed, who thinks the wheels are coming off the Obama campaign. He’ll get no argument frome me on that.

PM Update and Bump: The AP does its part for Obama on civilian deaths here. Sick. (Via Ray Robison)

Flashback 6/8/2006:

• How our troops try to avoid civilian casualties

Prior:

• Obama: I’m tough when I wanna be
• Memo to Senator Obama on “wasted” troop deaths

Originally posted at 9:46 a.m.