Predator Drones vs. US Troops in Pakistan

A few days ago, I reviewed the positions of Barack Obama, John McCain, and George Bush on the question of whether or not US troops should cross the border into Pakistan -- against the wishes of the Pakistani government -- to pursue high-level al Qaeda operatives if intelligence reports indicated that such a raid might succeed. Obama clearly endorsed the idea, whereas McCain declared it to be naive. Bush once seemed to briefly endorse the idea as well, but his actual policy over the last few years has been to rely almost exclusively on attacks by pilotless drones (an approach that seems to have the tacit approval of Pakistan). The only exception that I am aware of is the recent special forces operation into Pakistan that has elicited loud objections from Pakistan, and that raid was not even designed to target al Qaeda leaders so far as I can tell:

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