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He took credit for ordering the raid. And guess what? He actually did.
A mentally healthy adult would have not mentioned himself at all. He mentioned himself 35 times in this speech
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/20/remarks-president-cia-director-leon-panetta-and-dni-director-james-clapp
Your antipathy for the president is clear.
Nad your brown nosing is
and what if the raid had been a failure…………
He had other choices, what if he had picked another one
Daniel, he has zero experience with anything even remotely related to this. He’s never even run a boy scout camp………….
If it had of been a failure, we never would have heard about it.
Yes, he had other choices and the one he picked turned out to have worked. He could have gone with a safer drone attack with less assurance that bin Laden would have been killed. Are you sorry things worked out so well?
An infinitely better outcome would have been arresting him and bringing him back for interrogation and trial. There was no resistance faced inside his house, and no reason why that outcome couldn’t have happened.
“Are you sorry things worked out so well?”
Daniel, I can’t think of anything anyone could say that is more slimy….
I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than the Monday morning quarterbacks here claiming that it is obvious that we could have taken him alive.
The house was under surveillance for six months. They were not going in there blind. Your excuses are lame.
Special ops forces specialize in bringing people out of hostage situations alive.
Daniel Packman
Obama taking any credit whatsoever for bin Laden is like the rooster taking credit for the sun rise. Any involvement Obama had in it was purely for political expedience. He is on the campaign trail so ordering the death of bin Laden helped him in his reelection bid, and in that only. It was riskier for the soldiers but it was not riskier for Obama. He is completely self absorbed caring about NOTHING else but himself. He did not order bin Laden killed because he loves America but because he loves and is completely infatuated with himself. It would have been far better for the world if bin Laden had been taken alive and interrogated to get information out of him. But Obama doesn’t care about the world. It was better for President Obama to have him killed so he could look better.
He said he would do this when he was running for president over two years ago. Your suggestions are delusional and disgusting.
Daniel Packman says:
May 23, 2011 at 1:57 pm
I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than the Monday morning quarterbacks here claiming that it is obvious that we could have taken him alive.
It’s not anyone else’s problem that you have no imagination.
It is very strange that you cannot imagine Navy Seals being able to capture him alive. They would have captured him alive if not for Obama giving the order to kill him—you didn’t catch that part of the news? Everyone else did. It is Monday morning quarterbacking to it wasn’t that way.
You are a Monday morning quarterback Daniel.
It would have been better for the world if bin Laden had been captured alive and interrogated. Anyone knows that. Obama made the wrong choice. The Navy Seals could have easily taken him alive. Don’t insult the Navy Seals by saying it is unimaginable to think they could. You must not know anything of how great the Navy Seals are at what they do.
I’m sure that the good people posting here are so knowledgable from the accounts that they have read that they know the details and limitations of this raid. Very impressive.
What part of 20 special ops forces with the top military technology vs. a house of mainly unarmed women and children is difficult for you to understand?
If there was no option of capture then there would have been no need for President Obama to order a kill. He is being called brave for the decision he made. What was there to decide if there was no other option but kill?
Think about it Daniel. Use your imagination. I can see you don’t use your mind much, that the Democrat Party thinks for you. But just this once use the mind God gave to you.
Daniel Packman says:
May 23, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Your antipathy for the president is clear.
Daniel,
What is far clearer is your total devotion to Democrat politics. You are nothing but a clone. You have no mind of your own. There is no color in anything you say. You have no imagination. If the Democratic Party didn’t give you life you’d have nothing to say, nothing to think.
Silly generalization. I would think that most Americans could agree that getting bin Laden was a good thing and move on.
I think that most Americans would agree that bringing Saddam to trial and conviction was a good thing, yet 10 years later Democrats still can not grasp the concept.
Huh, where dis I say it wasn’t a good thing he was killed? You made that up. You created a strawman—typical you would do that since you are a mindless devotee to Democrat politics.
It would have been better for the world if he was taken alive. That is what I said.
Bringing him to trial was fine. The phone-cam video of the execution amid jeers took a bit of the edge off the justice thing.
Shooting unarmed people in the head in their bed and dumping the body at sea is clearly preferable.
Why didn’t they just shoot Sadam in his spider hole?
Daniel Packman says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Bringing him to trial was fine. The phone-cam video of the execution amid jeers took a bit of the edge off the justice thing.
Funny, when Obama brought it up on the campaign trail people cheered. And Obama liked the cheers. But that celebrating was ok because it wasn’t Navy Seals celebrating. Obama getting cheers on the campaign trail for bin Laden’s death is great. But the military be happy about it is bad. I get it. You are antimiltary. That would be typical of a Democrat clone.
glacierman says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Why didn’t they just shoot Sadam in his spider hole?
Well, those soldiers that captured Saddam weren’t Navy Seals. Daniel thinks Navy Seals can’t capture people. That’s why.
Amino,
Now you not only know the complete details of the Seals’ operation but you can also read minds. Impressive indeed.
Your narrative is lame. Police action is always dangerous, and always must be based on law. The days of lynchings are supposed to be over. Should police just execute everyone who they think might be a threat?
I know, and I agree with Mark Bowlin below about the differences, but that said, they could have easily captured him, and thy probably wouldn’t even have had to punch him in the face like they did to Sadam. Would capturing him been a good thing? I think so, as long as he wasn’t given a public forum. If they were really good, they would have captured him, but convinced the world he was dead and gone. Now that would be some good operating.
UBL clearly was not prepared for armed intrusion. Probably thought it would never happen give the location. They had the house under constant observation. If trained, armed soldiers were guarding the place, they would have had to come and go, or there would have had to be tunnels.
Perhaps they are that good and he is now being interrogated.
Daniel
Again, Al Qeada confirmed he is dead.
Obama made the right choice in ordering the raid – even if it took him 16 hours to decide on a course of action that was 1) self-evident, and 2) should have been made the day he took office. Taking bin Laden as a prisoner was a non-starter and was never a considered course of action. He was locked into killing bin Laden because his politics had made impossible to do otherwise: his contempt for Gitmo and military tribunals, and the absolute impossibility of getting an unbiased civilian jury, not to mention Obama’s banishment of the methods that would get bin Laden to talk.
I think they did the right thing, but sullied the effect with a complete failure to provide a coherent narrative of events compounded by chest-thumping and bragging. Leaving aside the president’s I/Me/Mine moments, the government talked way too much about this and we divulged way too much valuable information. For example, their story should have been the guards in the house destroyed the hard drives, etc., not we hit the motherlode of intel. What a bunch of buffoons.
Mark Bowlin says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Taking bin Laden as a prisoner was a non-starter and was never a considered course of action.
Yes, it was considered. The mission was to capture or kill.
If capture was never considered then it wasn’t in Obama’s power to order the kill. To order the kill means some other avenue could have been taken.
I’m not sure I follow your logic. Obama as Commander in Chief had the authority to order bin Laden’s killing — unless you want to argue he violated EO 12333 (which some have tried). He was a military target, it was a military operation. No different than dropping a GBU-31 on him, except you have that motherlode of intel and all the forensic proof you need that you got the right guy.
I’m not questioning the authority. You are taking what I said out of the context of what is being said.
OT
TSA not allowed to feel up high school students at a prom. Though they did do it at another prom and are being sued for it.
http://www.koat.com/r-video/27979990/detail.html
Steve, Bringing Saddam to trial and his conviction were a good thing (and somewhat tarnished by the phonecam video). But he wasn’t tried by an American court or military tribunal, nor was he handed over to the ICJ. He was tried, convicted and executed by the Iraqi government for crimes committed against Iraqis….and while there was criticism of Iraq for doing so, it was relatively mild.
Saddam and UBL’s hypothetical capture, trial and execution would be far different. It would be the US taking the lead (because who could trust an international court), and we would be open to criticism and retaliation, and UBL would be even more of a martyr and symbol during his trial, etc. This was better.
Osama should have been captured and silently taken away for interrogation. Six months later they should have announced the capture and brought him to trial.
Imagine how demoralizing it would have been for Al Qaeda had Osama disappeared – and the White House just kept their mouths shut. Obama’s obsession with politics is classic “loose lips sink ships”
stevengoddard says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Osama should have been captured and silently taken away for interrogation. Six months….
Interesting. That would seem a better way to have done it.
But when you’re on the campaign trail and Trump had embarrassed you in front of America, and your poll numbers are going down, there’s nothing like killing the bad guy to make things look better—and to keep people distracted from the awful job you are doing.
Steve,
I like how your mind works! I think you do have the perfect scenario, a shame we could not have seen it played out (due primarly to the reason you stated).
Leaked tapes prove that the president was very decisive.
LOL – That was great!
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
“Yes, it was considered. The mission was to capture or kill.”
That’s what the press release said, but actions speak louder than words. The latest narrative says that bin Laden was surrounded by children and/or his wives. UBL was unarmed as well. The SEALs pushed the kids out of the way, and he was executed. There was no serious consideration of capturing him, or he would be in custody now.
Then Obama was not “brave” in the decision he made. There was no decision to be made, no “brave” choice to be made.
If that’s the case the Obama taking credit for it is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise. The sun would have come up whether the rooster was there or not. And bin Laden would have been killed whether Obama was there or not.
He had choices. He chose to have UBL killed. The president was likely given multiple courses of action to consider, and various options for both kill and capture were discussed I’m sure. I suspect that very quickly, capture was discarded for the reasons I stated above. Then they looked at the other COAs open to them: such as Predator/Hellfire, GBU-31, TLAM, or direct action. They chose direct action to minimize collateral damage and to obtain intelligence and forensic data.
I agree with your last sentence — unless the president were Ron Paul, the choice would likely have been the same. John McCain would have given the same order, as would have W. Clinton chose TLAM when he took his shot, but that was pre-911.
The only bravery on that day came from the SEALs. Let’s be honest though, it likely was a difficult decision for this president to arrive at. And I think he deserves credit for making it (he’s certainly taken credit for it), but making hard decisions and bravery aren’t the same unless the only world you live in is the world of politics.
Mark Bowlin says:
May 23, 2011 at 2:25 pm
There was no serious consideration of capturing him, or he would be in custody now.
The President ordered him killed.
One thing to consider…
The SEALS didn’t know if the place was wired. They had to incapacitate as many people as they could, as fast as they could. Not knowing if any person there could have blown the whole place up around them. That was the purpose of the initial missile strike on the house, hopefully to ignite any explosives and also to create confusion.
Another, is you don’t shoot people in the leg when they are aiming a AK47 at you. You only shoot them in the leg when you’re sure they are unarmed and you just want to slow them down.
No credit to Obama….
…100% credit to the SEALS
By their own admission, they didn’t have enough intelligence to go on. They even had to give it about a 50/50 that it was even Osama in there. And, they lost a chopper anyway.
Obama made a very risky call, that could have gone either way. Not based on his intelligence. If this had gone the other way, it would be an entirely different story right now.
The house was full of children, including his own. It was under surveillance for months. He had been in isolation there for years.
The possibility of explosives or a firefight were incredibly remote.
The surveillance didn’t reveal bin Laden, hence the 50/50 estimate that he was even there. You seem more sure of the details than are warranted from the information.
Yes it did. They saw him “pacing in the courtyard.” Panetta said they were 80% sure he was there. They knew what his wife looked like too.
I agree it was remote, but they still have to plan for it.
Including a fire fight with the Pakistani military.
It was just luck and skill that they pulled it off. If they had left anyone behind, that would be a PR disaster right now.
Just another bunch of body bags from Afghanistan.
It seems quite likely that the Pakistani government was aware of the operation. A helicopter crashed and there was gunfire at the start. They were there for 40 minutes, within earshot of a Pakistani military base.
If they were 60 to 80% sure, then they didn’t clearly see him in the courtyard.
Using your military logic, we never would have liberated Europe from Hitler. The risk was thousands of times too high.
In both cases success was not assured, but we went forward. Your conclusion is bizarre.
He should have been arrested. The mission was severely tainted by blowing the brains of an unarmed man out in front of his children.
Incredible that anyone would not recognize a problem with that.
Steve, if the POTUS would have had an R instead of a D after his name, you would be seeing the unhinged left. Remember how they reacted to the wiretapping protocols? The ones still in use by OB.
Talk about the pot and kettle! How many silly generalizations had you made on this one thread alone to the point! Let me give you a hint (all but one comment).
Amino, if I may speak for Mark, I think what he is saying is that while there was a weasel out about taking him alive, the reality meant that the kill order, while not given, was understood. Obama knew he could not give a “shoot on sight” order (it is illegal), and he has vilified Gitmo and Bush’s practices so could not use them if Osama was taken alive. So while “theoretically” an option, it never was in any practical sense.
So it is OK for the President to give an illegal order – as long as he uses the correct words when he gives it?
No, and I do not think Mark was saying that either. We are basically stating what probably happened – but Obama made sure he had that “plausible deniability”. If a “Nixon” tape would ever surface proving Mark’s assumption, and my interpretation, he would not be convicted after impeachment, but he would probably be impeached.
Steve, I don’t think it was illegal. UBL was a valid military target. We’d tried to kill him before (Clinton and Bush). I wasn’t a JAG, but I don’t think EO 12333 applied — although some believe that it does. Regardless, an executive order can be rescinded by, well, executive order.
Offhand, I can’t think of any decision that Obama’s made that I agree with except that the world is better off because the SEALs found a 5.56mm solution to the problem.
Hey this Americer – we say .223 here. ;^)
http://youtu.be/PzZxBUxg0Sg
I don’t have a problem if the whole operation to kill fell under the category of self defense. A lawyer could easily make a case for self defense and not murder since bin Laden had already threatened the US and had shown he was 100% intent on carrying out his threats as evidenced by 9/11.
I feel relief he is dead. But still think it would have been better to capture him and, like Steve said, take him somewhere secret for interrogation.
I agree. I would much rather have him captured – as the intel lost with his death is incalculable. But it would also have been a big embarrassment to Obama, so that is why he wanted him dead (although you will never find an email or other form of communication indicating that).