Braedan: Why should Obama get any credit? All he did was say "shoot". %100 credit should go to the generals, and soldiers who planned and fought for the last ten years.
I'm behind you 100% on this one.
Credit the soldiers who have fought, bleed and died for this cause.
AmrasCalmacil: Shouldn't the SEAL operative who capped him get the credit?
/thread
This has been my opinion the entire time. I fail to see how either Clinton, Bush, Obama, or the CIA (who have my respect for accomplishing the intel) truly deserve credit for this.
I say the political browny points go to the marksman.
give all credit to the Seal Team dammit...I mean sure Obama authorized the mission, but without the intel leading them there and the men on the ground Osama would still be alive and plotting
Braedan: Why should Obama get any credit? All he did was say "shoot". %100 credit should go to the generals, and soldiers who planned and fought for the last ten years.
Well Obama is THE general of all generals. The whole military brass answers to him.
The military and intelligence gathers have been working for many years for this and obviously deserve their moment of finally succeeding but Obama had been heavily involved in the process with all the meetings over the past few months and at the end of the day Obama had to make the call and he made the right one. Credit where credit is due.
internetzealot1: The Bush Administration escalated the search for Bin-Laden to its current (until a few weeks ago) state. Obama did very little to change it; he was just the guy in charge when the search succeeded. So it is perfectly acceptable to give Bush the credit that you can give to a President for something like this.
internetzealot1: The Bush Administration escalated the search for Bin-Laden to its current (until a few weeks ago) state. Obama did very little to change it; he was just the guy in charge when the search succeeded. So it is perfectly acceptable to give Bush the credit that you can give to a President for something like this.
Truman dropped the bomb. Did he design it? Did he fly the bomber?
To be fair, the atomic bomb was actually a tough decision. Whether or not to get Bin-Laden is a no-brainer
what about the part where bush said, during his presidency, that he was no longer concerned with osama bin laden?
Probably trying to distance himself from criticism that he was concerned with only getting bin Laden.
And whether or not he personally cared, he didn't stop the search. The man who invented the guillotine later regreted it, but that doesn't change the fact that he invented the guillotine.
internetzealot1: The Bush Administration escalated the search for Bin-Laden to its current (until a few weeks ago) state. Obama did very little to change it; he was just the guy in charge when the search succeeded. So it is perfectly acceptable to give Bush the credit that you can give to a President for something like this.
To be fair, the atomic bomb was actually a tough decision. Whether or not to get Bin-Laden is a no-brainer
what about the part where bush said, during his presidency, that he was no longer concerned with osama bin laden?
Probably trying to distance himself from criticism that he was concerned with only getting bin Laden.
And whether or not he personally cared, he didn't stop the search. The man who invented the guillotine later regreted it, but that doesn't change the fact that he invented the guillotine.
i never heard bush criticized for only caring about osama. i heard him criticized for not caring enough about osama. bush shifted the military focus from bin laden to saddam...for some reason. you stop caring about accomplishing something and guess what, its not going to get accomplished. as soon as bush said he didnt care about catching bin laden anymore, he lost his right to get credit for bin ladens death. i dont like obama but saying he was searching for bin laden the same way bush was, is crazy. by the end of his presidency bush hardly had anyone looking for him (and ive seen a number of articles suggesting that he had stopped looking completely, by 2006. however, the sources arent what i would consider the credible so im not going to say they are necessarily true). he essentially stopped looked for osama when we invaded iraq because by that point, osama was all he cared about. if he had any intention of finding osama, we couldnt have started a war in iraq
As I keep saying, credit should go to the CIA and other intellegence agencies as well as the troops who captured prisoners who talked and of course the special forces. Geronimo EKIA indeed.
AmrasCalmacil: Shouldn't the SEAL operative who capped him get the credit?
Finding him was a lot more difficult than killing his zero armed guards.
Where is your source of the zero armed guards?
The Seals killed four people. One was an unarmed woman, the other two were couriers. If there had been a dedicated security detail present, they would have been splattered all over the walls.
Brian Hendershot: This makes me angry. They always seem to forget he is the one that got us stuck in some recession.
At any rate, I think it's depressing that the actual STRIKE TEAM isn't getting any love. I don't even know who shot him.
That's how the SEALs work. To put in some perspective of how they work, my friend's dad was a SEAL and was killed in action over 10 years ago. They still don't know what country he died in.
Fair enough. I'm a politically lukewarm Canadian, I don't know how top-of-the-line soldiers work.
Klitch: Neither Bush nor Obama deserves credit (and this is coming from someone who is fiercely devoted to one of those two). Yes, Obama had the final say on whether to go ahead with the mission or not, but he had no reason to say no and every reason to say yes. All credit goes to the soldiers (seamen?) who stormed his compound and the intelligence agencies that tracked him down.
Also, Clinton started the search for bin Laden, just saying.
Makes little sense. Bush got you involved in Iraq on false pretenses of ties between Saddam and Al Qaida. If anything, he made catching the actual guy more difficult by diverting resources from the area. I don't really agree with giving Obama much credit, either, though. Agreed, he focused more on Afghanistan and Pakistan, so I'll give him some credit for that, but overall I'm with Seekster on this: I like giving credit to the people who do stuff, not just delegate the work.
AMAZED: well i don't know about bush getting credit but obama certainly doesn't deserve it since the tip on bin laden's location came from a guantanimo bay inmate and he tried to shut that place down
I think neither deserve credit, but more importantly, can you source that claim?
You do realize that last article doesn't really say anything except to make the same vague assertion that a tip came from gitmo that you did, right? It's really no better than your claim, and no more credible simply because it's from someone's social networking blog...
From what other's have posted, said "tip" was in the form of a courier's nickname that meant nothing to anyone. The real question is, how did they find said courier, and would they have found him even without said nickname. In other words, you're going to have to try harder than simply finding someone else who agrees with your assertion.
You do realize that last article doesn't really say anything except to make the same vague assertion that a tip came from gitmo that you did, right? It's really no better than your claim, and no more credible simply because it's from someone's social networking blog...
From what other's have posted, said "tip" was in the form of a courier's nickname that meant nothing to anyone. The real question is, how did they find said courier, and would they have found him even without said nickname. In other words, you're going to have to try harder than simply finding someone else who agrees with your assertion.
00slash00: **this is not a debate over whether leaders or soliders should get credit for military operations. it is about the absurdity of the bush administration getting credit from something accomplished under the obama administration, despite the fact that bush even admitted he wasnt looking for bin laden for the past couple years of his presidency**
this shouldnt surprise me. i was waiting to see how fox news would spin this but yeah, apparently, since bush is the one who started the search for bin laden, fox feels that he deserves at least as much credit for finding him, as obama. the fact that bush failed and, in fact, had given up looking for him, is apparently irrelevant. oh fox news, you goofy mother fuckers.
couldnt find the individual clips of fox news statements about this but they're in the young turks commentary about it
edit: a lot of people have been saying neither president should get credit. while i do agree the military should get pretty much all the credit, we all know that they wont get any. the point im trying to make here, however, is how absurd, even for fox, it is that they are trying to give credit to bush even though he not only failed to find bin laden, but wasnt even trying to find him. also, from reports i heard, the military just wanted to use bombing and obama is the one who insisted on using special forces instead. i dont know if thats true but if it is, i definitely think that was a better way to go and as such, obama would deserve at least some credit
I think Clinton should get credit for saying, "I told you so," as well as the heads of the FBI and CIA in 2011 who begged for an audience with Bush from day 1 regarding al-queada
00slash00: **this is not a debate over whether leaders or soliders should get credit for military operations. it is about the absurdity of the bush administration getting credit from something accomplished under the obama administration, despite the fact that bush even admitted he wasnt looking for bin laden for the past couple years of his presidency**
this shouldnt surprise me. i was waiting to see how fox news would spin this but yeah, apparently, since bush is the one who started the search for bin laden, fox feels that he deserves at least as much credit for finding him, as obama. the fact that bush failed and, in fact, had given up looking for him, is apparently irrelevant. oh fox news, you goofy mother fuckers.
couldnt find the individual clips of fox news statements about this but they're in the young turks commentary about it
edit: a lot of people have been saying neither president should get credit. while i do agree the military should get pretty much all the credit, we all know that they wont get any. the point im trying to make here, however, is how absurd, even for fox, it is that they are trying to give credit to bush even though he not only failed to find bin laden, but wasnt even trying to find him. also, from reports i heard, the military just wanted to use bombing and obama is the one who insisted on using special forces instead. i dont know if thats true but if it is, i definitely think that was a better way to go and as such, obama would deserve at least some credit
I think Clinton should get credit for saying, "I told you so," as well as the heads of the FBI and CIA in 2011 who begged for an audience with Bush from day 1 regarding al-queada
I think Clinton should get credit for saying, "I told you so," as well as the heads of the FBI and CIA in 2011 who begged for an audience with Bush from day 1 regarding al-queada
Please excuse my inaccuracy if I'm not correct, but didn't Clinton have an opportunity to get rid of Bin Laden and declined it? I hardly think he should get any I told you so if that is the case.
I think Clinton should get credit for saying, "I told you so," as well as the heads of the FBI and CIA in 2011 who begged for an audience with Bush from day 1 regarding al-queada
Please excuse my inaccuracy if I'm not correct, but didn't Clinton have an opportunity to get rid of Bin Laden and declined it? I hardly think he should get any I told you so if that is the case.
Clinton was making preparations to do so during his final days in office. The plans weren't thoroughly laid out, so the administration trusted the incoming Bush cabinet to take care of it. One of the advisors who stayed on told Condi Rice that Bush "would spend more time on terrorism than any other issue."
Clinton was making preparations to do so during his final days in office. The plans weren't thoroughly laid out, so the administration trusted the incoming Bush cabinet to take care of it. One of the advisors who stayed on told Condi Rice that Bush "would spend more time on terrorism than any other issue."
That does lay it rather squarely on Bush then. Thanks for the clarification!
Braedan: Why should Obama get any credit? All he did was say "shoot". %100 credit should go to the generals, and soldiers who planned and fought for the last ten years.
Braedan: Why should Obama get any credit? All he did was say "shoot". %100 credit should go to the generals, and soldiers who planned and fought for the last ten years.
This.
Last I checked, the generals had ZERO say in authorizing an operation that took us within the sovereign borders, without permission, of a nation-state that is ostensibly our "ally" but acts as anything but.
As I said on another thread, claiming Obama deserves no credit for this is like claiming Osama deserved no blame for 9/11 because he wasn't flying one of the planes.
uguito-93: does anyone know why Sir John the Net Knight on page 1 was banned for his post? it seemed like he was simply stating his opinion in an inoffensive way
He apparently asked for his account to be banned. It's happened in other instances -- I have a hard enough time NOT getting off the boat and seeing what people I have blocked say, I can imagine some people can't NOT look at some of the idiocy here without just asking the mods to ban them so they can't respond.
That said, I have a hard time figuring out why 80% of the moderator action here actually happens. Attempting to understand how the Escapist moderation works is like trying to catch buckshot with a fishnet.
uguito-93: does anyone know why Sir John the Net Knight on page 1 was banned for his post? it seemed like he was simply stating his opinion in an inoffensive way
He apparently asked for his account to be banned. It's happened in other instances -- I have a hard enough time NOT getting off the boat and seeing what people I have blocked say, I can imagine some people can't NOT look at some of the idiocy here without just asking the mods to ban them so they can't respond.
That said, I have a hard time figuring out why 80% of the moderator action here actually happens. Attempting to understand how the Escapist moderation works is like trying to catch buckshot with a fishnet.
I'm one of those who thinks that the President himself should only get a little bit of the credit and the rest should go to the military personnel who actually took the risk by actually doing that shit.
But if we ARE going by Presidents getting credit...HELL NO to Bush getting credit. This guy had 8 years to look for Bin Laden. He failed, because he didn't even try. He was too busy running up debt and plunging people into an Economic Depression to look for Bin Laden.
Obama's had 3 years of his first term and he's got the job done. Yes, he only got Bin Laden because Bush started this War on Terror, but if you're going by THAT logic you should give Bin Laden the credit for his own death because he prompted Bush to start the War on Terror.
Obama should get whatever credit he deserves, Bush should get nothing but shame for his utter near-decade-long failure on this issue.
Eh, Obama does need to get some credit for ordering the mission, for making the capture or death of Osama a priority again. Bush deserves none. He started two wars without exit strategies, wasting billions, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and then said that Osama isn't a priority anymore. Osama. The guy that one of those wars was originally started over.
As for the military not getting credit, that's probably true. But the guys who took Osama down directly are pretty well known now, if not by name then by unit. Aren't they "Seal Team Six" or something? A catchy name like that will live on in memory as well.
Braedan: Why should Obama get any credit? All he did was say "shoot". %100 credit should go to the generals, and soldiers who planned and fought for the last ten years.
(shrug) If a president gives the order to launch a military operation like this, and it goes badly, he certainly gets the blame. Look at Jimmy Carter after the attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran went horribly wrong.
i never heard bush criticized for only caring about osama. i heard him criticized for not caring enough about osama. bush shifted the military focus from bin laden to saddam...for some reason. you stop caring about accomplishing something and guess what, its not going to get accomplished. as soon as bush said he didnt care about catching bin laden anymore, he lost his right to get credit for bin ladens death.
I'm behind you 100% on this one.
Credit the soldiers who have fought, bleed and died for this cause.