Bin Laden mission was big risk for Obama

Source: MSNBC

Bin Laden mission was big risk for Obama
'When you go into something like this, there are no guarantees ... things go wrong,' former SEAL says


WASHINGTON — The nail-biting, 40-minute clandestine operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden's death could have been a calamitous political and military failure; a bloodbath in Pakistan that left scores of civilians dead and U.S. forces killed or captured by America's most ferocious enemy.

Or, as it happened, it could unfold largely in textbook fashion — delivering a stunning success for the often maligned intelligence community, a political and national security coup for a struggling president and revenge for Americans still carrying vivid memories of Sept. 11, 2001.

By secretly sending a team of special operations forces into an enemy fortress in a suburban neighborhood of a sovereign country, President Barack Obama chose the path of greatest risk, but also greatest reward.

As debates continued over whether a photograph of bin Laden's body should be released; if Pakistan had helped the al-Qaida leader elude capture and whether he had to be shot after it was revealed he was unarmed, an expert said there were many ways the operation could have gone wrong.


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42892254/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden/

I wonder why no one has interviewed Jesse Ventura about Seals
When he was governor he referenced them often

happen.

that was an especially tense moment for him.

It's nice to see that he made it out alive, though. You wouldn't even know he was with the SEALs. You'd almost think he was sitting in the safety of a situation room on the other side of the world, watching shit go down on a TV screen, whilst sitting in a nice comfy chair.

The fact that Obama's presidency could have unofficially ended Sunday night, seems lost to you.

A man's political ambitions are less important than human lives.

If only b****slap memes were popular.

He was badass all over that one.

I'm glad it ended as well as it ended.

It's foolish to believe that this was without risk for Obama just because he was not physically there.

you would have dismissed as a 'conspiracy theory' or 'lunatic ravings of the 'Arab street'. Wake up and smell the corpsicle.

The farther it is from being unlikely the better they love it.

I think that had the Pakistanis caught them it would have been more than the lunatic ravings of a Arab street. Too many people knew about this operation for it to have remained secret indefinitely. It was a risk for Obama when he could have just let it go.

The POLITICAL risk that Obama took pales in comparison to the PHYSICAL risk taken by our military people who did the actual work.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that putting one's LIFE at risk is more dire than putting one's political career at risk. So don't go patting yourself on the back for making that gargantuan moral conclusion.

But what, pray tell, would you have him, as commander and chief of the military, do? Sit in that comfy chair and do nothing? He was responsible for the lives of the men he sent in there. He was responsible to the families of the people whom his target killed. He was responsible to a country that is still reeling from the losses it took 10 years ago. He was responsible for the damage it could do to remainder of his term and the accomplishments that would remain undone. He was responsible to the rest of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing that this could do something to hasten their withdrawal from places of danger. He was responsible to his party. He was responsible to his country as a whole in the present and in the future.

I'm not a rock solid Obama fan either. I've had my fair share of disagreements about what he has managed to accomplish. But people like you...who denigrate the responsibility and demands of a president who had the wherewithal to actually MAKE a tough decision like this and get the job done because he made those decisions from the safety of the white house situation room (like the country, military or citizens would allow anything else)...allthewhile sitting your OWN chair kinda piss me off a little.

His actions took balls. Huge FUCKING balls. And in comparison to those leaders that came before him, a quite SELFLESS pair at that.

But what, pray tell, would you have him, as commander and chief of the military, do? Sit in that comfy chair and do nothing? He was responsible for the lives of the men he sent in there. He was responsible to the families of the people whom his target killed. He was responsible to a country that is still reeling from the losses it took 10 years ago. He was responsible for the damage it could do to remainder of his term and the accomplishments that would remain undone. He was responsible to the rest of the soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing that this could do something to hasten their withdrawal from places of danger. He was responsible to his party. He was responsible to his country as a whole in the present and in the future.

That goes with the territory. It's his job. When he decided to run for President, he knew that he'd probably face such decisions. I'm not giving him any brownie points for being brave on this one.

But people like you...who denigrate the responsibility and demands of a president...

I have done no such thing. Shame on you for trying to make this about me.

I truly don't follow.

"That goes with the territory. It's his job. When he decided to run for President, he knew that he'd probably face such decisions. I'm not giving him any brownie points for being brave on this one."

Yes. Wonderful. But most of them are fairly horrible about actually DOING it. Remember his predecessor. The fact that someone is expected to do the right thing doesn't make it any less difficult.

"I have done no such thing. Shame on you for trying to make this about me."

Very dramatic, indeed. You posted on a public forum. Expect a response.

And now his responsibility is to get back to the duties of his office. He didn't take on any extraordinary "risk" by doing his duty as President. Not doing anything would have been surely been detrimental to his career.

The risk comes not in doing something that worked. Instead, it's in doing something that may NOT have. You do realize that by deciding NOT to bomb the place into oblivion (in order to satisfy those who need DNA proof etc) and opting for a ground mission he ran the risk of the situation deteriorating, Americans dying, captives being taken and exploited by public enemy number one and the ire of darn near EVERYONE right? Making grave decisions like that (when others are indeed available) which concern the lives of others for whom he was responsible and the mindset of the country in general makes him either incredibly ballsy or a sociopath.

Had that gone well, he might have been re-elected.

Don't even fucking go there.

Desert One being the attempt to rescue the American Embassy hostages in Iran which, when it was sabotaged by the Republicans running it, destroyed the Carter presidency.

This one looks more like the Son Tay Raid, an operation intended to rescue POWs from the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam. Google "Son Tay Raid." The Raid was tactically brilliant, but the intelligence was faulty on it--the North Vietnamese Army moved all the prisoners out of the Son Tay prison camp two weeks prior to the Raid because they were afraid the camp was going to flood. So...mission not accomplished.

This raid didn't have the problem Son Tay did. The intelligence was perfect. The timing was perfect, and the mission was successful: they went to Pakistan with the express intent of removing Osama bin Laden from the planet, which is exactly what happened.