FOx reporter calls the killing of Bin Laden, "murder"

[Dogbert41]

Reena Ninan, FOX reporter on Syria today, "While the world was watching the capture, no actually the murder of Osama Bin Laden"....

[wardaddy]

Why do men comment on how women look ?
It’s what we do dear.

But don’t worry...my kind are dying off

Young ambiguous gendered men will probably be less piggish more acceptable to the modern gal

[caww]

And saying to the press that we had a Kill Mission ordered is the worst mistake of all. It breaks the First Rule of the Fight Club.

Well Einstein...you even got that wrong...First Rule of the Fight Club is you don't talk about the fight club.

Second of all our military does not run by the guidlines of of a street fight gang.

As I said...you do indeed have problems, just as you stated that you do. The worst is getting the facts straight and or understanding the evidence.... the second is using common sense and understanding combat.

Further if I felt my child or friend or neighbor was "threatended' by a known mass killer I would not hesitate to kill him. Islamic Mass murderer's do not surrender to save their life...they surrender so they can have another opportunity to kill again. In Osama's case he never had intention to surrender...and stated so. Rather, his orders to his men were to shoot him if ever captured or an attempt to capture.

[brytlea]

I’m not really a modern gal. I really don’t prefer the under thirty man. They are vulgar and more interested in their hair than I am in mine. Maybe if we could just get the “what she looks like” stuff over with in one big glob at the beginning of the thread and then get into the rest of it.
I don’t care what the reporterettes look like, and I don’t REALLY care what the dudes look like (I have a great looking guy here at home). I know guys look, I know they always will. But, I don’t see how it relates to her stupid comment.

[caww]

Fog Of War:

The uncertainty in situation awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.

“The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance.”......(.Carl Von Clausewitz)

And so as Mother Jones has said.....”Ask yourself whether, after fast-roping from a stalling helicopter into a darkened compound under small-arms fire in pursuit of the world's most wanted man, you'd stop to consider the prudence of each of your options upon actually encountering that man....... If an easy answer comes to your mind, you're doing it wrong.

[caww]

I agree....and some just cannot keep it to themselves, which is the mark of a seasoned and wise man....other wise fools make fools of themselves time and again. This is especially true in mixed company.

After I lost my husband and began stepping out a wise man shared with me that it’s wise to say no to all the men who approach you ‘first’ at a dance.....because the better men set back awhile to see how you’re going to conduct yourself with the fruitloop’s too eager to wait and see.
I watched that play out time and again as exactly that way.

It’s the same way on these threads....the same juvenile watchers are quick to speak up...but the better men....though looking...know how to keep it to themselves in mixed company...... It’s what seperates the men from the boys.

[brytlea]

Very well said.

[caww]

You REALLY do have problems...just as you said.

[Haiku Guy]

As I have stated previously, I have no problem with OBL being killed in the fog of war. If the situation was unsure or the troops felt threatened, by all means, shoot first and ask questions later. I was not referring to that scenario.

But that was not necessarily the case, here. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence that all gunfire had ceased a half hour before OBL was found.

We will never know the circumstances, nor should we. The fact that OBL wound up dead on the floor does not add any information one way or the other, because that was a forgone conclusion, if it was, in fact, a “Kill Mission”.

So do you understand how all your points about the phases of the moon and Von Clauswitz (sp?) are beside the point?

[olrtex]

“But if the enemy is trying to surrender, or it would be just as easy to capture him as to kill him, then a soldier must capture him, right?”

No, no, no. You are wrong, or at least I hope you are.

Just because it would be just as easy to capture an enemy as to kill him, you do not have to capture him. You can kill him. My gosh, would you really want soldiers to have to decide “whether it would be just as easy to capture an enemy as it would be to kill him”? Put yourself in the soldier’s shoes for a moment.

[caww]

If the situation was unsure or the troops felt threatened

So what conditions would you define as "unsure"..to put it lightly..or a "threatening" situation. Define for us please what consititutes a threat large enough for you to shoot?

Is there any doubt this waould be a "Kill Mission"? and that is really the problem you have with this I believe...and it wouldn't matter to you if one gunfire fight or many...or for that matter none at all...your reasoning is to have given Ben Laden the benifit of the doubt and give him opportunity to surrender. A risk you would likely assume would be appropriate for him... Regardless of screaming woman and children, and our troops ability to have saved them and get them out of the line of fire....regardless of seeing guns armed and ready within hand reach of Ben-Laden...regardless of so much evidence of the environment. Again ...you are unaware of war and the missions our men go on...especially when it comes to special forces.

You completely fail to see the cirsumstances and situation surrounding the mission...no matter how much you explain you understand that...you do not.

[Grunthor]

mm-mm-mm

[bbwolf906]

looks like you’ve done some homework here. i’d like to know the moment in her mind when she realized just how bad she screwed up

[Polybius]

We are exploring various scenarios because we have no idea what happened. If, as you conjecture, there was uncertainty as the SEAL Team entered the room, and bin Laden was shot, I have no problem with that. These things happen in war. It would not be right to ask our soldiers to take unneccessary risks.

Exactly. Now we are getting back to a Real World scenario.

I will bet my house to your donut, that the SEAL Team was given authorization to shoot, on immediate sight, in order to eliminate uncertainty as much as the reflexes of a trained professional warrior can possibly eliminate that uncertainty.

Bust open the door. "To your left!" POP. POP. POP. "All clear! Next room! Next room!" Bust open the door. "Behind you!" POP. POP. POP. "All clear! Next room! Next room!"

Uncertainty is a fact of life before a room is even entered. By definition, in combat, there is "uncertainty" from the very moment there is contact with the enemy.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" .... Helmuth von Moltke, the Elder

As in any endeavor, the more complicated that you make something, the more chances there are that something will go wrong. In war, when things go wrong, they go terribly wrong.

The KISS Principle ("Keep it simple, stupid") applies.

The terrorist war machine is allowed to wage war by the simplest methods possible. A little over a dozen men in the pre-TSA era,, some box-cutters and no constraining rules whatsoever and the terrorists then kill 3,000 innocent civilians.

The U.S., on the other hand, is expected to maximize it's risk. The U.S. is condemned for simply bursting into a room, spoting an enemy then immediately shooting before the enemy shoots first.

The U.S. must burst into a room and say, "Put your hands up. You're under arrest. You have a right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an ..."

Then ....

Burst of gunfire. One dead SEAL and two wounded ones. Extended firefight to rescue the wounded SEAL's. More casualties. Al Qaeda's supporters in the area are alerted and, in the end, a Blackhawk Down debacle has occurred.

Think about those two raids in recent U.S. history that have been disasters: Desert One and the Blackhawk Down incident. Both violated the KISS Principle.

The Desert One complexity was unavoidable. Live individuals (the hostages) had to be secured and then transported. In all the complexity, something went wrong and the operation spiraled out of control.

You then end up with a Mullah gleefully showing the foot of a U.S. serviceman on Iranian TV.

The Blackhawk Down incident was way more complex than it needed to be because the goal was to CAPTURE the warlord leader of the Habr Gidr clan in Somalia instead of just allowing a U.S. sniper blow his head off from 1,500 yards away.

A sniper kill follows the KISS Principle. A complicated CAPTURE operation does not.

In all the complexity, something went wrong and the operation spiraled out of control.

That violation of the KISS Principle ended up costing 18 U.S. dead and 73 wounded.

For those who do not care about U.S. casualties, that violation of the KISS Principle ended up costing approximately 700 Somali deaths and between 1,000 and 3,000 Somali wounded.

Expecting the U.S. to deal with the al Qaeda war machine as if al Qaeda were a street punk being stopped by the local Police on a U.S. street makes it literally impossible for the U.S. to fight an asymmetric war. That's the bottom line.

[Thunder90]

Do you really want to see the spectacle of holding a Bin Ladin trial in Manhattan? That’s what Holder and Obama wanted. Now, Obama wanted Osama captured. Ponetta and Petraeus likely were the ones who give the kill order.

[Haiku Guy]

I understand your point. I just don’t agree. You have explained it adequately.