Posted on 04/13/2009 6:07:49 PM PDT by tobyhill
Reporting from Washington -- Before ending a pirate standoff with three fatally precise shots, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers had passed on multiple opportunities to fire.
They had moved into position after the White House expanded the authority it had given the world's most powerful navy against a rag-tag foe holding an American hostage.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I agree. But an email saying 80k troops are being brought home to squelch an uprising is well...
The troops are being brought home because we don’t need them in Iraq anymore and they are being brought home to to their home base. The situation in Iraq is stablized and getting better each month.
The military is the last thing remaining of this country that I trust. The administrative, legislative and judicial branches are either corrupt, broken or both.
When we have a Supreme Court Justice like RBG saying she can’t see anything wrong with citing international law for case law ...well, we’re screwed. The door has been opened for our enemies to control or destroy us.
I pray the military secure their position before ZERO destroys this last bastion of liberty.
Presidential micromanagement of warfighters seems to be a deeply rooted Democrat trait. This is how Johnson botched the Vietnam War and ensured the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of America’s best.
And he did this so that he and his buddies could get rich of lucrative defense contracts.
I tend to agree. We’re not really privy to the goings-on at the moment. From the outside, being wishy-washy looks just the same as being prudent. And, not caring about the hostage looks just the same as not wanting to give the hostage-takers untoward notoriety. So, really, all we can make judgments about is the outcome, and one thing’s clear about that: there weren’t any leaders of the minority party marching to the microphones, decrying the resolution as a cowboy-like overreaction, and claiming the whole thing was an example of Obama’s “failed foreign policy”. In that way, it differed from every action the prior President took.
It sounds like a local assessment to me..., at least that’s the way I read it...
The problem is, he had made up his mind. He had not given saving the captain as his top priority. The SEALs got on the Bainbridge Saturday night. They should have had an order to kill on first opportunity, but instead had to make extremely difficult shots because of Obama's constraints. It indicates that Obama does not put American life first and foremost above Somali pirate gangbangers.
An interesting thing that I have just recently done, has been the compiling of a list of “Presidential Crises” for the Presidents back to Eisenhower, and see how many they faced. I’ve put Obama down there, too, of course (but he’s still got time for a number more to show up in the future...).
It’s been quite informative...
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A previous post of mine below...
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Well, an interesting thing happened on the way to Free Republic for me, a few days ago..., it just started with a simple post and two little items on it... I never intended for the following list to come about... LOL...
Here’s where it all started, and then some FReepers started giving me some more events.. :-)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2226437/posts?page=5#5
THEN... it turned into this...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2226437/posts?page=135#135
We may have to stay for a longer time to make sure that neither Al Qaeda terrorists and their Iraqi allies and nor the Iranian terrorists and their Iraqi allies would rise to take over the country and plunge the Middle East into an extremely dangerous state. If this happens that we are going to have such a horrible situation that we cannot even imagine in our worst nightmares.
The only reason he kept quiet. His silence and whatever he called “monitoring the situation” I think, was all about keeping clear of a disaster.
“I the great ZERO solved the problem.” vs. “I left it in their hands and it is a shame they could not do better.”
Now he and his gang of thugs step forward as heros.
Oh..., and by the way, as I’ve been compiling that list of Presidential crises, I decided to watch Missiles of October again. That’s a “real crisis” for sure and not this little event by Obama. I hope no one thinks that this is a “test” for Obama in any way. It’s really not too much of anything.
But, watching The Missiles of October, you get a real sense of the “goings-on” in the Presidential office and what happens during a crisis. It was also interesting in dealing with the military in a crisis such as this, too (not that I think anything like that happened with Obama, though...).
I tried to play devil's advocate on this one, that is the way I feel about matters involving the military. As it turns out, the SEALs were not in place until Saturday night, so IMO there would not have been proper resources in place the first time the captain attempted to escape. And I have no problem with a directive that puts the captain's life first and foremost. This country owes that to a man of such bravery. But if the SEALs were not allowed to plink the perps the first opportunity they had because of operational constraints from Obama - well, that is very problematic. Prior reporting made it seem like the final kill shots were the first opportunity. But if they had prior opportunities, that changes everything.
....BullSh@t. Welcome to FR.
What a scenario, and our Eastern European allies will look on as 0bama does nothing. Putin is just waiting to make his move to humble and humiliate the US.
Then then ME grandees will be looking for the strong horse, and we're back to a bi-polar world. And what will happen when Israel attacks Iranian nukes, and we wake up to another Iranian tanker shipping war ?
Can you see 0bama handling that ?
If I was president I would have not needed a briefing. I would have told the DoD to take care of it any way they thought best and then tell them to get on it.
Absolutely not in the right way. If he handles it it will be a disastrous failure.
This makes how many times ZERO and the thugs have taken “economies with the truth” ...we call those lies where I come from.
How many events have there been already since January 20, let alone since this SOB came on the scene where the phrase, “What did he know and when did he know it?” applies?
He is lying to us on a near daily basis. When he is not lying outright he is being deceptive.
Why did he have to approve the order twice? Did he take it back after the first time?
Interesting, I would have to agree that is a very unusual wording in the request.
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