Where Credit Is Due
By Mitch Berg
The credit for the news of the deqth of Bin Laden fairly goes (in addition to the intelligence, military and even some local Pakistanis) to the President. If it’d failed, it would have rested on his shoulders; it’s only fair that we credit him for the risk he took – different though that risk is from the ones the SEALs, the Army chopper pilots and the rest of the guys on the ground took. To be honest, given his record so far, I’d have expected him to have launched a Predator strike – something that would have killed him (or someone) without the political risk – but also without the certainty.
Now, here’s the part I’m looking forward to; watching the left walk back the fact that so much of the policies – and so many, I suspect, of the discrete military and intelligence activities that led to this day – were continued under the Bush administration.
Which, again, is no knock on Obama.
But I’m looking forward to seeing the reactions of the elements of the Twin Cities media who, 24 months ago, were acting like a bunch of 15 year old girls who’d just gotten Justin Bieber tickets after having been allowed into the presence of Seymour Hersh, who was talking (along with Walter Mondale) about a story from “upcoming book”:
“Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command — JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. …
According to Hersh, this mattered because…:
“Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.
It was JSOC troops – officially SEALs, along with Army Special Operations Aviation, but JSOC missions reportedly mix in other troops, Rangers and “Delta” and other units pretty liberally – that carried on the “execution”.
Just saying.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Now, here’s the part I’m looking forward to; watching the left walk back..
Walk back? This is different: Our guy rocks! USA! USA! USA! Stick it Repuglicans!
Hope that helped.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
My guess is that, with a few diehard far left exceptions, fear of JSOC amongst our progressive friends will disappear down the memory hole along with Gitmo, civilian trials for terrorists and a few other inconvenient truths.
“We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
I don’t care if Orwell wrote it or not. It’s the truth.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Hey, I hadn’t even read DG’s response to the last post before I wrote the comment above. Thanks, DG, passive-aggressive, but right on message.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I am waiting with breathless anticipation for Dog Gone to retract “You’d choke before you could compliment Obama for this victory”.
Any time would be fine.
May 2nd, 2011 at 1:09 pm
I wouldn’t choke, either. Here’s what I wrote at my place:
I don’t begrudge the President taking a victory lap last night. Osama bin Laden assumed room temperature because the President decided, despite some campaign rhetoric to the contrary, to maintain a sufficient amount of force in the field to reach and kill bin Laden. He took plenty of heat for this from his political allies but he stayed the course. That took courage and it would be churlish to pretend otherwise.
If there’s criticism due, it’s not to Barack Obama. Any such criticism belongs to some of the President’s supporters, who are spinning faster than an Iranian centrifuge right now.
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:41 pm
List me as looking forward to seeing a Subaru with a bumper sticker that says: “I’m Already Against the Next JSOC Execution”. Wait til Lefty learns that the courier info came from enhanced interrogations in secret countries… that’ll spill some fair trade coffee. They told me if I voted for McCain…
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Odds are that the Seals were there to provide cover for the tag-team terrorist busting duo TED NUGENT and SARAH PALIN!
In your face, moonbats!
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:34 pm
For the record, I am very happy Barry Obama used:
-Torture
-Illegal warrantless domestic spying
-Murder
To kill OBL. Hey used Bush’s tactics and it worked. It was weird seeing Crazy Al Franken on the news today with that smirk on his face.
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Most conservatives are complimenting Obama on using this tactic to get OBL.
The only criticism I have read is that the speach was a little too much about the community organizer.
May 2nd, 2011 at 5:30 pm
It just occurred to me that having Obama serve as executioner of OBL was the best possible option. Had it happened on W’s watch, I doubt we would see the unabashed cheerleading by the left. Let’s face it: they put partisanship ahead of national security and pride. For once, I don’t give a damn.
May 2nd, 2011 at 7:06 pm
Terry,
I attended a shooting competition fundraiser in Michigan a couple of years ago and Mr. Wango Tango himself was a contestant. I will just say this; I wouldn’t want to be in his sights – shotgun, rifle, didn’t matter – he was a shooter!
May 2nd, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Obama has done 2 things right so far by my count (ok 3 with passing the tax breaks another couple of years). Authorizing the Navy Seals to take out the pirates on Easter ’09 and signing off on this mission. Way to actually use our military in the manner it was meant to be used.
May 2nd, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Oh and I have a nice chat going on with a lovely little moral relativist on facebook, here’s the link if you care to see how I wipe the floor with him…
http://www.facebook.com/fiakealii/posts/10150195957798407?notif_t=feed_comment_reply
May 2nd, 2011 at 10:17 pm
You all may think that this is a stretch, but contrast and compare this picture of Osama:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4681736/Geography-professor-claims-to-have-found-Osama-bin-Laden.html
With this picture of Kah-less:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kahless_%28painting%29.png
Now picture Kah-less, Founder of the Klingon Empire, with a turban.
I’m just sayin’, is all.
May 3rd, 2011 at 6:21 am
Ben,
Nice work, bro! You are totally kicking his pansy ass!
May 3rd, 2011 at 2:41 pm
@Chuck
You wrote:
“It was weird seeing Crazy Al Franken on the news today with that smirk on his face.”
Does Al Franken ever have anything but a smirk on his face?
May 3rd, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Yup, Mitch. Credit where credit is due. It was a risky call, but it worked.
But what if, next time, (and there’s others still out there) it turns into Desert One V2.0? In foresight, next time around, wouldn’t it make sense to skip the risks and the photo proof, and drop a couple dozen JDAMs?
And, as long as I’m being skeptical, if this had happened three years ago, wouldn’t we be hearing how Cowboy Bush was living something out of a Tom Clancy novel?
The last is a rhetorical question; the first one isn’t.
May 4th, 2011 at 8:20 am
Answering myself: the non-PR benefit of doing it with boots and guns was all the intel that was scooped up; a JDAM strike wouldn’t have left it intact. Was it worth the risk? I’m skeptical, but willing to be convinced, either way. (My very distant impression is that the conventional wisdom among the folks who actually know about such things is that OBL had been far removed from an operational role, as the data coming in and out of where he was — no matter in what form — was too likely to give his location away. As it apparently did; unless we’re being fed disinformation [and I don’t object to that sort of tactical deception] the key to locating him was identifying and tailing his favorite courier.) At least arguably, it would make more sense to do the risky sort of operation for somebody lower down on the food chain, as they’re likely to have up to date data on who is doing what.