"One more thing: it was the TROOPS that won this victory, NOT the politicians!"

[moriah]

That's a quote from a dear friend of mine on FB. Yeah, she's a Republican. (It's hard having Republicans as friends if you actually care about politics, and also care about your friends...)

And it makes me really frustrated. Of course the soldiers won this victory. No one is questioning that. Obama has a bunch of people whose #1 job is to keep him from getting shot at -- the soldiers dodged bullets themselves.

But operations like this don't just happen with even the best trained soldiers acting alone. Someone had to give them a mission. Someone had to make sure the resources were dedicated toward it. Someone had to treat finding OBL as more than just a game of whack-a-mole. Someone had to actually acknowledge that it was important -- and get the job done.

Of course the soldiers win this victory. But so did their Commander in Chief.

And would this person have said these things had Bush been the CiC at the time? I highly doubt it.

Sorry, just had to vent.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. I've posted that same response to the same meme repeatedly today.

I hear you. :hug:

[seabeyond]

2. he could have followed the advice of massive bombing hoping they got him

and would be able to prove they got him and killed lots of innocents. but OBAMA, the politician chose to go a different route. AGAIN, the pres made the decision to op strike as he did and was successful. so i beg to differ with your friend.

repugs tend toward bombing the shit out of all...

[ingac70]

3. If the mission had failed she'd be.....

more than happy to drape that albatross around his neck. Osama Bin Laden didn't fly the planes on 9-11 himself either. Leadership counts.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, moriah.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Uncle Joe]

7. I believe that was the point of the OP. n/t

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Silly me, you're correct.

:)

[pnwmom]

6. Obama made the key decisions. Tell that to your friend.

The Seals did an excellent job of carrying out the orders that were made by their superiors -- including Obama. Obama wisely rejected the military's first plan, to drop bombs on the compound. This would have obliterated everything, killed more people, and left the U.S. with no solid proof of Bin Laden's death. Instead, they got the body, avoided unnecessary collateral deaths, and retrieved computers and hard drives from the compound. Obama can and should be credited with making the hard choices that led to this achievement.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. The troops wouldn't have left base had Obama not pressed GO

She can chew on that for awhile. Obama had numerous options. He picked the riskiest one, and the best one. You damn skippy it was his victory. The SEALs are still sitting on their hands until he sends them somewhere.

[leveymg]

9. Tell your friends that if Dubya was still Prez, or McCain, we'd have probably lost a US city by now.

They're that incompetent. One has to agree, no matter where one is coming from, that Obama is a competent executive.

[jillan]

10. Boner, Cantor and the gang were spewing this earlier. They cannot give Obama his due - even on this

They are just a bunch of whiny brats.

[KathieG]

12. I knew they would take that angle, called it last night.

It is frustrating. Right now they are trying several arguments to see what "sticks", I have heard the argument you posted along with several others, "Bush should get the credit", "it was an illegal operation", "OBL was already dead, Obama is just using this to get ahead politically"...the list goes on. They are so predictable. :eyes:

[Nevernose]

18. I think it WAS an illegal operation.

To which I say: so fucking what? Doing the right thing and doing the legal thing aren't always the same thing, and as I learned from Spike Lee movies: you always got to do the right thing.

[FrenchieCat]

14. The troops have been around for the past 10 years of this happening.....

Barack Obama just got there recently enough.

What made the troops suddently more effective than they had been
in the prior 8 years???? and is someone claiming there to be a
a coincidence? I certainly know that it wasn't.

[Greybnk48]

15. Oops! I unrec'ed. Please ignore.

[IDemo]

20. Covered n/t

[moriah]

16. Thanks, all of you, for validating my feelings.

There's a reason I didn't say any of that to her -- I really care about her as a person and I don't like to get into intense political debates with her. We disagree fundamentally on so many things that if we let our disagreements get too heated it might damage the friendship, and she's been there for me a lot in the past.... as I've been there for her.

Unfortunately she just posted something else on someone else's FB when they said they thought "a happy dance was going on at a ranch in Texas"....

"They deserve it!"

.... but Obama doesn't? When Bush was the one who said that it wasn't a concern about catching OBL?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!

I want to STRANGLE someone!!!!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

17. If this had happened when GWB was president no way she'd ever say that.

[bullwinkle428]

19. Just share the video clip of Bush saying he doesn't give a shit

about Bin Laden.

THE DEFENSE RESTS.

[Cid_B]

21. Of course they would say it 3 years ago...

... it would just be everyone here.

[treestar]

22. Take one more step and we get no credit as Americans

It was the soldiers not the people (or their representative).

It does not seem such a great idea to separate the military from the people or the politicians in this way.

[ChoralScholar]

23. I told my sister, who is a Lt. in the Army

and should know better -

that the Navy Seals weren't just sitting around over a beer and decided to drop by and kill bin Laden. There's a command structure, with the President at the top. He gets the credit, and he gets the grief.

[Arger68]

24. Seen by a couple friends on my Facebook wall:

REPOSTED!!!!~ Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found OBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! REPOST IF YOU AGREE!!!


But you know they'd be just giddy if the helo that tipped over had crashed and the SEALs were all killed and the mission was scrubbed - just so they could talk about how Obama doesn't have the skills to be commander in chief, blah blah blah. According to this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110502/us_time/httpswamplandtimecom20110502insidethesituationroomweveiddgeronimoxidrssfullnationyahoo

This was a VERY risky mission, for the troops involved and the man who ordered it. Granted, he didn't risk his life but he DID pretty much risk his presidency. If President Carter had had better luck when he ordered the mission to rescue the hostages in Iran we would quite probably have never had the disaster named Ronald Reagan. :rant: