Imagine if OBL hadn't been in that compound.

[Sparkly]

They weren't entirely sure he was there.

Obama's team of advisors were divided about the president's three options: wait for more intelligence, strike from above, or go in on the ground from helicopters, as they did.

This was a HUGE risk. If BIn Laden was not there, or if the mission failed in any way, the U.S. would be in a terrible position for entering a sovereign country and attacking whoever actually was in that place. It couldn't have happened again, so this was a one-chance operation. The only way to get away with it was for it to succeed perfectly.

Politically, it would have been an absolute disaster if it hadn't worked. President Clinton missed Bin Laden and was ridiculed for that, and for supposedly "bombing an aspirin factory" -- remember that? And BushCo, that pompous team of phony machismo, didn't even have the guts to risk political fall-out by sending our forces into the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan.

So anyone who said the president just "complied," or that it was a no-brainer to give that order, is deluded. It took guts. It was also a risk for the CIA and for the State Department. How would our UN allies have reacted if this seemed to be a foolish, rash move, done in secret without consulting them, let alone the Pakistan government? Or what if we'd struck from the air and killed civilians, and still there was no Bin Laden there? What position would SoS Hillary Clinton be in right now?

The very idea of going in to Pakistan to get Bin Laden, given "actionable intelligence," was discussed during the Democratic primary debates as a very sensitive and controversial issue, with a lot of care not to go too far in even talking about the hypotheticals.

So make no mistake. This was a risky, gutsy move. They did it without any leaks, without any mistakes, and without any disruption. And now nobody's prancing around in fake uniforms on aircraft carriers, nobody's strutting about with macho slogans and poses, and nobody's making inappropriate braggadocio tough-guy sophomoric remarks. Instead -- gotta hand it to him -- Obama is talking about unity again.

It worked, and the risk paid off. And our Democratic administration deserves great credit. :patriot:

[Poll_Blind]

1. Pakistan, being in the dark, even scrambled their military to intercept the "intruders"...

...not knowing who it was, or if it was an enemy like India. Remember, these are both nuclear powers.

US feared Pak could mistake American raid to kill Osama bin Laden for India attack:

WASHINGTON: US President Obama and his national security team spent hairy moments in the White House Situation Room on Sunday worrying among other things that Pakistan would mistake the Osama-specific American commando raid on Abbottabad for an Indian attack.

In fact, a top US official disclosed in a briefing on Monday that the Pakistanis even scrambled their jets when they realized something was afoot in Abbottabad, but the US commandos finished their operation in 40 minutes and were out of there before the Pakistanis acted.

''The Pakistanis were reacting to an incident that they knew was taking place in Abbottabad. Therefore, they were scrambling some of their assets,'' US counterterrorism czar John Brennan revealed while providing some operational details of the mission. It was not clear if the ''assets'' Brennan referred to included just fighter jets or other options ranging from anti-aircraft fire to missiles.

Brennan disclosed that the US was ''concerned that if the Pakistanis decided to scramble jets or whatever else... They had no idea about who might have been in there, whether it be US or somebody else,'' in what was an implicit reference to India. ''So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces," he added.

This is being widely reporter, not just by the Times of India. Just do a Google News search for keywords:pakistan scrambled jets

If this went wrong, it could have gone wrong in some pretty ugly ways.

This roll of the dice paid off in a pretty spectacular fashion. I am assuming they rehearsed this and planned it into the ground.

PB

[Fuzz]

2. Carter, hostages, 1979. Did the republicans blame the military? Nope.

[elocs]

3. Had it gone wrong or badly Obama would have gotten the blame, been raked over the coals,

so he and his administration certainly deserve credit for a successful operation based upon months of study and intelligence.

[Javaman]

4. We wouldn't have heard a thing about it. nt

[Sparkly]

5. I thought of that, but

I don't think it could have stayed that tight for very long.

[n2doc]

9. +1

I suspect we have done a lot of these covert operations in the pas couple of years, but we didn't hear about them.

[Sparkly]

12. Because people in Pakistan don't have phones, computers, etc.?

Somebody tweeted this when the helicopter went down. If we'd have dropped a bomb or killed somebody's relative, I think there'd have been some noise made, so to speak.

[n2doc]

14. And how would they have known it was about OBL?

The guy tweeting had no idea OBL lived there. If OBL wasn't there, or had escaped, it would have just been another "operation to attack an Al Quida cell" We do other attacks all the time. Perhaps this would have gotten a little more attention because of where in Pak is was, but I think they would have minimized it had things gone wrong or had OBL not been there. We will never know, though. And I'm happy about that.

[Sparkly]

15. If it weren't, that would be even worse.

He is the only reason we could have to justify an attack inside Pakistan, especially with no notification to a single ally.

[n2doc]

17. I don't know about that

The head of the Taliban, or any high level (top 5) leader of AQ would probably be game. We are giving Pak a ton of money to look the other way. And we are looking the other way at their ties to AQ. And we didn't blow up the whole area, even OBL's house is relatively intact.

Let's put it this way- OBL was found less than a mile away from Pak's top military academy. Think that isn't either 1, a huge embarrassment, or 2, strong sign of their complicity in hiding him?

[DCKit]

6. If it had gone badly, or failed, they would have simply covered it up as best they could.

Classify the operation, tell Pakistan to STFU or lose U.S. funding and move along.

Our involvement in Iraqistan has been one long string of fuck-ups since day one. This is the first happy ending I can remember since Saddam was drug out of the spider hole.

[littlewolf]

7. if it had failed .. someone would have leaked it ....

their would be no cover up ... someone would have told it ...
and it would go down hill from there ....

[dems_rightnow]

8. Agreed but

We'd have never known those involved. There would have been a brief spate of deaths from "training exercises".

[Sparkly]

11. Training exercises, in Pakistan?

In a random town?

[deaniac21]

10. We are in Pakistan more often than the Pakistani comic.

[Kingofalldems]

13. Obama would have been blamed for sure----

But since it was a success Bush deserves ALL the credit. See how that works?

[damntexdem]

16. It would have been reported as a raid on an Al Qaida compound, with several Al Qaida deaths.