***** is gone

[2manyrocks]

The fact is IMO the president risked his whole political career on this one mission.

I'm sure most of us are old enough to remember Jimmy Carter's failure in Iran.

I think it's dramatically different.

Carter looked impotent in the face of the ongoing hostage crisis. If they had not succeeded this time, Americans still remember 9/11 and the resolve to redress the murder of Americans on our soil would still be burning. You just don't go around killing thousands of Americans, destroying the World Trade Center and crashing into the Pentagon without paying a price for it. You could add the USS Cole and other matters to the list.

 

[JB4310]

From what I've read they've been gathering info and training for years. They even built a mock compound to train in. It also appears they waited long enough for him to feel very comfortable and safe where he was. All the patience was worth it seeing none of the SEAL team was hurt. Amazing planning.

That is the amazing thing, no losses on our side. That compound had to be well fortified, it was ***** friggen Bin Laden's hide out!!! the guy who brings an AK47 to diner.
I'm really surprised the whole place wasn't booby trapped to blow up, he always said he would never be taken alive.

JB.

 

[Transit]

I think it's dramatically different.

Carter looked impotent in the face of the ongoing hostage crisis. If they had not succeeded this time, Americans still remember 9/11 and the resolve to redress the murder of Americans on our soil would still be burning. You just don't go around killing thousands of Americans, destroying the World Trade Center and crashing into the Pentagon without paying a price for it. You could add the USS Cole and other matters to the list.

The Carter mission was ill planed, much too fast and without proper thinking, the capabilities and limits of the choppers were bungled. How could the sand screens for the engines be forgotten? No maker lights, ok, use UV lights. Bungled, bungled, bungled!

 

[IslandTractor]

The Carter mission was ill planed, much too fast and without proper thinking, the capabilities and limits of the choppers were bungled. How could the sand screens for the engines be forgotten? No maker lights, ok, use UV lights. Bungled, bungled, bungled!

Remember the "Carter" mission was really the first special ops mission for almost a decade after the Vietnam War and there were probably not many really experienced people involved operationally. The previous extraction operation was the Mayaguez operation in Cambodia in 1975 and that time the Marines managed to accidently leave three men behind (all captured and killed by Khmer Rouge). If I recall my history, Delta Force and the beefing up of other special ops forces as well as cross service training and teams all came about after the failed Iran mission so Carter was playing with a different deck of cards. The military was not even out of it's post Vietnam doldrums yet at the time of the Iranian Embassy takeover. Was it bungled? Yes, but hardly something to blame directly on Carter. Yes, the POTUS always either gets credit or blame but was the White House really supposed to remind the Navy about sand screens etc?

 

[Transit]

It is not a matter that the engine sand filters did not exist, any one knowledgeable that read the op manual knows that filters are required in sand conditions. Nav red/green marker lights off yes, but replace them with something we can only see. Its not up to carter to foresee these things, others get paid for that. I still think that the job was rushed to much.

 

[Johno Geo]

So they hunted down the old man who was the mouth piece and facilitator for the other 100 Million would be murderers out there.
Aftter 10 years....
Revenge just doesnt bring closure... you think it should, but it doesnt.

.. and the liberals , I mean Progressives want to know , "What did we do wrong to Cause such aggression against us"???

 

[newts53]

If this gets Obama re-elected, ***** will have done more damage to this country in his death than he could have ever done in life.

 

[Redgate West]

I am a former Navy ET and my nephew is currently serving as a Navy Seal. They are extremely well trained and dedicated. The credit goes to them in my book.

 

[IslandTractor]

I am a former Navy ET and my nephew is currently serving as a Navy Seal. They are extremely well trained and dedicated. The credit goes to them in my book.

Credit is fairly shared by the whole larger team. The operation wouldn't have happened without the Seals or the CIA analyists or those collecting tidbits of information on the ground over the past five years. Neither would it have occurred without the support and maintenance troops at the Seal bases. I'd guess that some Air Force or Navy fighters were flying cover just in case and that there were assets yet unnamed and unacknowledged on the ground in Pakistan too. And without the political will of both recent administrations and the US public it is hard to imagine how such a concerted effort over ten or more years could have been possible. Team USA took out Bin Laden.

I often reflect on our tendency to focus on the tip of the spear and ignore what it takes to get that spear to the right place on the battlefield at the right time. The movie Top Gun is a great example as it focuses almost exclusively on the hot shot F14 pilots while almost completely ignoring the fact that those pilots and planes are worth precisely squat as a combat resource without the five thousand sailors and airmen on the aircraft carrier. We no longer live in a world where combat is mano a mano as in Achilles and Hector's day. Complex combat systems are virtually always team efforts so the glory should fairly be shared. That said, Seal Team Six makes one hellofa fine spear point!:thumbsup:

 

[riptides]

So they hunted down the old man who was the mouth piece and facilitator for the other 100 Million would be murderers out there.
Aftter 10 years....
Revenge just doesnt bring closure... you think it should, but it doesnt.

.. and the liberals , I mean Progressives want to know , "What did we do wrong to Cause such aggression against us"???

Some would say that the cause was actually created and funded by US, trying to get the Russians out of Afghanistan during the Cold War. The cause then turned on US, due to our policies in the Middle East. ***** was at odds with the ruling elite in Saudi Arabia. And today, as we are seeing it, people's voices are trying to be heard in that part of the world. So I guess if you fishbone it, eventually the US plays a part in the model of terror. Depending on what side of the religious belief one is in, your at odds with a lot of your leaders in that part of the world. So that also plays a part.