Bin Laden '99

[chucky2]

Strawman alert! Who said he needed to do something immediately? I would have settled for taking the warning seriously and doing something, ANYTHING, in his first 9 months of office. Is that too extreme of an expectation for the Cheney fanbois? The Clinton Admin did not create AQ, that threat was not "their fuckup."



Here's one for you...

Clinton holds off blowing the shit out of one of OBLs camps because they think UAE royalty is present and in his company. Killing members of an allied royal family = no big deal, shame on you Clinton!

Cut to Tora Bora years later, OBL is holed up, expecting to die, writes his will, says goodbye to comrades and tells them to keep fighting. Cheney says hold up, no pursuit from Delta, tell the 10th Mnt to stay put, no one is allowed to seal off passes with mines and we're going to send in some mercenaries to do it even though they were fighting against us a couple weeks ago. Can't proceed, there might be some locals milling about that could get hurt. Suddenly, the possibility of collateral in a remote mountain area (that's been a warzone for days) is just too much to risk! Big deal! Shame on those dirty libs for even suggesting it!


It's an interesting double standard, one that many don't like to think about.

Awesome indeed! Now just explain how Clinton dropped the ball for years on the #1 threat they themselves say was out there. Good luck with that...

 

[kage69]

Awesome indeed! Now just explain how Clinton dropped the ball for years on the #1 threat they themselves say was out there. Good luck with that...

Translation: I got called on my selective partisan memory and now need to try and appear to know what I'm talking about by posing a vague diversion riding on the notion that the PoTUS is a dictator.


Oh you kids... lol

 

[chucky2]

So what you're saying is, you can't explain it, so whipped out a strawman yourself. Outstanding.

 

[blankslate]

Strawman alert! Who said he needed to do something immediately? I would have settled for taking the warning seriously and doing something, ANYTHING, in his first 9 months of office. Is that too extreme of an expectation for the Cheney fanbois? The Clinton Admin did not create AQ, that threat was not "their fuckup."



Here's one for you...

Clinton holds off blowing the shit out of one of OBLs camps because they think UAE royalty is present and in his company. Killing members of an allied royal family = no big deal, shame on you Clinton!

Cut to Tora Bora years later, OBL is holed up, expecting to die, writes his will, says goodbye to comrades and tells them to keep fighting. Cheney says hold up, no pursuit from Delta, tell the 10th Mnt to stay put, no one is allowed to seal off passes with mines and we're going to send in some mercenaries to do it even though they were fighting against us a couple weeks ago. Can't proceed, there might be some locals milling about that could get hurt. Suddenly, the possibility of collateral in a remote mountain area (that's been a warzone for days) is just too much to risk! Big deal! Shame on those dirty libs for even suggesting it!


It's an interesting double standard, one that many don't like to think about.

That part about Delta is actually true. Although the person interviewed states he doesn't know where the denial of their plans came from...

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-4494937.html

Delta developed an audacious plan to come at bin Laden from the one direction he would never expect.

"We want to come in on the back door," Fury explains. "The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind."

But they didn't take that route, because Fury says they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure," he says.

The next option that Delta wanted to employ was to drop hundreds of landmines in the mountain passes that led to Pakistan, which was bin Laden's escape route.

"First guy blows his leg off, everybody else stops. That allows aircraft overhead to find them. They see all these heat sources out there. Okay, there a big large group of Al Qaeda moving south. They can engage that," Fury explains.

But they didn't do that either, because Fury says that plan was also disapproved. He says he has "no idea" why.

"How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" Pelley asks.

"In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," Fury says.

 

[chucky2]

I can already see problems with Deltas plan. What happens when the multitudes of innocents that use the same passes blow their legs off, and then we go wipe them out wholesale?

Next, how often does Delta come up with plans that have such a large potential, and in this case, probable, impact to civilians?

My guess is, in the 5 years he was there, Never. (since we'd never been in that position before, pre-9/11)

I knew 2012 would be the year of spin, and this is no exception. For Dems having a clear win for Nov, I cannot imagine what is causing you all to act this way...

Chuck

 

[blankslate]

Awesome indeed! Now just explain how Clinton dropped the ball for years on the #1 threat they themselves say was out there. Good luck with that...

It wasn't until a series of bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in August of 1998 that Bin Laden was recognized as a threat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/7/newsid_3131000/3131709.stm

1998: US embassies in Africa bombed
At least 200 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured following explosions at United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The bombings took place within minutes of each other at around 1030 local time.

No-one has claimed responsibility but US officials suspect the attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist.

The first blast happened in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam and the second, just five minutes later, in Nairobi, Kenya's capital city.

The above was an early news story.


Later the bombings were more firmly linked to Al-Qaeda
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120807/OPINION04/308070008/Embassy-bombings-introduced-bin-Laden

Eventually, the U.S. tied 21 al-Qaida terrorists to the 1998 bombing; of those, 17 either have been killed or are serving prison sentences for their involvement. Al-Zawahiri remains at large.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html?pagewanted=all

Bin Laden, however, demanded to be noticed. In February 1998, he declared it the duty of every Muslim to “kill Americans wherever they are found.” After the bombings of two American embassies in East Africa in August 1998, President Clinton declared Bin Laden “Public Enemy No. 1.”

The C.I.A. spent much of the next three years hunting him. The goal was to capture Bin Laden using recruited Afghan agents or to kill him with a precision-guided missile, according to the 2004 report of the 9/11 Commission and the memoirs of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence from July 1997 to July 2004.

Given that the bombings didn't occur until well into President Clinton's 2nd term and it was during the time that the nation was more interesting in his scandal with an intern.

It is clearly not the same as after 9/11 when President Bush had over one term to try and get him and people actually wanted for that to happen.


By the time of the bombings the nation was more concerned about lies about sex.
President Clinton's famous news "I did not.... yadda yadda" conference ealier in the year had already started an investigation by Ken Star.

Any military action taken by the Clinton administration during this time was seen as wagging the dog.

 

[chucky2]

It's not my problem as an American that Clinton couldn't keep his d1ck in his pants. The Clinton Admin had a job to do, and they blew it. Spectacularly. Making Congress excuses is just that: excuses. The Clinton Admin didn't need one thing from Congress, they had a wealth of Military and Intelligence agencies at their disposal if they really thought OBL was such a threat. Them trumping up the 'We told that Bush that OBL was dangerous, we told'em!' is a cop out, nothing more nothing less. It gets the attention off them for F'ing up in grand fashion and onto someone - anyone - else.

The Bush Admin blew it to but with only 9 months on the job, I give them a little leeway. Other than 9/11 happening on their watch (which would have happened on Clintons 3rd watch if we didn't have term limits), given our lackadaisical at the time attention to groups like OBL, what they really F'd up on was Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh well, it's only money...and lives...

Chuck

 

[amish]

I can already see problems with Deltas plan. What happens when the multitudes of innocents that use the same passes blow their legs off, and then we go wipe them out wholesale?

Next, how often does Delta come up with plans that have such a large potential, and in this case, probable, impact to civilians?

My guess is, in the 5 years he was there, Never. (since we'd never been in that position before, pre-9/11)

I knew 2012 would be the year of spin, and this is no exception. For Dems having a clear win for Nov, I cannot imagine what is causing you all to act this way...

Chuck

"multitudes" of people traversing an area in the middle of nowhere? I don't see it. were there probably "civilians" in the population hiding out with OBL; sure, probably. we don't seem to have any problem with collateral damage from drones though.

the mines that would have been used expire after a set period of time and wouldn't have caused innocent deaths later on.

at Tora Bora additional Rangers were asked for and not deployed. should have happened as our "friends" let OBL walk out the back door. but, hey, hindsight is always 20/20 and we're all lay-z-boy generals...

 

[blankslate]

I can already see problems with Deltas plan. What happens when the multitudes of innocents that use the same passes blow their legs off, and then we go wipe them out wholesale?

The first plan involved them parachuting in and taking out Bin Laden without landmines...
how about reading the entire quote? So as to not miss the first plan.... here it is again in bold for you.

"We want to come in on the back door," Fury explains. "The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind."

But they didn't take that route, because Fury says they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure," he says.

I knew 2012 would be the year of spin, and this is no exception. For Dems having a clear win for Nov, I cannot imagine what is causing you all to act this way...

I suppose you'd be upset if people slandered President Bush as saying "I am truly not that concerned about him" in regards to Bin Laden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLTz-p0ZYKc&feature=related
oh wai...

Yet people still celebrated his demise when his death was announced.

Perhaps if we hadn't invaded Iraq which had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda and still to this day evidence of modern WMD program has yet to be found...

President Bush would have been the one to have given a news conference announcing Bin Laden's death.