Navy Seals Rescue Hostages

[Brovane]

Looks like the Seals got to kill more pirates.

Thank you Navy Seals for the succesful rescue.
Thank you Mr. President for making the call to run the operation.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/world/africa/somalia-aid-workers/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

[DrPizza]

Awesome

 

[momeNt]

Which seal gets to sleep with the chick? Fairy tale ending necessary in a story such as this.

 

[Ausm]

The POTUS is weak...que in Right Winger rants.

 

[chucky2]

I really don't get people who think a POTUS is strong or weak giving the go ahead for the military - who is strong - to use its overwhelming force against a far weaker and outclassed opponent. BHO isn't strong or weak when he orders SEAL's to go take out shitbag pirates, he's merely efficiently using his resources, nothing more.

The best you could say here is we got what we paid for.

 

[Brovane]

I really don't get people who think a POTUS is strong or weak giving the go ahead for the military - who is strong - to use its overwhelming force against a far weaker and outclassed opponent. BHO isn't strong or weak when he orders SEAL's to go take out shitbag pirates, he's merely efficiently using his resources, nothing more.

The best you could say here is we got what we paid for.

Actually it takes a certain amount of political bravery to put boots on the ground in a SPEC Ops mission such as this. Think about President Carter and how the distaster in the Iranian hostage rescue and how this affected his presidency. If the mission would have gone badly, Obama would have been laid into by his opponents. So yes willing to make the call to undertake a SPEC Ops mission such as this does make a president look strong. The failure for Carter made him look very weak.

 

[GoPackGo]

I really am impressed with Obama's use of the military.

 

[Ausm]

I really don't get people who think a POTUS is strong or weak giving the go ahead for the military - who is strong - to use its overwhelming force against a far weaker and outclassed opponent. BHO isn't strong or weak when he orders SEAL's to go take out shitbag pirates, he's merely efficiently using his resources, nothing more.

The best you could say here is we got what we paid for.

So that means he wouldn't pay a political price if an operation he gave the green light to failed miserably? The Repubs would be all over it like stink on shit.

 

[Pocatello]

From the use of drones to kill Taliban leaders in Pakistan to the use of special forces to rescue hostages and killing terrorists, Pres Obama is getting it done.

 

[ShawnD1]

Rescue teams seem to have the coolest stories. Remember that movie Predator? Arnold was leading a rescue team to rescue some hostages from a group of guerrillas and the pencil pushing guy had to get some documents or something.

Rambo 2 and 3 were about that as well. Whoever made Rambo 3 was on PCP or something. Wasn't there a scene where a tank and a helicopter crash into each other? wtf was that? One is a heavily armored vehicle designed to withstand artillery fire and the other is a bunch of tin foil taped together so it's light enough to fly. The ending is as dramatic as having Rambo driving an H1 hummer and the bad guy driving a Smart Fortwo and they smash into each other head first. Obviously Rambo is at no risk of dying unless something weird happens like fuel from the chopper gets into the tank and starts on fire.

 

[dud]

"The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice," Obama said in a statement. "This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people."


What is the President trying to say here? Is it the USA against the world?

 

[chucky2]

Actually it takes a certain amount of political bravery to put boots on the ground in a SPEC Ops mission such as this. Think about President Carter and how the distaster in the Iranian hostage rescue and how this affected his presidency. If the mission would have gone badly, Obama would have been laid into by his opponents. So yes willing to make the call to undertake a SPEC Ops mission such as this does make a president look strong. The failure for Carter made him look very weak.

Yes, but in modern day times, with proper support waiting in the wings, when is the mission going to go badly against Somali pirates? The Risk of that is so low, with the real and political gains so high (especially in an election year), that it's a no brainer decision.

So that means he wouldn't pay a political price if an operation he gave the green light to failed miserably? The Repubs would be all over it like stink on shit.

He would, but, as I said above, in modern times (enjoying all the tech that was a literal dream in Carter's days), the risk of something going wrong against Somali pirates is right down there at the zero level. This isn't some lone wolf mission into Afghani mountains with no air or ground support, against all odds, Rambo-style...this is a group of Navy SEAL's, against shitbag Somali pirates, enjoying all the technology and support the US military has on hand.

This was a 'nothing' decision by Obama.

 

[Brovane]

Yes, but in modern day times, with proper support waiting in the wings, when is the mission going to go badly against Somali pirates? The Risk of that is so low, with the real and political gains so high (especially in an election year), that it's a no brainer decision.



He would, but, as I said above, in modern times (enjoying all the tech that was a literal dream in Carter's days), the risk of something going wrong against Somali pirates is right down there at the zero level. This isn't some lone wolf mission into Afghani mountains with no air or ground support, against all odds, Rambo-style...this is a group of Navy SEAL's, against shitbag Somali pirates, enjoying all the technology and support the US military has on hand.

This was a 'nothing' decision by Obama.

Actually it could easily have gone wrong. The pirates could have killed the hostages before the Seals could have neutralized them. This wasn't just a operation to kill pirates. This was a hostage rescue mission one of the more difficult SPEC Ops missions. If those hostages would have been killed this failure would have been used as a political weapon against Obama.

 

[chucky2]

Yes, they could have done that, but even if they had, that wouldn't have blown back on Obama, that would have blown back on the hostage takers. This was a no lose decision by Obama....hardly a tough call. The call he made on the OBL raid? Much tougher. This one? Almost nothing.

 

[cybrsage]

This call was as hard to make as a police chief deciding to send in SWAT to end a bank standoff with hostages.

OBL, MUCH MUCH harder call to make.

 

[ShawnD1]

He would, but, as I said above, in modern times (enjoying all the tech that was a literal dream in Carter's days), the risk of something going wrong against Somali pirates is right down there at the zero level. This isn't some lone wolf mission into Afghani mountains with no air or ground support, against all odds, Rambo-style...this is a group of Navy SEAL's, against shitbag Somali pirates, enjoying all the technology and support the US military has on hand.

This was a 'nothing' decision by Obama.

This brings up an interesting question. Do soldiers become more effective or less effective if they kill more people? On one hand, killing shitbags is practice, sort of like how sales experience makes someone a better salesman. On the other hand, some people start to feel guilty. Sometimes you don't want to kill people, especially if some of the pirates are forced to be pirates. That is often the case in armed conflict. Lots of nazi soldiers were just regular men who were drafted to fight in some conflict they did not agree with. In Africa, rebels will often raid a village, kill the men, rape the women, and train the children to be soldiers.

I can't remember where I was going with this. Use more robots to kill people.
-it's good training
-it doesn't cause as much guilt because it's more like a video game
-CGI graphics could be added on top of targets so they have smiley faces and big anime eyes which turn into big X eyes when the target is shot by the drone

 

[theeedude]

While he's giving the state of the union speech. So Godfather like.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Yes, they could have done that, but even if they had, that wouldn't have blown back on Obama, that would have blown back on the hostage takers. This was a no lose decision by Obama....hardly a tough call. The call he made on the OBL raid? Much tougher. This one? Almost nothing.

Incorrect. He would have received considerable backlash.

 

[theeedude]

This call was as hard to make as a police chief deciding to send in SWAT to end a bank standoff with hostages.

OBL, MUCH MUCH harder call to make.

Except people would bash Obama as a failure if he made that exact same call and things went sour.

 

[Brovane]

Yes, they could have done that, but even if they had, that wouldn't have blown back on Obama, that would have blown back on the hostage takers. This was a no lose decision by Obama....hardly a tough call. The call he made on the OBL raid? Much tougher. This one? Almost nothing.

I disagree. There would have been blow back if the hostages would have been killed during the rescue mission. I wouldn't have put it past his GOP opponents to use it as political fodder against the president.

 

[cybrsage]

Except people would bash Obama as a failure if he made that exact same call and things went sour.

Agreed, but it would be stupid to do so. The police chief would be bashed as well. It was the right call, even if it was an easy one.

 

[chucky2]

Incorrect. He would have received considerable backlash.

I disagree. As long as it's an elite unit (who's rep already endears them to the public), that had proper support and planning, it's not going to backlash on him from any meaningful amount of potential voters that would be swung either way in the election cycle.

Now, if the kidnapping was fresh, and the unit was ordered to go in against their desires, or sent in without support, something that could point to the POTUS as having pushed the military into acting when they didn't want to, and something went wrong...then I could see it splashing back onto the POTUS - maybe.

In this case, this was a no brainer. Anyone could have made this decision.

 

[CPA]

Except people would bash Obama as a failure if he made that exact same call and things went sour.

I would not. I think we need to do more of this kind of stuff. We have the SEALS for a reason, use them.

 

[chucky2]

Agreed, but it would be stupid to do so. The police chief would be bashed as well. It was the right call, even if it was an easy one.

Not really though. In a bank standoff, the hostage takes know they're surrounded, are barricaded in a bank, and know ahead of time that SWAT is very likely to be coming so as to expect it. The police chief in that situation has a far harder decision to make than BHO did here. BHO made the right call here, don't get me wrong, I'm just saying, those pimping this like it's some awesomely hard or even mediumly difficult decision for him to make are delusional (exactly how BHO would like you to be btw, it's an election year afterall).

 

[Jaskalas]

A job well done.