Think he values their lives as much as Obama? No fricking way.
Think Republicans would have been going insane if Obama did this on his first day in office? You bet. Obama specifically kept this “intel raid” off the table even though it was an option.
As it is, it will be buried by tomorrow’s headlines. And it will be buried because the White House will have engaged in some as-yet-unthinkable combination of bumbling and vandalism that’s even more shocking than what we’ve seen today (this, Trump threatening war with Iran … and Mexico, etc. etc.) Because that’s what happened pretty much every day since Trump was sworn in.
So Trump and his jerks are claimed it was a huge Intel success because they grabbed computers. The thing is, they haven’t looked at them yet, didn’t have time. There literally could be nothing but games or pron on those hard drives. We also lost an Osprey and the raid should have been called off the minute backup knew it was compromised… but they didn’t and I’m guessing Trump was watching a video feed like he does tv like a damn reality tv show.
While I agree Hillary would get crucified for this (because, what doesn’t she get crucified for?), it’s not as if there weren’t civilian deaths during Obama-era operations, no? And I don’t say that makes it OK… the drone program, “kill list” and cavalier attitude toward “collateral damage” severely undercut my support for Obama back in the day.
I imagine you would have to go back to Carter maybe to find a President that wasn’t responsible for civilian deaths, and if Desert One hadn’t happened there likely would’ve been some in that op as well.
I remember plenty of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, of course, because we were at war there. And several deaths at home and abroad in training exercises…and certainly many Ospreys made very hard landings. Something happened in Benghazi once, but I don’t think we lost soldiers or marines there. Didn’t one or more of our guys get wounded on the mission where they got Bin Laden?
But I honestly don’t remember how many, if any, soldiers or marines he lost sending them in to a nation we weren’t at war with. Honest question.
I thought these types of raids were supposed to be surgical strikes. If you’re going to kill more civilians (including children) than bad guys then why not just send in the drones? At least then you wouldn’t be risking American servicemen. Was this a high enough profile target to warrant sending in the Navy Seals? At least Obama did it for Bin Laden and Jimmy Carter did it for American hostages. What was the payoff in this case?
[quote]U.S. military officials told Reuters that Trump approved his first covert counterterrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.
As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.[/quote]
[quote]One of the three U.S. officials said on-the-ground surveillance of the compound was “minimal, at best.”
“The decision was made … to leave it to the incoming administration, partly in the hope that more and better intelligence could be collected,” that official said.[/quote]
For people who aren’t reading other threads.
This is pretty damning if it’s accurate (and it’s Reuters so I’m not exactly skeptical).
He got servicemen killed from sheer incompetence and stupidity. Not to mention civilians, though I suspect no one will give a shit about that.
I thought in one of the reports I read Obama didn’t send them in because they wanted to go on a moonless night, and the next one was after his term ended.
The only reason to send in boots over a drone is for retrieval or intelligence reasons – e.g., to confirm the presence or absence of an individual or material or to effect the retrieval of said individual or material. If this isn’t required, it’s cheaper and safer (to all involved due to how boot operations can expand) to drop 500 pounds of high explosive.
Not really defending Trump, but I gotta ask: why is it the President’s job to have the right intelligence information, backup plans, etc. Shouldn’t his military advisors shoulder the blame here? How would he even know if he has the right information?
I mean if he told them to put together a plan to attack a random ISIS camp, they said “here’s one we could attack but we don’t know much about it” and he said do it anyway, then yeah, he’s to blame. But otherwise, if the Pentagon brought him a plan and said it would work, why is the President the one being blamed?
Agreed. I’m no fan of the Orange guy, but this is clearly just jumping on every tiny thing that goes wrong – regardless of whether Orange guy supporters would have done the same had Clinton won the election.
Regardless of whether it’s Trump or Obama or whoever - the person who makes the call ultimately bears the responsibility. And it’s the President who makes the calls.
As for how he knows he has the right information - he has to put capable, thoughtful people into the positions so that he know he trust their judgement. Obviously this will never happen with Trump.
