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It's interesting how Trump's opposers start bashing him and call this "A botched operation", without saying what resulted in the surprise dawn attack,which killed about 14 Al Qaeda fighters, and a senior leader in Yemen's Al Qaeda branch along with other militants.
It's also interesting, a military operation that had its roots in the Obama administration, and if Obama ordered this operation, they would have praised him for it, even if it ended up with 1 service member killed and the collateral damage that resulted.
Deal with it people, radical Islamists and Al Qaeda started this war before September 11th of 2001, remember the USS Sullivans and the USS Cole attacks, and other attacks that were carried out by Al Qaeda?
They never attacked us until we went over there, occupied their sovereign nations, desecrated their Holy Lands, and murdered innocent people.
Your entire post is fiction. We started it, period.
They never attacked us until we went over there, occupied their sovereign nations, desecrated their Holy Lands, and murdered innocent people.
Your entire post is fiction. We started it, period.
Ummm. Hmmm. Actually it's been our support for Israel that started as their biggest motivator, and of course things like helping install the Shah in Iran sure didn't help. The last really major operations we conducted over there until after 9/11 were in the 80s . Lebanon and Libya. Now, before you get to flared up, I'm not defending our Mid East policies as a whole. I was against invading Iraq. Afghanistan I supported our initial operations but don't agree with the commitment of ground forces we went into there and the subsequent attempt at nation building.
However, as far as "who started it" there's plenty of blame to go around looking back through history. My current position is we should pull out of there. Leave them to kill each other as they are wont to do. We have no vested interest, other than oil which we should be developing more domestically along with RD in other sources of energy. The money we've spent and the lives we've lost more importantly would have gone a long way to development of things here at home. Hell, if we had utilized all the resources we've put into foreign aid, especially in the ME, just over the last 20 years we could probably be making routine flights to other planets right now using who know what as a source of power.
But while I somewhat agree, to a degree, with what you're trying to say, the terrorists have hated us and been attacking us long before we did any of what you described. Going back a long way in truth. Starting on a large scale with the Barbary pirates. Even up through WW1 and 2 with Arab support and alliance with Germany in both wars. We don't have any reason for sympathy or love lost twixt us and the ME. We don't need to be as involved militarily there as we are, IMO, but we certainly will need to swat the occasional blood sucking insects and stomp some vermin when they become a nuisance.
As to destruction of holy sites and killing innocents they accomplish that well enough on their own. With alacrity. Pointing at the US for all of it smacks of consummate hypocrisy. They occupy, desecrate and murder quite well themselves and in ways that make anything US forces have done in battle look pretty tame by comparison. Often doing so with blaming the US as a goal.
Military operations will kill civilians. Thats reality, and people should be used to it by now.
The biggest issues I have is that it became apparent they knew we were coming even before we got there. And once that was clear-and it was clear before we engaged-the man on the spot (which wasn't Trump I suspect) made a poor call. Hindsight IS 20/20, but engaging a prepared enemy when before you had chosen to delay the operation until a moonless night indicates we should have backed off and tried another night, or just called in the air strikes.
This was not a sole US military operation, and one of our "allies" leaked in my opinion.
But...without ALL the information its hard to judge. So..shrug. I have faith in Mattis resolving the after action review in a way that makes us do this better in the future.
What an absolute MORON. He is a superficial JOKE of a president. WHO THE EFF spends all day yelling at foreign leaders on the phone and all night tweeting like Kim Kardashian?
And now, his first military action-A TOTAL FAILURE that ended with the death of a US soldier( RIP)
I guess you missed this part of the article:
"Trump approved the early Sunday morning raid, but it had been being prepared under the Obama administration for months.
The New York Times reported that Obama's national security aides had approved the plans for the risky attack, and that Obama had not acted because the military wanted to launch that attack on a moonless night."
Trump merely gave the go ahead based off of months of preparation that occurred under Obama.
At that, these activities have risk, no matter who is president. If the moonless night came while Obama was still president, the same thing possibly would have occurred.
Funny isn't it, that for the last 8 years, the left never said one word about American servicemen killed in raids on Islamic terrorists. Or about civilian "collateral damage". Yet now, with a Republican in the White House, it just became important again.
1) Nothing is funny about the loss of life ,period.
Why did they shoot the little girl in the neck? Perhaps Trump gave orders to implement civilian terror tactics, Vietnam style. He said he wants to kill the families of terrorists (she was related to one)
Would be unfortunate to have Seals be war criminals.
Vietnam style? What branch and unit did you serve in?
He could have canceled the mission...He is the president.
I have shared that when I take a new job and I do work in an administrative position, I'm not going to just do stuff because the previous employee thought it was a good idea. He should have immediately reviewed all matters of extreme importance IMO and our military raids and activities around the world are highly important and should have been at the top of the list.
Trump campaigned on getting us out of so many foreign countries. I agree with him on this. So IMO he should have canceled the raid.
You all making excuses for him not doing so fail to realize that when you get a new job, you need to review EVERYTHING that is going on that you will be directly blamed/responsible for and make adjustments as needed.
Maybe if he stayed off Twitter and signing EOs that involve things that his GOP backed, majority Congress could and would have handled, or going on and on about phantom illegal voters and crowd sizes - he would have paid more attention to military missions in the Middle East and decided not to do them.
This is on him and an American died because of him and innocent children died because of him. Contrary to what you all believe, the country is not a business. There are much more important things to be paying attention to than money and profits and boosting one's ego.
When you take on these "new jobs" as an administrator do you micro manage every operation that is connected to your area of responsibility? Don't you have a "chain of command"? Don't you ever trust the lower or middle managers assessment of situations?
Military operations will kill civilians. Thats reality, and people should be used to it by now.
The biggest issues I have is that it became apparent they knew we were coming even before we got there. And once that was clear-and it was clear before we engaged-the man on the spot (which wasn't Trump I suspect) made a poor call. Hindsight IS 20/20, but engaging a prepared enemy when before you had chosen to delay the operation until a moonless night indicates we should have backed off and tried another night, or just called in the air strikes.
This was not a sole US military operation, and one of our "allies" leaked in my opinion.
But...without ALL the information its hard to judge. So..shrug. I have faith in Mattis resolving the after action review in a way that makes us do this better in the future.
We can hope anyway. I suspect you're correct about a leak. The target was just a bit TOO ready for it to have been some scout or sentry with a cell phone to have called it in. Like you said it's hard to know. We most likely never will know.
When you take on these "new jobs" as an administrator do you micro manage every operation that is connected to your area of responsibility? Don't you have a "chain of command"? Don't you ever trust the lower or middle managers assessment of situations?
Hmm..it depends. There are arguments for both sides. Obama I think kept a pretty good management of it without micro-managing, or going outside of his own abilities. A good example is the Osama raid. Obama changed some aspects of it such as adding in more backup for them. But then once it kicked off he was hands free.
Trump I think is more hands off and trusting in his VERY qualified military folks. If I learn otherwise I will change my opinion.
Really folks, things go wrong, combat is a democracy-the other side gets a vote too.
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