Should Obama receive credit for getting Bin Laden

God love the Freedom of Information Act, but let's face it; there is so much information that we, the American public don't know to make an accurate call. Was President Obama the Commander-in-Chief when Osama bin Laden was killed? Yes. Did Clinton really have a shot at taking OBL out? Who knows? Was there ever enough intel available, including the amount of collateral damage, for Bush to take out OBL? Who knows?

Obama gets a check mark in this column, yes, but to say whether or not Clinton, Bush, McCain or Romney did (or would have) missed the boat is an uniformed opinion.

So let's just opine about what would have happend under McCain.

Is this a situation where the seal team was hunting Bin Laden in Pakistan for years and McCain would have received a call for approval on a go ahead to get him?

So McCain would have gotten him in the same time frame.

Or did Obama help direct a mission to focus on Pakistan and direct resources that led to this result?

Maybe McCain would have left Pakistan alone and started to charge into Iran.

I don't know.

But it looks good for Obama that he continually talked of getting Bin Laden through his campaign and through his presidency and he got him.

His leadership on foreign policy looks pretty good to me.

And it feels like foreigners hate us less now than before.

hh wrote:

Silly libs, Obama gets credit for bin laden but when it comes to the state of the economy he's not to blame. Bush's policies in the middle east made it possible for this raid to happen, just like he has a hand in the current economic state of this country

The economy is far from perfect. But I'm willing to bet no one wants to go back to 2007 to 2008 when the shiit hit the fan. Obama can take credit for bringing about a measure of stability since he took office. Bush took his eye off the ball to pursue some silly neocon dream about reshaping the Middle East costing the US hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives. If he had used those resources to go after the man actually responsible for 9-11 Bin Laden would have been caught long ago.

shi-thead wrote:

So let's just opine about what would have happened under McCain.

What's to opine about?

McCain said: “I think President Bush is being credit[ed] and he deserved credit, but I also think President Obama and his team deserve great credit as well. President Obama made the decision to go in the way they did and that obviously turned out to be an excellent decision.”

smitty werbenjagermanjensen wrote:

If you tell somebody to run a sub 4 mile. Do you get credit for their sub 4 mile? All Obama did was give the order. The people that deserve credit are the people that actually killed Bin Laden.

Yes, all he did was give the order and without that order, it would never have happened. Pretty important, don't you think?

If the mission had failed and the seals had died, would you have blamed them for the failure of the mission? Nope, you'd all be ripping Obama a new one right now.

Give the commander-in-chief his dues. It's people like you who would seek to discredit the importance of what Obama did, while praising Bush for the surge in a war which should have never taken place.

No DNA evidence provided yet, (when asked for it under freedom of information act, ACLU told we might get around to it in 25 years...) NO VIDEO. NO PICTURES. NO BODY.

No soldiers saying they actually saw him in Raid.

Americans = Sheep

It is very likely Bin Laden died years prior, and buried in an Unmarked Grave (which was his religion's tradition).

Fishing Instructor wrote:

What's to opine about?

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/flashback-2008-mccain-clinton-slam-obama-for-saying-hed-go-get-bin-laden-in-pakistan-video.php

That's pretty good evidence of the credit Obama should get.

He laid it out there way ahead of time.

Go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden with or without permission from Pakistan.

It unfolded exactly as he laid it out.

B-I-N-G-O. The failed attempt to rescue the Iran hostages was a catastrophe for Carter's presidency. He was seen as just too weak for the office. I do remember this country being elated when those hostages came home. Carter labored for their release before he was out of office, but many credit the impending presidency of Reagan for Iran's decision to let them go. I don't care what side of the political aisle you were on, you were just happy they were home. Odd that the demise of OBL doesn't bring about the same type of shared happiness or sense of satisfaction. Would it really kill some people to give credit to Obama for something this important?

Whaaat? wrote:

If the mission had failed and the seals had died, would you have blamed them for the failure of the mission? Nope, you'd all be ripping Obama a new one right now.

Give the commander-in-chief his dues. It's people like you who would seek to discredit the importance of what Obama did, while praising Bush for the surge in a war which should have never taken place.

I like that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the crowning achievement of his presidency so far is ordering a man killed.

ironic nobel winner wrote:

I like that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the crowning achievement of his presidency so far is ordering a man killed.

Well, he did okay the killing of a very bad man.

According to teabagging republikkklans, Usain Bolt and all

the black world record holders don't deserve credit for their records.The stop watch did all the work,they were only at the finish by happenstance.

The most serious terrorist threat we faced in recent times in Britain was a gang of home-grown Muslim fanatics who were far advanced into a plot to simultaneously blow up 7 passenger airliners heading for the USA while over the Atlantic. The so-called "liquid bomb" plot was one of the most audacious terrorist conspiracies to be uncovered and led to sweeping security measures at airports around the world. They were so fanatical, some had actually booked their wives and children on the chosen airliners. Their main contact and organizer was a another British born terrorist who had fled to Pakistan. At no time was Bin Laden involved or even his name mentioned in all the surveillance tapes - and I think that even supposing the abduction and subsequent murder of Bin Laden was true, he was long since past his sell-by date.

formidable doer of the nasty wrote:

If bin Laden gets "credit" for 9/11 then Obama should get credit for killing him. If you give credit only to the SEALs then you also have to only blame the hijackers, not bin Laden, and thus killing him was nothing more than an unjustified assassination.

Can't have it both ways, wing trolls.

This! ^^^

But I actually don't mind the right-wingers and their whining and their distortion of facts. I want them to hate Obama. That way it will be even sweeter in November.

[quote]Whaaat? wrote:

Yes, all he did was give the order and without that order, it would never have happened. Pretty important, don't you think?

/quote]

No pretty stupid that it works like that. That a person with no military background gives the ok. What qualified him to make that call? What actually happened is some higher up in the military who set everything up (in this case the offensive coordinator to the touchdown, or the OBL to 9/11) said this is how we are going to take down OBL... ok. And Obama says "ok".

Obama does get credit. Same as any president would get. Same as a baseball fan would get for catching a foul ball.

"Oh that's so cool you caught a foul ball! How on earth did you do that???"

"Well, I bought a ticket, and then uh, I was there when the ball landed in my lap."

If the mission had failed and the Seals been killed or captured, I'm pretty sure none of the conservatives here would have blamed Obama for that. Of course not.

are you gonna eat that pu**y? wrote:

If the mission had failed and the Seals been killed or captured, I'm pretty sure none of the conservatives here would have blamed Obama for that. Of course not.

And then Obama, as he has done his entire term, would have blamed Bush.

(Interesting, but I had to swap the "ss" with "**" so that I could get this to post)

Magic 8 Ball wrote:

are you gonna eat that pu**y? wrote:

If the mission had failed and the Seals been killed or captured, I'm pretty sure none of the conservatives here would have blamed Obama for that. Of course not.

^^This is correct

And then Obama, as he has done his entire term, would have blamed Bush.

^^This is incorrect on all levels.

Remind us, what has Obama blamed Bush for that wasn't Bush's fault?

Come on, if he's done it "his entire term" you must have lots of examples on hand. Just give us 5.

Any student of psychology would absolutely love this thread. Bin Laden, the most hated terrorist who orchestrated the worst attack on the US mainland, was finally brought to justice and killed by team working under the directive of Obama. But conservatives really hate Obama too.

How do they handle the dissonance this creates?

Emotionality and bias rule over intelligence and rationality. No matter how high the level of intelligence its subservient to the dictates of the bias. All the intelligence is used to try and find a way not to give credit to the hated Obama.

Some of the attempts include (1) Over focus on who pulled the trigger (2) Just claim he really didn't get him (it was faked) (3) Claim we really don't know the facts so no one gets credit (4) It was all done and planned by everyone else and he just agreed to it (like his policies and people he selected were not involved) (5) Focus all attention to his "politicizing the event".

Anyone of they will work to ease your dissonance but each one used reduces your credibility. People are interesting.