Clarification on what happened in Libya

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=SD Realtor]
Point 2 however makes no sense and in retrospect is more then likely not true at all. Bin Laden was not only not in Tora Bora, but we probably had no clue where he was.
[/quote]

Google “Bin Laden Tora Bora” throws plenty of links..

http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14190032

I believe there was a 60-minutes story on that too..

[quote=SD Realtor]
Also how do you conclude Mitts foreign policy to match GWBs?[/quote]

Well, I have not heard anything otherwise. But just look at who he hangs out with or who speak in support of him with on foreign policy issues. I see the same Bush people – Condy Rice, Cheney, John Bolton etc.

[ucodegen]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea]2) Bin Laden was holed up in Tora Bora and Bush decided not to pursue him. No one questioned that wisdom for years to come. Fox News and GOP do not bring that up even today.-[/quote] Inaccurate. He allowed some of the Afghanis to be included in surrounding Tora Bora. These Afghanis got ‘bought off’. If you also remember, they were pounding Tora Bora from the air. If you know anything about Switzerland, you will know why you just don’t waltz into Tora Bora to get Bin Laden. The tunnels are constructed to create a large killing zone around Tora Bora.

[SD Realtor]

You can make any indictments on Romney as you see fit. The bottom line is that he is not nor ever has been president.

Hobie I have read plenty of stuff on the web similar to what your link pointed to. I am trying to seperate fact from fiction.

All I believe is the following:

1 – In no way do I believe that the military does not prepare for rescues such as this.

2 – I believe that even with preparation, there is substantial risk involved.

3 – I believe that the administration was able to watch what was happening.

4 – I believe that several options were presented to the administration for a rescue with military assets and that these options were high risk.

5 – I also believe that another option presented was to ask the Libyans to attempt to make the rescue and that this option was selected and that this decision was made by the administration.

[Coronita]

I don’t care about the outcome of the election.

Do you folks realize the following irony?
It doesn’t really matter how smart you are….

The fate of the 2012 election…The fate of the United States for the next 4 years ultimately lies in the hands of a bunch of backassward people that live in the backassward parts of the U.S., probably with an IQ of 115 or lower….

[ucodegen]

[quote=Hobie]The most damning evidence in the Seal that laser painted the mortar position thus giving away his position and subsequently killed.

Was he bluffing the enemy to think they were being targeted to cease fire and retreat? Or was he in communication with an air asset coordinating a counterstrike?

Real time video from the air and the laser spot sure suggests the latter. Allen details??[/quote]Quote-reference for this please(NOTED: It was added later). There is also a problem. Laser designators are infra-red. Therefore, it is hard for them to give away the designators location. They are invisible to the human eye, as well as normal video cameras. They are also sending a digital data stream/id and cert info when they ‘paint the target’. This way if two designators are active, the weapon will know which is which. It also makes is harder to ‘fake’, and means you can’t use a simple laser pointer for a laser designator.

Looking at Update #4 on Hobies link There is a problem. You do not need to lase in the normal mode to get range/bearing from the sensors for indirect fire. The lase period is much less than one second – works like a laser rangefinder.

[ucodegen]

[quote=flu]The fate of the 2012 election…The fate of the United States for the next 4 years ultimately lies in the hands of a bunch of backassward people that live in the backassward parts of the U.S., probably with an IQ of 115 or lower….[/quote] That means that the smarter portion of the US needs to learn how to breed at the expense of the US…

[Coronita]

[quote=ucodegen][quote=flu]The fate of the 2012 election…The fate of the United States for the next 4 years ultimately lies in the hands of a bunch of backassward people that live in the backassward parts of the U.S., probably with an IQ of 115 or lower….[/quote] That means that the smarter portion of the US needs to learn how to breed at the expense of the US…[/quote]

I think the smarter portion of the US needs to learn how to be more like Romney the businessman that pays less taxes, not Romney the politician (The man, who’s celebrity endorsement includes a drunken stupor named Meatloaf)….

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=ucodegen]Inaccurate. He allowed some of the Afghanis to be included in surrounding Tora Bora. These Afghanis got ‘bought off’. If you also remember, they were pounding Tora Bora from the air. If you know anything about Switzerland, you will know why you just don’t waltz into Tora Bora to get Bin Laden. The tunnels are constructed to create a large killing zone around Tora Bora.[/quote]

Bottom line is Bin Laden was in Tora Bora and our military leadership and possibly even Bush administration had enough reason to believe that Bin Laden was there. I think we at least agree on that.

1 – In no way do I believe that the military/special forces do not prepare for such a situation as taking Bin Laden out in Tora Bora with ground assault. certainly 2 months after 9/11 there was no higher priority in front of our military than take out Bin Laden. At least that’s what I think!

2 – I believe that even with preparation, there was substantial risk involved in such an operation on ground.

3 – I believe that several options were presented to the Bush administration for going after Bin Laden with military assets and that these options were high risk.

4 – I also believe that another option presented was to let Afghans/northern alliance to largely attempt to take out Bin Laden on the ground and that this option was selected by them…

[livinincali]

This incident becomes stranger and stranger and it looks like a cover up that’s starting to fall apart. General Ham which was a 4 star general in command of African operations was relieved of duty for ignoring an order to stand down.

http://times247.com/articles/is-a-general-losing-his-job-over-benghazi

Essentially somebody above the commander of the region ordered a stand down and most likely it would have to white house or joint chiefs. It’s just fishy that you have a youtube protest story cooked up so quickly to explain the situation.

Based purely of speculation I’m guessing we had some kind of “Fast and the Furious” operation going on over there and in order to prevent people from finding out about it we decided we’ll sacrifice a couple of American lives and use a cover up story. The reality is unless somebody big up in the administration decides to talk they’ll probably successful cover it up but if somebody does talk then you have the possibility of something bigger than Watergate, assuming Obama gets re-elected. Of course Obama will probably try to shove Hilary under the bus if that happens.

[no_such_reality]

Benghazi smenghazi

Don’t you know the real story is what Romney said about Jeep jobs moving to China?

[KSMountain]

[quote=ucodegen][quote=enron_by_the_sea]2) Bin Laden was holed up in Tora Bora and Bush decided not to pursue him. No one questioned that wisdom for years to come. Fox News and GOP do not bring that up even today.-[/quote] Inaccurate. He allowed some of the Afghanis to be included in surrounding Tora Bora. These Afghanis got ‘bought off’. If you also remember, they were pounding Tora Bora from the air. If you know anything about Switzerland, you will know why you just don’t waltz into Tora Bora to get Bin Laden. The tunnels are constructed to create a large killing zone around Tora Bora.[/quote]
ucodegen is correct or mostly correct. There are several books written on this subject by U.S. folks who were there at the time, in different branches of service. It is possible to educate oneself on this matter…

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=KSMountain]
ucodegen is correct or mostly correct. There are several books written on this subject by U.S. folks who were there at the time, in different branches of service. It is possible to educate oneself on this matter…[/quote]

I am a dumb guy so why don’t you educate me… The only accounts of US folks that I can find go like this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-4494937.html

They all seem to suggest that Delta force presented several plans to take out Bin Laden, but Bush administration/Gen Tommy Franks did not approve any of them and decided to let Afghans do it…

Do you disagree with such a characterization? If yes, then educate me!

[SD Realtor]

Enron, I did not know any of the stuff that went on with Tora Bora and am enlightened.

Still, it doesn’t explain or excuse what has happened in Benghazi. It pretty much appears it was simply covered up better.

[SK in CV]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea][quote=KSMountain]
ucodegen is correct or mostly correct. There are several books written on this subject by U.S. folks who were there at the time, in different branches of service. It is possible to educate oneself on this matter…[/quote]

I am a dumb guy so why don’t you educate me… The only accounts of US folks that I can find go like this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-4494937.html

They all seem to suggest that Delta force presented several plans to take out Bin Laden, but Bush administration/Gen Tommy Franks did not approve any of them and decided to let Afghans do it…

Do you disagree with such a characterization? If yes, then educate me![/quote]

Some people might be surprised at this, but I do disagree with the characterization. Mostly with the framing.

I have no doubt that Bush wanted to get Bin Laden. Same with Franks. I suspect he was presented with a number of options, including letting the Afghans do it. I don’t know exactly what all those options were, but I suspect they included most of them listed by many sources. Between he and his advisors, it was (apparently) decided that “letting the Afghans do it” was the best choice. Not because he didn’t have the balls to do it. But because based on the facts he was given, it was the best choice.

Those are the kinds of choices commanders have to make. Sometimes they’re the right decision, sometimes the wrong one. Bottom line, he DID approve of one of the choices he was given. None of us will probably ever know the details of how and why he came to that decision, but of the thousands of decisions he made as president, I can’t fault him for this one. He did make a decision, one that appeared to him at the time to be the best available.

[KSMountain]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea][quote=KSMountain]
ucodegen is correct or mostly correct. There are several books written on this subject by U.S. folks who were there at the time, in different branches of service. It is possible to educate oneself on this matter…[/quote]

I am a dumb guy so why don’t you educate me… The only accounts of US folks that I can find go like this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-4494937.html

They all seem to suggest that Delta force presented several plans to take out Bin Laden, but Bush administration/Gen Tommy Franks did not approve any of them and decided to let Afghans do it…

Do you disagree with such a characterization? If yes, then educate me![/quote]

I’d be happy to. It’s good to know what your tax dollars are paying for and there are a lot of *extremely* talented folks in the special forces. We can certainly find a lot more than a single video link from cbsnews to inform us (did you ever hear about the car that was doctored with a compressed air canister on 60 minutes to try to illustrate runaway acceleration? (but I digress))…

Here are two interesting books by U.S. folks that were definitely there:

I recommend these. I think you’d enjoy them. In the first the guy is a CIA dude, one of the first there, on like September 20, 2001 or something, and he literally shows up at the ruins of Bagram with a trunk full of money and other folks and gets everything going. Bagram of course is now a full-fledged air base.

It’s been awhile since I read them but I flipped through the second one and the pages are replete with references to Delta Force, Rangers, Green Berets, CIA, and British commandos that were assaulting Tora Bora from the air and from the ground, in the snow and ice, both in the open and stealthily.

To say that Bush in a fit of shortsightedness or cowardice (or overfocus on Iraq) in Washington D.C. prevented folks from going in is inaccurate and does a disservice to the folks who were risking their lives, climbing up to altitude (have you ever tried to be active above 12000′?) with weapons and other heavy gear in horrible conditions, with untrustworthy guides and allies.

In Fury’s book, he claims we “took” Tora Bora in a way the soviets did not in 10 years. So without re-reading it, he claims we were definitely there and quote “won” the battle, but we did not get our man. Likely through treachery as ucodegen said.

Happy reading!

[Author]

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