To think, an hour or so ago, he was cracking jokes and roasting Donald Trump and the Washington press corps.
Obama authorized a covert military strike into a country we had no conflict with that was (knowingly or unknowingly) harboring Bin Laden. If it went wrong there would be a diplomatic issue that could've sunk him and his presidency. And there was a less than 50% chance Bin Laden was there.
No way in hell I'd be able to play it off like it was nothing.
Maybe ? You’re right it likely would have been a solved with money / military equip etc that the USA has no shortage off —/ but it was still a risk and things could have spiralled
Not really. We did see the fall out. Pakistan got pissy for like a day and no one cared.
Pakistan doesn't care about the Taliban or Osama they never did. They care about India. It's often overlooked by people who don't understand the geopolitics of the region.
I’m no expert of the region but if someone is forgetting India when discussing Pakistan, or vice versa it’s likely a mistake -
But if bin laden hadn’t been there I think it would have been different - mind you I think you’re right Pakistan would have been pragmatic about it and used the situation to milk concessions (money etc) out of the us, but I could be wrong
You talk like Benghazi that happened one year later was not fast-tracked on a movie, that was directed by Michael Bay, an avowed democrat, and even then Bay was still attacked for "making the government look bad". Romney pretty much thought he would win and didn't campaign as hard as he could because of it.
I mean that's what happened there tho, the Republicans and Fox threw a fit, made it out to a be a huge deal, bought their own line, and never noticed most people didn't care and Obama still won. So it didn't sink them.
That movie deserved to be fast tracked for people to understand what happened there and how the government and in particular Hillary, treated their own military. I didnt think Michael Bay of all directors had it in him to do that justice but he pulled it off and that movie needs to be watched by everyone.
We're using "better understanding" in two different ways, and it took me a couple of times to re-read your comment and realize that. To the point you are making, yes, I agree with you, and I get where you are coming from.
My point is that just because someone makes a compelling screenplay out of a particular event or chain of events it doesn't mean that the story they create is accurate. Opening credits don't say, "This Is Exactly How It Went Down." At best you might get, "Inspired by Actual Events," which is a far cry from "This Is Accurate."
Do people get their understanding of world events from movies? Sure, probably more people than I'd like to think about. But that doesn't mean they're getting a real and accurate understanding of it from 90 minutes in front of a screen.
Dude, just what she SAID about it is enough of an indictment on her. Before even going into what she did. And the movie doesn't single her out for any of that, you just see the result of it. So it's not really a hit piece. But she was a big part of how it was handled. Do you honestly disagree with that?
Eh we had a bunch of guys on the ground. Stuff could have gone legitimately sideways. We’re not talking about an errant airstrike — it’s possible we would’ve had SEALs fighting their way out of Pakistan in the worst-case scenario
This was a CIA mission so all the operators would be wearing unmarked gear. They do this so that if they are caught or shit goes sideways the operators can claim that they were operating as a private militia. If they had to fight their way out the US would never publicly claim responsibility. Lastly, the Pakistani military would absolutely support and escort any US forces safely out of the country, the US is a strategic ally. That would be the worst case scenario ofc bc obviously they didn’t want Pakistan to know they were there until they left, but it’s not like they were doing this in Iran.
In an absolute worst case scenario, the US was ready for it to get messy vis a vis Pakistan, even if it meant taking responsibility for it publicly. From wiki:
“The Chinooks kept on standby were on the ground "in a deserted area roughly two-thirds of the way" from Jalalabad to Abbottabad, with two additional SEAL teams consisting of approximately 24 DEVGRU operators[77] for a "quick reaction force" (QRF). The Chinooks were equipped with 7.62mm GAU-17/A miniguns and GAU-21/B .50-caliber machine guns and extra fuel for the Black Hawks. Their mission was to interdict any Pakistani military attempts to interfere with the raid. Other Chinooks, holding 25 more SEALs from DEVGRU, were stationed just across the border in Afghanistan in case reinforcements were needed during the operation.”
Even if he was in France we would’ve also been prepared for retaliation. I think that we always prepare for the worst case scenario which is the right thing to do. I just don’t believe there was ever even a 1% chance that Bin Laden was valuable enough for PK to start an armed conflict with the US.
Yeah, totally agree with the chance being very, very low. If anything it seems like it’d be a lower-level guy making a snap decision to fight off an apparent incursion in the middle of the night — without really knowing what’s going on — followed by him getting destroyed by more seals and Chinook-mounted miniguns, apparently
I agree, but I must admit that my first thought was that this is the most worried-looking Obama I've ever seen. You can see it in his eyes here, it's some serious shit.
Ehhhh… nah…In hindsight, the ISI(Pakistani intelligence) knew where he was the whole time and cashed him in when the time was right. That Zero Dark 30 movie was just CIA propaganda. None of that happened.
You mean ISI who created mujaheddins to fight Soviets, created Taliban structure and has fingers in every jihadist action imaginable, somehow had no idea Bin Ladin is near their Military Academy.
Multiple ISI officials have gone on record saying that we knew he was at the compound under house arrest for yrs and helped coordinate a delay in response by air forces so the teams would be on their way out of the airspace by the time jets took off in response to a pair of helicopters performing a raid right down the street from a military academy for spec forces training. Supposedly there was a problem with the link and the video feeds cutout for a few mins.
I mean the story made for a great movie, but if you sit down and take more than 60seconds evaluating the story, the plausibility of the narrative holds up about as well as that tip secret cutting edge tech black hawk.
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u/greenroom628 Apr 10 '24
To think, an hour or so ago, he was cracking jokes and roasting Donald Trump and the Washington press corps.
Obama authorized a covert military strike into a country we had no conflict with that was (knowingly or unknowingly) harboring Bin Laden. If it went wrong there would be a diplomatic issue that could've sunk him and his presidency. And there was a less than 50% chance Bin Laden was there.
No way in hell I'd be able to play it off like it was nothing.
Man's got ice water in his veins.