Thanks, Republicans and wishy washy Dems

Our government should not have encouraged rebels to fight a civil war in Syria. They were going to do so anyway, I think, but then we would not have had so much pressure to get involved. There are many different groups there and in the end, I doubt if any of them like us.

Seems like a different Katie Couric, one less interested in defending President Obama.

This is a typical interview with a one-time loyalist who has panned his former leader in a "tell all" book: Tap dancing all over the place to avoid stating the criticism that he wrote and is selling the book. Gates gave interviews like this one as well.

It seems pretty telling though that the only thing that Panetta has unreserved praise about is something that is hardly very praise worthy - Giving the Go order on killing Osama bin Laden.

I'm sure all American are glad the man is dead, but as Panetta tells Couric, any average American would have given that same order, and so would have any president, and while we very deeply needed to bring retribution down upon the man most responsible for 9/11, killing him was far more a symbolic victory that a strategic one. Clearly, bin Laden was not al Qaida, and his death didn't give Islamist terrorism even a reason to pause, but it did give Obama a couple of great campaign slogans.

Obama's speech announcing the mission and its results had to be one of the most obnoxious in presidential history. His use of the pronoun "I" was so prevalent, you would have thought he was there on the ground and the very SEAL who took bin Laden down.

What was the enormous risk he was taking? To the extent there was one it was entirely political. Had the raid been a botched disaster, American prestige would have taken a blow, but not as great a blow as Obama would have personally suffered. The comparisons to Jimmy Carter and the disastrous attempt to recuse the Iranian hostages would have been flying everywhere and a key component of his re-election strategy would not only have been taken away, the event itself probably would have cost him a second term. So, the risk was great, but really only to his political ambitions. I'm afraid I don't find taking such a risk in doing what clearly had to be done, regardless, is very praise-worthy. If he hadn't given the Go order and it was later revealed that the reason was the political risk (which undoubtedly Valerie Jarrett and all the political hacks that report to her were warning against) he would have suffered an even greater blow.

The irony is that the killing of bin Laden afforded Obama the opportunity to withdraw his attention and American influence from the region which in turn led to the current situation with ISIS. Panetta spend a great part of this interview discussing this situation in rather dark ways.

Thanks Obama.

I believe the former regimes in both Libya and Syria were disintegrating on their own, and our support or lack of it for the rebels was at best a small factor in their motivations. In both cases the resistance reflected all the main contradictions and conflicts in Moslem cultures involving Sunnis, Shias, modernists, and fundamentalists. Those are situations that require clear focus and determination, if we wish to influence the outcome. In Libya we aided the wrong rebels and in Syria we did nothing beyond drawing a "Red Line" and then fecklessly backing down. It'd hard to do worse than that.

Bunch of motherfuckers use Bin Laden as an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan in what has become a neverending war, with many Americans and Muslims needless deaths. Finally get Bin Laden and the same motherfuckers say Obama needn't have bothered. He did it just for a campaign slogan anyway. Assholes.

We should have kept our distance from Syria. I already noted that the war would have happened anyway. But we would not now be expected to dive in again in a war that can only escalate or at best drag along, as long as there are Muslim men in that part of the world. Our actions cause more and more of them to become radicalized.

Now that's an intelligent and rational contribution to the discussion.

This particular ************, first of all, didn't launch the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, however if I had, my reason for doing so in Afghanistan would not have been to specifically kill bin Laden it would have been, as it was for the Bush Administration, to destroy al Qaida's ability to use that nation as a refuge and staging area for future attacks, to topple the Taliban from power so they could not welcome al Qaida back or invite in new terrorist groups and to kill as many of the bastards as possible, including bin Laden. It was, indeed, unfortunate that bin Laden and any of his senior henchmen escaped, but the mission was hardly a failure because they did. Where I parted ways with the Administration was in remaining in Afghanistan and trying to build it into at least a semi-modern nation. We should have left with the warning that if they gave us reason to come back, the devastation we brought with us would be two-fold of what we delivered the first time round.

My reason for invading Iraq would have had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden himself, just as the Administration's didn't. It would have been to establish a thriving Muslim democracy that would serve as a counter to the Islamist extremism and despotism rampant in the region. In retrospect I would have made a mistake, not because the goal wasn't worthy, but because accomplishing it was nearly impossible, even with far more competent policy makers than Bush and his cabinet.

There was every reason to "bother" to get bin Laden, and in your bilious rage you completely misinterpreted what this ************ wrote to serve your ugly rant. The point made was that there was nothing courageous about giving the very necessary Go order on the raid. Panetta himself advised the president he should consider what the average American would do, and the answer was even the Average Joe would have ordered Go. We did need to kill bin Laden to demonstrate that no one can get away with attacking the US, and that, no matter how long it takes, anyone who does, will die. We also needed to kill him for the sense of retribution it provided to the American people.

I'm sure Obama didn't make his courageous decision just for the ability to create a campaign slogan, but only a bitter old fool denies that a major element of his re-election campaign was built on the fact that he was killed and that his death enabled Obama to do something he wanted to all along, withdraw from the region.

There is major asshole participating in this thread, but he's not one of the motherfuckers.

It would have been to establish a thriving Muslim democracy that would serve as a counter to the Islamist extremism and despotism rampant in the region.

Before Bush launched his invasion, millions of us were crying, don't try it, because it will not work, it is illegal, it is immoral. We didn't have to wait until Isis came along to recognize the folly.
You usually get bypassed by me in any thread. As far as I am concerned you are as much a part of the problem as Bush.