I'm a skeptic's skeptic, a pinko Peace Corps Volunteer progressive anti-war lefty with a well documented record of criticizing Obama for being as bad as George Bush jr. in some ways and actually worse (if such a thing is possible) in others, but I don't find anything fishy about the timing or execution of this mission.
About how the military decides which team does what, I don't know, but, as Jimmy Carter found out (his presidency ended, pretty much, when a mission to rescue the hostages held by Iran failed), these things can go wrong, and when they do go wrong there is a whole lot more downside than there is upside when they go right. So for military as well as for any crass political reasons, one would expect both the military and the political leadership to choose the team with highest probability of success. With all due respect to U.S. Navy SEALs, this thing could have ended with a couple of dead hostages, 1 or more or many dead SEALs, crashed or shot-down helicopters (Black Hawk Down, Iran hostages, the SEAL team mission in Afghanistan that resulted in, I believe, the day of the highest number of US combat deaths in Afghanistan), etc. I'm very skeptical about Obama's announced plan to "investigate Wall Street," announced with much fanfare last night. Now *that*, I believe, was pretty transparent bullshit. I believe Obama is totally beholden to the big banks and Wall Street, and nothing he's done in the last three years has given me the least reason to think otherwise. Call me naive (evidence would help your case), but I really do believe the timing was coincidental. ( I also think that if this had happened when George Bush jr was president he would have announced it in the State of the Union address to thunderous applause instead of waiting, as Obama did, to place a call to the family of the rescued American hostage after the speech before making the information public.) Regards, jrs On Jan 25, 2012, at 8:19 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: > This Nightline summary of the latest State of the Union speech is > quite decent. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOSsO0xUHtA] > > And then the news item from today that makes me write this - > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16714344 > > I find it somewhat curious that they decided to use the same exclusive > elite seal team, 'Seal Team 6', that dispatched Osama bin Laden to > also kill 9 Somalian gunmen hopped up on `khat` leaves. It must have > been an unfair contest. > > Nevertheless the bullets are real, so the risk for the special ops > team was real. If the choice of team and the subsequent decision to > send them in was purely dictated by operational wisdom, then that's > fine, however the fantastically good timing allowing Obama to casually > bring it up at his address, and for his propaganda machine to readily > reveal that it was the same team that killed Osama and Biden's lavish > praise makes me wonder if it wasn't stage managed from the start. It's > certainly getting more press than any of the numerous operations that > these teams carry out with regularity. > > Perhaps Obama is getting insecure in his track record, which most > would say is ample enough, and decided he needed a little PR steroids. > Even great athletes dope on the Tour de France they say; something > similar happens when it comes to US Presidential elections I guess. >
