Apparently the Obama Administration is trying to be “transparent” on the raid that lead to the death of Osama bin Laden. Big mistake. As they said in World War II, “Loose lips sink ships.” Cynically, some people think that this is all part of Obama’s re-election campaign and an attempt to make him look “tough on terrorists”. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. What it is though, is foolish. The idea of special operations teams such as the SEALS, British SAS, and others is to go in, eliminate the threat and then get out. All without the enemy knowing what happened other than some of their people ended up dead. Blabbing about what your special forces did, where and how they did it, and then showing video purporting to be of the operation puts people’s lives at risk.
When in doubt, STFU.
Which brings me to this head line in the Washington Post,
White House goes silent on bin Laden raid
Read the article. Not only has all the publicity undermined the security of this type of operation, it has made the Obama Administration look, well, dishonest. The story keeps changing, almost as if the initial story was a lie. Maybe it was, but wouldn’t it have been better to just say nothing than to make up a story that would quickly unravel?
Just days after one of the most heralded covert actions in U.S. history,…
Does anyone else see the irony in that? Heralded and covert action shouldn’t be used in the same sentence unless it’s in the form of “Covert actions shouldn’t be heralded…”
It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, which is why I generally don’t do it. I’m going to make an exception in this case. Here is what I would have said.
“My fellow Americans, forces of the United States military have carried out a successful operation to kill Osama bin Laden. They entered another country where he was hiding out, located his residence and after an intense fire fight killed bin Laden and several of his entourage. My thanks to the military and intelligence agency operators who successfully carried out this operation. We will have no further comments on this operation. Thank you.”
That’s it. No identification of the unit, details of how we got the intelligence, video or anything else. Keep the enemy guessing as to who, when, and where the next target will be eliminated.
Instead a story was released. Then revised and revised again. Now other countries are asking questions and some dopes in Europe want an international inquiry into the legality of this operation.
Well, I suppose if they could keep their mouths shut, they wouldn’t be politicians, would they?
The only real proof would be photos. If the photos had been released, with little, or no, explanation, the result would have been much different. Obama, and his administration, wouldn’t have looked like Ned at the first ringer.
From my perspective, this administration was never qualified, and will never be qualified to be in charge. The mistakes, economic burdens and disgraces are intolerable.
They want the boost in the polls but they’re more afraid of the “Arab street” than they are voters.
I agree that much less should have been said about the details of the operation to protect the participants. The White House also should have kept their PR people on a short leash until they got their stories straight. But I don’t really believe it would have been any different (and probbly worse) had it happened under the previous administration–the people who brought you “Mission Accomplished”. And I hope they don’t release Bin Laden photos–the silence from Al Quida should be enough to tells us the guy is really dead.
I agree in principle with keeping silent about the details of covert ops. Of course, never underestimate the value of psyops regarding DISinformation that may result in Al Qaeda cleaning house a bit and saving us the trouble…
If the administration had any credibility with the American voters, they wouldn’t be so compelled to tell the story and show all of the evidence.