What We Know So Far About Incompetent Trump Sending SEAL Owens To Die

[Slant]

If this happened under Clinton, there would be dozens of House GOP investigations and calls for impeachment. So what we have is a brash and incompetent president obsessed with chasing glory and totally out of his depth, and the result is that he gets people killed.

And this is a surprise how? This is what the American people wanted. And this is what they got.

[AlphaOut]

I'm simply asking for some consistency. If we're going to let one party push ridiculous bullshit narratives, you may as well let them both do it.

- - - Updated - - -


They are related. Both involve a failed mission. Both involve what appears to be a lapse in oversight and judgement. Both involve lies and a cover up in order to mitigate the fallout.

I guess we won't know how different they are until after the investigations.

Benghazi wasn't a military orchestrated US mission, that's the clear difference. It was a complete lapse in security that was exploited by Ansar al-Sharia. The issue was our Embassy received no aid from close US forces, and was overall ignored. A failed actual mission is just the gamble of war. They aren't related.

- - - Updated - - -

Sending special forces to go murder the citizens (terrorists or civilians) of a foreign country, with whom we are at peace (Yemen), is an act of war.

So yes, the POTUS is abso-fucking-lutely involved in making those decisions: it's his shot to call, and nobody else in the chain of command has the authority to take this action except the POTUS (Mattis could not have done this raid without Trump's approval, for example).

Diminishing the significance of that act to a 3-person dinner conversation between when he orders and when his steak arrives, is gross negligence. There was no time or professionalism given to the task, to ensure it was a success: failure was ensured the moment he put fork in mouth.

True, he gets the yes / no privilege for political reasons, I can get behind that. However, a man with zero military strategic / tactical / logistical experience, he ends up trusting his advisors. I can probably name the most important individuals who had eyes on the mission. Generally, if a mission of that magnitude gets to the President in the first place, the advisors believe its a good call. Now, if those same people thought it was a bad idea, it'd go back to the drawing board before its even presented to the President. The only knowledge he'd generally have prior to that is from the daily morning intelligence briefings. Military matters are not his lane, outside of putting a checkmark next to go / no go. Which, of course, when the mission was finalized was marked with a GO from the professionals of that field. Its easy to blame the president, but I see nobody blaming the NCPON or USSOCOM. BOTH who have to agree on the mission for SEALS to engage. (well the NCPON just advises the General / Admiral).

[Tinykong]

Ok, find me a person in the Pentagon saying they wanted their mission overseen by the President.

You're the one making the claim, you have to prove it beyond "I'm a retired Tier 1 Special Forces commando for realzies."

And before you try to just regurgitate this back as an attack on my claims, I'm not claiming anything other than simple facts. The President is the Commander-in-Chief, and therefore final decision maker, stands to reason he should be in the room when decisions might need to be made, provided he isn't preoccupied with something more important.

According to several news outlets (and his twitter feed) he was on the White House grounds, just not in the Situation Room.

[Deleted]

Does this even hold a candle to the helicopter that was shot down, killing 30 Americans of which a number of Seal team 6 members?

[Elim Garak]

And before you try to just regurgitate this back as an attack on my claims, I'm not claiming anything other than simple facts. The President is the Commander-in-Chief, and therefore final decision maker, stands to reason he should be in the room when decisions might need to be made, provided he isn't preoccupied with something more important.

And that decision can be to delegate the decision making to the professionals. You just seem to be unaware what Commander in chief means. CEO's don't sit thru all the meetings and don't personally oversee the working process.

[Tinykong]

And that decision can be to delegate the decision making to the professionals. You just seem to be unaware what Commander in chief means. CEO's don't sit thru all the meetings and don't personally oversee the working process.

No, it can't. Some decisions may require Trump's direct authorization.

Again, you'll note that never have I said Trump should be sitting at the controls with a headset on calling out headshots and manning a drone. He should, however, be in the room, because he is in charge.

[Elim Garak]

No, it can't. Some decisions may require Trump's direct authorization.

Again, you'll note that never have I said Trump should be sitting at the controls with a headset on calling out headshots and manning a drone. He should, however, be in the room, because he is in charge.

Yes it can. He's in fucking charge. Do you know what that means?
He is in charge so if he says "general you are in charge" then the general is in charge. It's called delegating responsibility. And in this case it's 10000% justified. Trump is not military man. Hell if you ask some folks here they will say Trump is not qualified to be a human being even. So everyone should commend him for stepping out in the matter and letting professional do their jobs to the best of their ability.

[Tinykong]

Yes it can. He's in fucking charge. Do you know what that means?
He is in charge so if he says "general you are in charge" then the general is in charge. It's called delegating responsibility. And in this case it's 10000% justified. Trump is not military man. Hell if you ask some folks here they will say Trump is not qualified to be a human being even. So everyone should commend him for stepping out in the matter and letting professional do their jobs to the best of their ability.

That's not how the chain of command works. If an order requires the President's approval, he can't just say "Go ask that guy."

[Elim Garak]

That's not how the chain of command works. If an order requires the President's approval, he can't just say "Go ask that guy."

You just don't know what chain of command is.
He already gave the order and then put generals in charge of the operation. I fail to see what situation during the operation might require an order that must be approved by the President ASAP. It's just asinine to imply that generals bear no responsibility in military matters and everything requires Presidential approval on tactical level (and thus he takes all the blame). If that was the case I would've made my life goal to be a general.

[Allybeboba]

Its pretty absurd if you think any president would have the skill set to personally plan special operations missions.

But the PotUS is supposed to be ALL KNOWING. And can't make a single mistake without the internet going all a titter.

- - - Updated - - -

Does this even hold a candle to the helicopter that was shot down, killing 30 Americans of which a number of Seal team 6 members?

That's old news though.
Plus that is "not what this thread is about."

My answer would be: Of course it does not, but all lives matter.

[willtron]

<snip>

The problem is the people that would be calling for Hillary's head if it were her are the same people that eat up everything that Trump dumps on them because "he's not a politician and tells it like it is".

[Tinykong]

You just don't know what chain of command is.
He already gave the order and then put generals in charge of the operation. I fail to see what situation during the operation might require an order that must be approved by the President ASAP. It's just asinine to imply that generals bear no responsibility in military matters and everything requires Presidential approval on tactical level (and thus he takes all the blame). If that was the case I would've made my life goal to be a general.

You keep making these statements with absolutely no verifiable citation.

This wasn't a peace keeping mission to deliver rice to hungery people in Africa. It was a clandestine operation in a sovereign nation to potentially kill the leader of AQAP.

If you think for one second Trump didn't want to have his own "special operations have conducted a mission in Yemen and assassinated the leader of AQAP, Qassim al-Rimi" moment to top Obama's bin Laden speech in his first 100 days...

puh-fucking-lease.

[Elim Garak]

You keep making these statements with absolutely no verifiable citation.

Citation of what? that's what happened. That's what Trump is being crucified here for.

This wasn't a peace keeping mission to deliver rice to hungery people in Africa. It was a clandestine operation in a sovereign nation to potentially kill the leader of AQAP.

Exactly. It was a military operation ran by military and approved by the president

If you think for one second Trump didn't want to have his own "special operations have conducted a mission in Yemen and assassinated the leader of AQAP, Qassim al-Rimi" moment to top Obama's bin Laden speech in his first 100 days...

puh-fucking-lease.

I don't even care about that as it is not relevant. he might have had a bad day and wanted to kill someone for a laugh and lo'n'behold pentagon came up with a military operation right on cue.

[Narwal]

Even if it was Obama. It's ridiculous how people will just go "Oh you know, Trump's gonna Trump" when he does the same shit people would be rioting over if it was anyone else.

LOL - Trump the president who no one riots over.... right. The right doesn't riot, they're not idiots, that's a left quality and they've been doing it damn near every day starting on Trumps election win night, his Inauguration day, the day after his inauguration, etc etc etc.

You're right about one thing though, people do riot and not riot over the same things based simply who does it, but you have the reverse of what you described, where if it's Trump, it will be rioted.

[Tinykong]

Citation of what? that's what happened. That's what Trump is being crucified here for.

You keep saying "this is how the military works" and are contradicting commonly available facts without backing up your claims. It's lazy and tiresome.

Exactly. It was a military operation ran by military and approved by the president

I don't even care about that as it is not relevant. he might have had a bad day and wanted to kill someone for a laugh and lo'n'behold pentagon came up with a military operation right on cue.

My point was that this was a serious military operation, involving UAE special forces, a lot of resources and was clandestine in nature. A lot of shit could have gone wrong that could have required the President's approval.

If this was a peace keeping mission, who cares, the likelihood of anything happening is pretty low. This was a major operation, a lot of shit could (and did) go wrong, and hand waiving Trump's responsibility and role in this kind of mission is pathetic Trumpidity.

Had the leader of AQAP been killed, people would have been tripping over each other lining up to kiss Trump's ass, but because the operation was a colossal fuck up, everyone is acting like the President has no role or responsibility in major military operations, which is quite frankly, the dumbest shit I have heard in a long time.

[Berndorf]

Its like I have said before, Only reason Trump ran for president is to boost his ego.

Like you said if this was Clinton people would be demanding her head on a fucken pike.

Do you really want to go down the road of things Obama or Hilary approved that went wrong or took American lives? Just chill out a while dude. Stop overreacting over everything Trump does. Hillary is the same person who as sec of state wondered aloud why we couldn't just do a drone strike on Assange while he was living in London.

[Elim Garak]

You keep saying "this is how the military works" and are contradicting commonly available facts without backing up your claims. It's lazy and tiresome.

I never said "this is how military works".
I explained to you what chain of command is and what commander in chief means. I don't remember contradicting any facts.

My point was that this was a serious military operation, involving UAE special forces, a lot of resources and was clandestine in nature. A lot of shit could have gone wrong that could have required the President's approval.

Name one such shit, that would've required an ADDITIONAL and IMMEDIATE presidential approval. I don't want to talk about spherical horses in a vacuum.

[Shaderas]

And that is a stupid system, only retards think this way.

When a police officer is shooting somebody on the street you can also say Trump has the blame.
When ppl that actually have a brain know that he cant see what 1 million ppl that are doing jobs in name of the goverment are actually doing.

Didn't say I agreed with it, just that this is the way most Americans will think. Meaning that you called most Americans retards

[NYC17]

You keep saying "this is how the military works" and are contradicting commonly available facts without backing up your claims. It's lazy and tiresome.



My point was that this was a serious military operation, involving UAE special forces, a lot of resources and was clandestine in nature. A lot of shit could have gone wrong that could have required the President's approval.

If this was a peace keeping mission, who cares, the likelihood of anything happening is pretty low. This was a major operation, a lot of shit could (and did) go wrong, and hand waiving Trump's responsibility and role in this kind of mission is pathetic Trumpidity.

Had the leader of AQAP been killed, people would have been tripping over each other lining up to kiss Trump's ass, but because the operation was a colossal fuck up, everyone is acting like the President has no role or responsibility in major military operations, which is quite frankly, the dumbest shit I have heard in a long time.

You know, the most egregious thing about Trump's part in this is the Commander-in-Chief putting a clear line between himself and the military. Trump saying "they lost him" is such a succinct indictment of how he sees himself and the role he is now playing. And it is just a role for him. Someone who is worth a shit and sees himself as a Commander-In-Chief would inherently feel that we lost him. Trump so clearly lacks a core.

Military personal should be outraged, but ultimately the overriding feeling they should have is...concern.

[Bodakane]

If oking a failed mission isn't the POTUS's fault...what is?

I mean all he does is order this to happen and that to happen. Following the logic here, no POTUS is at fault for anything since they aren't the ones taking the specific actions decreed.

ACA is called Obamacare even though Obama didn't draft it, didn't set up the website, etc. Not his fault.
Benghazi is not Hillary's fault because she doesn't actually draft security plans nor does she use a weapon to protect embassies.

Same logic.