Breitbart published a piece the other day that included a memo that told the real story of the ‘gutsy call’ that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yeah, it’s nothing like the president is trying to make it out to be.
First, watch Obama’s short campaign ad feature Bill Clinton trying to make Obama seem like Rambo going after Osama bin Laden, then suggesting falsely that Romney would not have taken out bin Laden:
Such bullcrap. Romney’s main argument was that expending considering resources trying to locate Osama bin Laden wouldn’t be the best use of our resources, considering the larger war on terror. Here’s Romney’s full quote:
“I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort. He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world. It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.”
As we would expect, Obama’s dishonest campaign team have taken Romney out of context. But they’ve also misconstrued Obama’s part in the killing of Osama bin Laden. Here’s the write up from Breitbart:
Today, Time magazine got hold of a memo written by then-CIA head Leon Panetta after he received orders from Barack Obama’s team to greenlight the bin Laden mission. Here’s the text, which summarized the situation:
Received phone call from Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 [Abbottabad Compound 1]. The decision is to proceed with the assault.
The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 am.
This, of course, was the famed “gutsy call.” Here’s what Tom Hanks narrated in Obama’s campaign film, “The Road We’ve Traveled”:
HANKS: Intelligence reports locating Osama Bin Laden were promising, but inconclusive, and there was internal debate as to what the President should do.
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: We sat down in the Situation Room, the entire national security apparatus was in that room, and the President turns to every principal in the room, every secretary, “What do you recommend I do?” And they say, “Well, forty-nine percent chance he’s there, fifty-one … it’s a close call, Mr. President.” As he walked out the room, it dawned on me, he’s all alone. This is his decision. If he was wrong, his Presidency was done. Over.
Only the memo doesn’t show a gutsy call. It doesn’t show a president willing to take the blame for a mission gone wrong. It shows a CYA maneuver by the White House.
The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven – the “timing, operational decision making and control” are all up to McRaven. So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect. The hero here was McRaven, not Obama. And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus.
The memo is crystal clear on that point. It says that the decision has been made based solely on the “risk profile presented to the President.” If any other risks – no matter how minute – arose, they were “to be brought back to the President for his consideration.” This is ludicrous. It is wiggle room. It was Obama’s way of carving out space for himself in case the mission went bad. If it did, he’d say that there were additional risks of which he hadn’t been informed; he’d been kept in the dark by his military leaders.
Yeah, the real hero who had control over the entire mission from beginning to end was Admiral McRaven. He controlled everything, yet Obama is acting like he made this huge freaking decision to kill Osama bin Laden.
Obama is a liar to his core. He is not a nice guy and he’s not even a good American. He’s intent on destroying this country and he’ll tell every lie he can to accomplish that goal.
The narrative this campaign season needs to be about Obama’s #WarOnAmerica.