The liberal New York Times publishes the secret history of SEAL Team 6 Well it's not so secret today, when the Navy SEAL's killed Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama politicized it, took credit for it even though he was completely out of the loop. Now everyone is trying to make a buck off of Navy SEAL's. It use to be the SEAL community kept a very low profile. They did a pretty good job of doing that until 2009. I've noticed over the past couple of years even Delta Force is being used for political gain by the current incompetent administration. At least MARSOC isn't being exploited and are keeping a low profile. Yahoo News is using a very short version but I decided to post the full N.Y. Times article.
People have been saying this since as long as I can remember. These units have been pretty openly talked about online since online went online, and referenced in publications before that. I think the issue here is just a campaign based so much around unconventional warfare means these types of folks are going to be running into more public exposure then they might have preferred perhaps!? It's why 1st SFOD-D got so much exposure from Eagle Claw, and the SAS from the embassy siege in 1980.... sometimes publicity cannot be avoided. The article might have a point though, perhaps conventional forces would have been sufficient to step 'up' to the unconventional taskings required in that campaign rather then letting the specialist SO units build them up around that smaller segment of demand. Army deals with that by having having the Rangers, and the USMC has an entirely different approach where it could be said to exist to fill that role to the SEALs. I guess the real question is we do not know if those top tier units retained/improved the other capabilities needed but not being exercises, and continue growth in those areas. If yes, then its a non-issue. You'd have to assume its yes, like it has been in the past.
Not just DEVGRU, demand for USSOCOM units outpaces capacity...correct. The operational tempo is very high. All told we're talking about roughly 66,000 personnel from all four services and DoD civilians...
1) SEAL Team 6 was outed by the guy who claims to have been the bin Laden shooter. 2) Obama took credit because he made good on Bush's "Wanted - Dead or Alive" remarks, after Bush had finished saying "we're not really interested in bin Laden". 3) Out of the loop, me' arse. He gave the command. Did you expect the president to hop the fence? Bush simply failed.
Obama dropped it in Leon Panetta's lap after issuing a stand down order three times. Leon Panetta dropped it in Adm. McRavens lap and it was McRaven who issued the order. Obama was on the golf course when he got word that Adm. McRaven had ordered the Navy SEAL's to go in and the MH-60's had just entered Pakistan airspace. Look at the photos of Obama in the White House situation room taken during the operation, Obama is still wearing his golf shoes. Obama politicized the war against Al Qaeda. Bush didn't. Liberals thought the war against Al Qaeda was all about killing OBL Osama bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is larger, stronger and more dangerous today than in 2008. Obama politicized the killing of OBL by again ignoring the military chain of command.
Who cares? McRaven did NOT go in without Obie's go-ahead. Nah, Bush politicized the war against Iraq when he should have been politicizing the war against Al Qaeda. Where does it say that the Commander-in-Chief has to get involved with the chain of command? He is the commander of those in the chain?
The National Security Act of 1947 and the GoldwaterNichols Act in 1986 knocked out the JCOS from the military chain of command. As you will soon be finding out after Obama is gone, Obama ordered Navy SEAL's during a three month span to stand down three times when they were just about to go on the mission to take out Bin Laden. White House sources say it was Valerie Jarrett who kept telling Obama to order the stand down in fear if the mission failed it would cause Obama not being reelected in 2012. Valerie wears the pants in the Obama administration so Obama dropped the mission on Leon Panetta's lap along with a note authorizing SOCOM to enter Pakistan sovereign airspace to conduct the mission. The U.S. military needs the approval of POTUS to operate in any neutral sovereign nation. From then on, Obama was out of the loop. Panetta then dropped the mission on the laps of Admiral McRaven so Panetta would no longer be connected and out of the loop. Legal questions being asked and will not be answered until Obama is gone. Is SOCOM with in the military chain of command ? The CIA is not with in the military chain of command but it was Leon Panetta who told Admiral McRaven it's your ball game do what you want. Here's the authorization to enter Pakistan air space. As you saw the night that Obama stood before America on television to announce he killed OBL he politicized it and violated the military chain of command. He announced the killing of OBL before any after action reports were even written up and worked their way up the military chain of command. If you ever been in a war and involved in a fire fight or battle you know that after you come back in from the bush, everyone his debriefed. After action reports are written up including "lessons learn." They move their way up the chain of command from platoon, company, battalion, regiment, division, corps, eventually to the Pentagon and then on the desk of POTUS. That's the way it always worked before Obama became POTUS. As you know, no way was there even an after action report written up on that night. It just isn't possible for it to have happened that fast and then work it's way up the chain of command. By passing the chain command is against the law even for POTUS. When Allies forces landed on the Normandy Beaches who reported the news to America ? FDR ? No, the Commander in Chief of Allied Forces Gen. Esienhower. When the war ended in Europe (VE-Day) who reported the news to America ? POTUS ? No under the chain of command Allied HQ's in London. When Japan surrendered on August 14th, 1945 who reported it to the American people, Truman ? No Actually it was the State Department. The reason why the State Department reported instead of Gen. MacArthur or Adm. Nimitz was because the Japanese government surrendered through the U.S. State Department. Revisionist history that G.W. Bush politicized the war against Al Qaeda or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was the liberals who politicized the war against terrorist, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The liberals did the same thing during the Vietnam War. The Taliban got their butts whooped big time in 2001 and 2002 and fled to Pakistan and would lick their wounds until they saw that America was going stupid again like they did during the Vietnam War and have politicized the war in Iraq. This is when the Taliban stopped licking their wounds and started infiltrating back into Afghanistan. Any time a war is politicized, on the home front you will never achieve total victory. They (liberals) tried doing it during the first Gulf War (Desert Shield/Desert Storm) but the Vietnam War veterans and their families said no you don't not this time. And you saw tens of thousands of vets taking to the streets to drown out the usual anti war liberal activist. You might have remembered all of the yellow ribbons back then.
10 U.S. Code Section 167 - Unified combatant command for special operations forces (d) Command of Activity or Mission.— (1)Unless otherwise directed by the President or the Secretary of Defense, a special operations activity or mission shall be conducted under the command of the commander of the unified combatant command in whose geographic area the activity or mission is to be conducted. (2)The commander of the special operations command shall exercise command of a selected special operations mission if directed to do so by the President or the Secretary of Defense. Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/167
The fact the bin Laden raid happened on obama's watch wasn't the result of failure by Bush or great leadership by obama, it was the result of many years of work and a lot of people doing risky jobs. The White House under either Bush or obama had little to do with the long hard years of work leading up to the raid. But obama certainly isn't a big hero to the military. Some of those people who sacrificed so much were stabbed in the back by obama when obama wanted to retroactively prosecute interrogators.
So what's the numbers of top officers purged by Valerie Jarret up to now? It surpassed Stalin's purges a few years ago, but I lost rack and quit following that particular hobby of the Obama admin. The idea that Obama or any of his 'Brainless Trust' is out in front showing 'leadership' of a military they loathe and want to destroy is laughable lying at its most inept. And we have about two more years of this cretin to survive. By then he will have fulfilled his dream of a Nuclear armed Iran and a far more unstable planet and a disintegrating 'home front' incapable of any kind of consensus in responding to any kind of threat.
According to then CIA Director Leon Panetta that the intelligence that was gathered that led to OBL was gathered during the Bush administration.
