What follows below is from an international paper. This is the result of Obama’s sheer mean-spirited pettiness:
SEALs slam Obama for using them as ‘ammunition’ in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign
By Toby Harnden
PUBLISHED: 18:35 EST, 30 April 2012 | UPDATED: 10:42 EST, 1 May 2012Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.
The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’. In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.
Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.
Mr Obama used a news conference today to trumpet his personal role and imply that his Republican opponent Mr Romney, who in 2008 expressed reservations about the wisdom of sending troops into Pakistan, would have let bin Laden live.
‘I said that I’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did,’ Mr Obama said. ‘If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.’
Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.
‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice – it was a broader team effort.’
Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that MR Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’
Mr Obama has faced criticism even from allies about his decision to make a campaign ad about the bin Laden raid. Arianna Huffington, an outspoken liberal who runs the left-leaning Huffington Post website, roundly condemned it.
She told CBS: ‘We should celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. It’s one thing to have an NBC special from the Situation Room… all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.’
Campaigning in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mr Romney responded to a shouted question by a reporter by saying: ‘Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.’
A serving SEAL Team member said: ‘Obama wasn’t in the field, at risk, carrying a gun. As president, at every turn he should be thanking the guys who put their lives on the line to do this. He does so in his official speeches because his speechwriters are smart.
‘But the more he tries to take the credit for it, the more the ground operators are saying, “Come on, man!” It really didn’t matter who was president. At the end of the day, they were going to go.’
Chris Kyle, a former SEAL sniper with 160 confirmed and another 95 unconfirmed kills to his credit, said: ‘The operation itself was great and the nation felt immense pride. It was great that we did it.
‘But bin Laden was just a figurehead. The war on terror continues. Taking him out didn’t really change anything as far as the war on terror is concerned and using it as a political attack is a cheap shot.
‘In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander- in-chief so his secret is safe.’
Senior military figures have said that Admiral William McRaven, a former SEAL who was then head of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) made the decision to take bin Laden out. Tactical decisions were delegated even further down the chain of command.
Mr Kyle added: ‘He’s trying to say that Romney wouldn’t have made the same call? Anyone who is patriotic to this country would have made that exact call, Democrat or Republican. Obama is taking more credit than he is due but it’s going to get him some pretty good mileage.’
A former intelligence official who was serving in the US government when bin Laden was killed said that the Obama administration knew about the al-Qaeda leader’s whereabouts in October 2010 but delayed taking action and risked letting him escape.
‘In the end, Obama was forced to make a decision and do it. He knew that if he didn’t do it the political risks in not taking action were huge. Mitt Romney would have made the call but he would have made it earlier – as would George W. Bush.’
Brandon Webb, a former SEAL who spent 13 years on active duty and served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said: ‘Bush should get partial credit for putting the system in place.
‘Obama inherited a very robust package with regards to special ops and the intelligence community. But Obama deserves credit because he got bin Laden – you can’t take that away from him.
‘My friends that work in Special Operations Command (SOCOM) that have been on video teleconferences with Obama on these kill or capture situations say that Obama has no issue whatsoever with making decisions and typically it’s kill. He’s hitting the kill button every time. I have a lot of respect for him for that.’
But he said that many SEALs were dismayed about the amount of publicity the Obama administration had generated about SEAL Team Six, the very existence of which is highly classified.
‘The majority of the SEALs I know are really proud of the operation but it does become “OK, enough is enough – we’re ready to get back to work and step out of the limelight.” They don’t want to be continuously paraded around a global audience like a show dog.
‘Obama has a very good relationship with the Special Operations community at large, especially the SEALs, and it’s nice to see. We had the same relationship with George W. Bush when he was president.’
It was ‘stretching a little much’ for Mr Obama to suggest only he would have made the decision. ‘I personally I don’t think Romney would have any problem making tough decisions. He got a very accomplished record of making decision as a business professional.
‘He may not have charisma but he clearly has leadership skills. I don’t think he’d have any problem taking that decision.’
Clint Bruce, who gave up the chance of an NFL career to serve as a SEAL officer before retiring as a lieutenant after nine years, said: ‘We were extremely surprised and discouraged by the publicity because it compromises the ability of those guys to operate.
‘It’s a waste of time to speculate about who would and wouldn’t have made that decision. It was a symphony of opportunity and intelligence that allowed this administration to give the green light. We want to acknowledge that they made that decision.
‘Politicians should let the public know where they stand on national security but not in the play-by-play, detailed way that has been done recently. The intricacies of national security should not become part of stump speeches.’
What highly decorated SEAL sniper Chris Kyle said was true and false: it turns out it was TRUE that Obama did not make “the courageous call” to get bin Laden; a Navy Admiral did. Kyle did not know that memo documenting that it was NOT Obama’s call would be coming out as soon as it did. And we further now know that Obama knew about bin Laden’s exact location for half a damn year before he was finished dithering – risking bin Laden getting away altogether – and that Bush or Romney very likely would have made that call a lot a whole lot sooner.
So maybe Obama is right: Romney wouldn’t have made the “courageous call” that Obama made on May 2, 2011; BECAUSE ROMNEY WOULD HAVE MADE IT BACK IN OCTOBER 2010!!!
The decision to go in and get Osama bin Laden was – as the SEALS said very clearly above – a “no brainer.” It was a POLITICAL no-brainer as much as it was a foreign policy no-brainer.
When I sat in front of my TV filled with joy that our guys got that rat bastard and that he is screaming in hell right now as he ought to be, I gave Obama credit for the call. And the thing was that EVERYBODY was giving Obama credit for the gutsy call. NOBODY was putting it in terms of what would have happened to Obama politically had he refused to get bin Laden after his intelligence community – after a decade of dedicating their lives to finding him – delivered him on a silver platter to Obama.
Let me take that side now. Suppose Obama had said to his generals, admirals, and career intelligence professionals, “No. I’m not going to get him. Something could go wrong and it would be bad for my political career. And my political career is far more important than Osama bin Laden.” Just sit back for a moment and imagine what the fallout from that would be.
First of all, do you think for a second in this age of Wikileaks that that decision to refuse to get bin Laden when we knew exactly where he was would have been kept from becoming public knowledge? Let me guarantee you it would not have. The intelligence and military establishment would have erupted in outrage; top-level people would have resigned and gone public and told the American people that they had handed Barack Obama Osama bin Laden and Obama had refused to kill the worst mass murderer of Americans in our nation’s history.
Republicans would have jumped on Obama the way a pit bull would jump on a piece of bloody meat. And rightly so. Obama would have been done. He would have lost in a landslide that made Jimmy Carter’s loss look like a victory.
Obama’s alternative was to go in and trust the finest operators in the finest military in the history of the world to do what they do best. And Obama did that – being sure to cover his ass by putting Admiral McRaven in charge of the operation just in case something did go wrong so he could have a scapegoat.
For Obama to claim the kind of credit he’s claiming is – as even liberal writer Arianna Huffington has put it – “one of the most despicable things you can do.”
Huffington was primarily referring to an Obama campaign ad narrated by Bill Clinton – who could have on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS prevented 9/11 by getting Osama bin Laden when foreign governments were literally offering him to the United States – saying: if the raid had gone badly and SEALs had been captured or killed, well, the REAL casualty would have been Obama’s political health. THAT’S what would have mattered; not the sacrifice of the men who went in and faced death.
Watch this youtube counter to that ad:
One of the things that emerges from the Clinton-narrated Obama ad – when you consider it – is how incredibly self-absorbed and narcissistic Clinton and especially Obama truly are. It’s all about THEM and THEIR political interests. It’s not about the REAL HEROES at all. It’s that, “So what if SEALs get killed; they’re paid to die; I’M the one that matters here!” mindset.
George Bush ran an ad that VERY briefly displayed Ground Zero and he was taken apart by the partisan left-wing liberal media propaganda machine for it. Obama has now REPEATEDLY taken victory laps – his surprise visit to Afghanistan ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIN LADEN KILLING was yet ANOTHER VICTORY LAP – and the same media that was aghast and appalled when Bush did it only serve as Obama’s hypocrite pit bulls now when it’s suddenly THEIR guy doing the same thing. There are only a very few liberals like Arianna Huffington who are pointing out the stark raving hypocrisy.
Romney expressed regret as an American that Obama tried to so vainly and so cynically exploit the bin Laden killing: Obama unfortunately chose to politicize an event that had united the country. There aren’t very many things that all Americans are united behind. The American victory over Osama bin Laden used to be one until Barack Obama went so over the top in exploiting the event that it makes the SEALS who did the actual work sick.
In 1970, there was a famous and incredibly daring and risky raid into Son Tay, North Vietnam intended to rescue American POWs. The POWs had been moved, but the raid resulted in the deaths of some 200 enemy North Vietnamese troops and pressured the North Vietnamese government. Most Americans don’t associate the president who approved that raid – Richard M. Nixon – because as much of a slick political weasel as he was, he wasn’t THAT cynical to exploit and shamelessly politicize a true American moment.
Unlike Barack Obama.
Update, 5/8/2012: One SEAL has come out and told us what he really thinks about Obama cynically exploiting his brothers:
FORMER NAVY SEAL REBUKES OBAMA
By Benjamin Smith
President Barack Hussein Obama – STOP using the Navy SEALS as a campaign ploy. Because with all due respect, (what little I have for you), you do NOT speak for me.
You have a movie about SEALS within the past year trying to identify with me, with the navy SEALS, and with anything that might improve your polling numbers…and yet it is all a sham to hide a weak un-American man desperate to claim the victories of others for his own.
You Sir are trying to take the credit for what the American People have achieved in killing Bin Laden. Your use of the SEALs accomplishment as a campaign slogan is nothing less than despicable. I, as a former Navy SEAL do not accept your taking credit for Osama Bin Laden’s death. The American Military accomplished that feat.
Yet now that it is useful, you Mr. President, continue to refer to the event as if it were YOU and you alone which accomplished the worthy task of slaying one of America’s greatest enemies. You say “I directed”, “I Continued”, “My Intelligence Community”, “My national security team”, “I determined that I had enough….”, “My direction…”
Yet reliable sources continue to report that not only did you attempt to stop or delay Bin Laden’s demise, you did not even leave the golf course for the situation room until 20 minutes before SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden. Even the clothes you wore in the situation room betray this fact. This is a Commander in Chief? A man who takes credit for actions largely taken while he was out golfing?
We men who have taken the oath, say ENOUGH. You do not speak for me, a former Navy SEAL, or any one of the league of men whom I have earned the right to be among. You are simply a man running for an office. Yet you behave as a glory-hoarding ruler. You campaign to be our leader, yet in reality you wish to be our Master.
The American people are the ones who got Bin Laden… You did Not! We have fought wars and slugged it with Vast Terror Organizations to get to the man you say YOU killed. The United Sates of America has won you a title sir and you have spent the last three years trying to beg, borrow and bow as you GIVE IT ALL AWAY. You just happened to be president of the USA when WE THE PEOPLE got Osama Bin Laden. We do not see you as heroic or stoic, we see you as the guy who let America Go. We got fat and weak and you gave it all away. That is your credit – you bow to foreign leaders and pander to the press. You do not represent me as a Military Man. You do not represent me as a SEAL. You do not represent me as an AMERICAN!
You do not speak for me or any American military man because though you may now be Commander in Chief, you are not the man to whom we can point our sons and say “This is the American dream, this is American exceptionalism, this is what I wish for your future”, because you Sir are NONE of these things. You Sir, are the antithesis of American Exceptionalism. Your idols are Saul Alinksi and Karl Marx and your revolutionary dreams and anti-American ideals poison your every policy. Your every action betrays the fact that in your soul you do not understand what it is to be an American, not what America truly is. Your agenda from the beginning has been to get rid of and kill everything that is and ever was American. You who so easily dismisses America’s greatness and bows to foreigners… YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE NAVY SEALS. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE MILITARY MAN AND you SHALL NOT claim as your prize that which you have not earned. The Navy SEALS are NOT a campaign slogan to be bantered about for play. Nor are our accomplishments, including the demise of Osama Bin Laden, yours to claim.
So you DO NOT speak for me. And I will not stand for your use and abuse of my brethren the SEALS.
For Liberty,Benjamin Smith
.
Tags: cheap shot, Huffington, Mitt Romney, no-brainer, SEALs, Son Tay, spike the football
Start Thinking Right 
May 5, 2012 at 4:21 am
MichaeiE; As a Navy, this his home to me and this clown potus has to be the most brazen, evil person I have seen ini my lifetime since Stalin. Isn’t it ironic how he/demoncrats/otherwise communists/liebruls stumped during the election campaigns telling us about how useless the war on terror is then try to take credit for taking out bin Laden???
May 5, 2012 at 4:21 am
correction “this hits home”
May 5, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Dauntless,
Well, you have to remember, Obama also took credit for ENDING the war on terror. Obama, with his blessed wonderfulness, has cured al Qaeda terrorists. He gave them “legitimate Islamism” which had NEVER existed before. Never again will a Muslim EVER turn to terrorism now that he has seen the blessed light of the beatific Obama.
Dauntless, I’m sorry that you simply don’t “get it.” I’m sorry that you fail to understand that “Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God.”
I can only hope that one day you repent and gladly take Obama’s mark on your forehead or your right hand. All the truly englightened souls simply can’t wait for the opportunity.
Well, I’ll end my lecture concerning your short-sightedness and simply point out that a true Marxist traveller is a bit of a chameleon.
Yes, “Workers of the world unite.” All true Obama believers embrace that. The single significant difference between communism and fascism (especially Nazism) is that Marxists are “international socialists” and fascists were “national socialists.” But when it became convenient for Joseph Stalin to abandon the “international” part so he could embrace “national socialism” and fight Hitler, well, he abandoned Marxism and embraced fascism in a red-hot minute. He’d be an international socialist communist until it was convenient to become a national socialist fascist. It’s evil until it’s good and then it’s good until we say it’s evil again, you see.
Good Marxists always say that ownership is bad and everything should belong to the people. But, of course, good Marxists – when they actually get to power – ALWAYS confiscate everybody else’s stuff so that THEY THE SELFLESS MARXISTS are the only ones with luxuries. And then use their possession of EVERYTHING while the people around them starve to purchase continued loyalty and power for themselves. And in a society where nobody else has anything, it’s a pretty good deal for anybody who is willing to sell his soul to the regime.
What has every true Marxist done? Well, consider Mao and Stalin and Kim Jong Il: they demonize wealth and possession and then enrich themselves while impoverishing everybody else. Marxists who think that such ISN’T true Marxism are what the true Marxists call “useful idiots.”
The essence of Marxism is pathological hypocrisy.
THAT’S why Obama could demonize Bush and all of his policies only to take credit for everything that Bush and his policies secured. Bush’s surge was evil, Obama told us. Bush’s surge could only increase sectarian violence and totally fail, Obama said. And you need to understand that when the Obama administration said that the Iraq created by the success of Bush’s surge would be “one of Obama’s greatest achievements,” Obama’s only being a good Marxist.
And of course when Barack Obama attacked all the policies – such as waterboarding and Gitmo – that Bush developed to make sure we would ultimately get bin Laden no matter where he was hiding, the only important thing is that Obama could boast that “he” got bin Laden. Abject hypocrisy be damned; a true Marxist’s soul SWIMS in hypocrisy – and Obama is an even better Marxist than Kim Jong Il was.
Obama demonized the Patriot Act, warrentless wiretaping, rendition, military tribunals, Gitmo, etc. etc. etc. until HE got to do them. I mean, dang, even the ACLU openly acknowledges that Obama is worse at civil liberties abuses than Bush ever was. But so what??? Because the same likewise-Marxist (and therefore hypocrite) left in America daily came unglued at everything Bush did only to quiet right down on cue when Obama took power and continued doing pretty much everything Bush had done and then some.
You can’t blame Obama for his abject hypocrisy like it’s somehow a bad thing. Hypocrisy is quintessential to Marxism, and as all good liberals know Marxism is a GOOD thing. And so hypocrisy must clearly be a good thing.
Obama is just all the more wonderful for being the worst hypocrite who has ever inhabited the White House.
Now, come on, Dauntless, start changing your calenders to redefine history into “BB” and “AB”: “Before Barack” and “After Barack.” Come on, buddy, you know you want to take the mark.
May 6, 2012 at 2:10 pm
MichaelE: Don’t get it, eh? Changing my calendar, eh? Watch out…I’ll have to drop my 2,250-lb bomb load from my SBD Dauntless down your bunker! (chuckle, chuckle)
Seriously, I could’nt agree with you more. Just to reiterate what you said/posted, I came across the research of Dr. John J. Ray: (I may have posted this to you before) anyway…
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/
Note the directory on the lefthand side.
May 6, 2012 at 2:17 pm
MichaelE: Take cover, here it comes!!!
May 6, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Dauntless,
Of course, YOU don’t “get it” the same way I don’t get it: neither one of us wants to bow down before this fool who himself bows down to his masters in Saudi Arabia and China.
It’s truly sad what we see happening all around us.
The Book of Revelation warned us that an antichrist was coming; we’re already seeing what his useful idiot looks like.
May 6, 2012 at 2:32 pm
No Dauntless Dive Bomber for me (and I don’t want the bomb dropped down my bunker, either).
I like to watch the Military History channel. I’ve learned quite a bit about WWII aircraft.
The Dauntless Dive Bomber took a seventy degree dive angle to hit its target (getting pretty close to diving straight down). Occasionally dive bomber pilots erred by taking a descent that actually EXCEEDED 90 degrees.
I can’t even imagine what that would have been like – and I was a paratrooper in my youth! And if it was rough on the pilot, just imagine what it must have been like for the gunner who was facing the tail section. Can you even imagine the recovery from that steep of a dive and what your stomach would have done???
My call sign would have been “Vomit Boy.”
I’d love to cruise the skies in a Hellcat, or a Corsair, or a Mustang. But I’d fly in your Dauntless AS LONG AS YOU NEVER, EVER DO A DIVE RUN. Because Vomit Boy doesn’t handle dives well.
May 6, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Vomit Boy: Just remember, the Navy can do what the rest of the world can only dream of doing…btw, I dive at 95 degrees. (chuckle, chuckle)
Btw, I have this photo of a F4U Corsair in my office in 8×10…very high resolution photo Navy archives. You can download it in high resolution, upload it to a photo service such as Walmart photo, let them print it.
http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=97459
GO NAVY!!!
May 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Dauntless,
Vomit Boy does 95 degree dives even worse than the 70 degree ones.
Just remember, YOU’RE CLEANING THE DANG PLANE.
There’s a really good air museum not far away from me (Palm Springs Air Museum). This is their permanent collection (they’ve got quite a few more on display at any given time).
I’ve been planning to go back with my “Military History Channel” appreciation of these aircraft.
We’ve got the Patton Museum not too terribly far away, too, fwiw.
May 6, 2012 at 4:12 pm
VomitBoy: No, I won’t be cleaning the plane; I’ll have Navy pipefitter to modify a diving helmet to be waterproof for you to wear…then you can barf to your heart’s content…meanwhile, I will DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!!!
I wonder if my wife will let me have this clock in my office? I helped my son build a model of the P51 “Big Beautiful Doll” back when he was in middle school. He has in mounted in his room. Great kid!
http://n7vkr.b2by3.servertrust.com/product-p/1135%20p-51.htm
May 7, 2012 at 11:22 am
Dauntless,
Based on the advice from my doctor, Vomit Boy politely declines your generous offer to fly with you.
Vomit Boy doesn’t even want to do nutty rollar coaster rides these days.
Poor Vomit Boy.
Your wife probably won’t let you put that clock in your office, but she’ll let you keep it in the garage where you would be under adult supervision.
Without male children, men look considerably sillier reliving their childhoods. Children are GREAT cover, aint they???
May 8, 2012 at 3:20 am
That is why the Navy separates the men from the boys!!! BWAAAHH!!!
May 8, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Oh, I’ve been “separated” for quite a while now in regards to the “real men can do tough stuff” stuff.
I’ve thought back to when I went to boot campt, etc. etc. And there is simply NO WAY I’d even TRY to do it.
Back then a drill sergeant would shout, “Drop and give me twenty” and I’d be on the ground doing push-ups. Nowadays, I’d reach into my wallet and pull out a twenty dollar bill instead.
I went through all kinds of hell because various instructors at various schools and ranges told me to go through hell. And these days I’d say, “Like hell I’m going to do that.”
Which is to say my current self wouldn’t get nearly as far as my former self got in the Army. My current self would be sitting in the brig the first day I got there for insubordination. And I’ll bet you if they drafted a platooon of men my age, we’d ALL be sitting in the brig the very first day after saying, “Like hell I’m going to do that.”
And which is why young bucks make the best soldiers.
So why would you expect me to be different in the Navy? I mean, you tell me you’re going to take a ninety degree angle straight down going over 400 mph, and what else do you think I’m going to say these days but, “Like hell I’m going to do that”???
May 8, 2012 at 3:06 pm
VomitBoy: Tell ya what; If I give you a few extra ammo belts, (you are in the rear gunner’s seat, remember), I can arrange to have a bunch of plastic zombie targets bobbing in the water…I will make all the tree top height runs you need to and let you just blast away…how about that?
May 8, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Well, I don’t vomit nearly as much when I get to concentrate on shooting at something…
And I vomit even less when I’m firing twin machine guns.
Automatic weapons fire IS the cool dude’s dramamine, after all.
On top of that, I would be doing the human race and decency a service by wiping out zombies, because every destroyed zombie means one less vote for Democrats (and yes, given DNC tactics being what they are, plastic zombies vote, too).
May 9, 2012 at 2:45 pm
VomitBoy; GAME ON!