Obama administration's first missile strikes kills Al-Qaeda terrorists

Nobody delayed strikes like this for PR reasons. These strikes are targets of opportunity. The good guys on the ground figure out bad guys 1, 2 & 3 are in a hut together. If bad guy 1, 2 & 3 meet the requirements for the rules of engagement, the good guys execute. Whether it is a drone or the good guys are lasering the target from nearby, it all happens pretty quickly.

Maybe obama did not change the rules of engagement for engaging targets inside of Pakistani. Maybe he meant to, but did not get around to it quick enough. Time will tell the answer to that question.

At the end of the day, my hope is, if there is a guy plotting to do us (or our troops) harm, obama will fully authorize our men and women to track them down and kill them no matter where they are trying to hide.

I did not vote for obama, but I am rooting for him to do a good enough job that I vote for him in 4 years. Time will tell.

 

Exactly. Good post. :thumb:

 

i understand that its all quick, this is the opportunity sort of thing. but i thought maybe that there would be intelligence that said bad guys had been known to gather in suspected specific area, and the area was being watched for the opportunity to strike. i have no idea exactly how these things work.

i dont think he does plan on changing the rules regarding pakistan. this quote is from the same article i posted the link to....

the emphasis is mine.

in other words, hand em over, or duck and cover.

 

The bad guys strive to not be predictable. You need timely intelligence and the weapons nearby to achieve the results we did. Unfortunately, the near misses or we were off by 10 minutes are greater than the success stories I suspect.

 

All I'm saying is that there has never been a post or thread here noting that a terrorist was killed during the Bush administration. Suddenly one bad guy gets blown away and Obama is a bad MFer.l

 

When someone makes a habit of doing something, people get used to it and take it for granted. :wink:

 

Then I guess you knew that Obama has always been strongly in favor of attacking terrorist targets in Pakistan.

I didn't know that. When I heard the news of the strikes, I felt like Beaux-Bo did:

Maybe obama did not change the rules of engagement for engaging targets inside of Pakistani. Maybe he meant to, but did not get around to it quick enough. Time will tell the answer to that question.

When I heard the news of the strikes, I wondered if Obama knew about the strikes against the terrorist targets in Pakistan, I wondered if Obama was in favor of it, I wondered if Obama would continue the strikes against terrorist targest in Pakistan, etc.

Then I found out that Obama has always been in favor of attacking terrorist targets in Pakistan.

I've considered John McCain a hero for a long time and I wanted McCain to be President long before I ever heard the name Obama. Granted, I like Obama, but not enough to vote for him over McCain -- so I didn't care to learn about all Obama's stances on every single issue out there during the campaign.

 

I'd be willing to bet none of our guys on the ground called Obama and asked his permission before firing.
More like what someone already allude to.
Either this was a planned strike that had been in the planning stage for more than just 2 days, or it was a target of opportunity.
Those in the know over seas were probably well aware of Obama's policy on such attacks before he even took the oath. So there would be no questions/confusions once the change in power took place.

I'm pretty sure he found out before it hit the newspapers.

 

Not real sure what Pres Obama's policies are going to entale concerning the fight on terrorism, but I do think many are going to be surprised to find out that deployment from Iraq, by 2011, won't necessarily mean that our troops are coming home.

 

Every theater has rules of engagement, and some situations are infinitely more strict than others. For instance, if a guy points a weapon at you or is clearly placing an IED, you can shoot him without approval from higher. If it's something as huge as killing a high-value target, you have to go up the chain of command for permission.

If it was a planned strike, I can't see President Obama being in the dark about it. You don't just launch missiles into another country without political approval as well as military approval. At the very least, if it was a target of opportunity, the lowest person to have known about it was a general.

There's no way we're going to give up a presence in the country that's smack in the middle of a volatile part of the world that directly affects our interests. But I think there are going to be very large troops reductions by 2011, to the point that we may just have a joint air base left there, like Prince Sultan AB in Saudi Arabia.