Retired General says Obama paralyzed with fear...

Well don't be worrying yourselves. Mittens is looking to be President and he has TONS of military experience!

Wait, what??

Oh.... never mind.

reply to post by jtma508


Any your point??? What exactly is Obama's military experience?

reply to post by Annee


This guy has been retired for nearly 10 years.

But yeah, he knows exactly what happened during the attack, at least that is what some believe here.

reply to post by Taiyed

Two contradictory ideas were in your mind, sir.

Contradictory Item #1: General says Obama isn't fit to be commander in chief.
Contradictory Item #2: Obama performs his role as commander in chief superbly

This is an example of Cognitive Dissonance:
en.wikipedia.org - Cognitive Dissonance...

.........
Cognitive dissonance theory warns that people have a bias to seek consonance among their cognitions. According to Festinger, we engage in a process he termed "dissonance reduction", which he said could be achieved in one of three ways: lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant elements, or changing one of the dissonant factors.[6] This bias gives the theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling, irrational, and even destructive behavior.
........

What you did is reduce the importance of item #1 by claiming the general is retired and out of the loop. But still you're quickly skipping past the fact that his opinion has credible value.

You're out of the loop too, are you not? Isn't that contradictory?

Contradictory Item #1: Taiyed says Obama is fit to be commander in chief.
Contradictory Item #2: Taiyed is out of the loop.

Eat that one for a while and let it digest and think about it.

Originally posted by Taiyed
reply to post by Annee

 

This guy has been retired for nearly 10 years.

But yeah, he knows exactly what happened during the attack, at least that is what some believe here.

I had a business in a military town. I've had personal experience with senior retired military.

You can take the man out of the military - - you can't take the military out of the man. Some are still reliving the Viet Nam war. I just smiled and listened to their experiences.

Anyway - - as they say about computers. They are outdated before they're shipped.

Technology has changed the intelligence of war. What was viable 10 years ago is not viable today - - in most cases.

reply to post by Rezlooper


Sounds like more of the "empty chair" sydrome to me.

The only thing this potus takes credit for is killing OBL. Everything else is someone else's fault. This guy has no shame.

reply to post by 1PLA1


He ought not to take that credit.

Originally posted by Taiyed
If he is saying that we are changing doctrines from throwing soldiers into unknown situations as fodder to something more logical and intelligent like knowing the situation before moving in...then I fully support it.

Just because someone is former Military, doesn't mean they are intelligent, in fact it may suggest quite the opposite.

Ok let's use your metric and assess why that consulate was still operational and why it had almost zero security. Talk about putting assets in harms way irresponsibly. This was the perfect example of doing just that. Thanks for agreeing.

reply to post by Bilk22


Yes and it was done knowingly and willfully as the testimony has shown. While removing assets they continued to increase the danger pay! Simply stunning to those who have bothered to watch the videos.

Originally posted by Rezlooper

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

And you're happy charging into a situation with no intelligence?? sounds about right on many levels to me....

Custer anyone??

anyone in the military will tell you the more intelligence the better, and at some point you make a decision to "go" or "not go" based on the intelligence you have, knowing there is more intelligence you can get.

Training officers to realise when this point occurs is a major deal.

There may be times when you think it is necessary to go withotu intelligence - but that should be an exception, not the rule.

Well of course more intelligence is better, but sometimes you gotta make a sacrifice to save your peeps! I know if it was my ass on the line out there I'd be hoping my comrades were coming for me and not waiting around to get a better picture of the whole situation.

which is, of course, not at all what was said by anyone!

sheesh - you should try READING - it's been known to be useful for gatering inteligence!

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by Rezlooper
This is a breaking story on World Net Daily. A retired General says that Panetta saying, "The basic principle is we don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place," is remarkable and incomprehensible. He said this is a change from America's doctrine since the Civil War.

In the words of Gen. Creighton Abrams, former U.S. Army chief of staff and former supreme commander in Vietnam: “A special word about the Dust Offs … Courage above and beyond the call of duty was sort of routine to them. It was a daily thing, part of the way they lived. That’s the great part, and it meant so much to every last man who served there. Whether he ever got hurt or not, he knew Dust Off was there. It was a great thing for our people.” Fast forward to current battlefields. We hear horror stories about patients waiting and dying because Dust Off didn’t launch or came too late.......

How did someone get to general without understanding that "dustoffs" in vietnam were often CAUSED by sending troops into harms way with insufficient information about what was goign on??

Panetta didn't say "we have to know everything that is going on" - he said we need to have "SOME real tiem intelligence" - which is jsut basic common sense even in the military - it is why you ahve scouts and recon!!

clearly needing intelligence was not a requirement in Abrams day!!

Well that sure sucks for all the Ambassadors out there who thought they were protected They have no problem sending them in without "real time intelligence", but a fully armed, technologicaly superior military unit complete with fighter jets, gunships, drones, etc? Nah... Too risky. They might get a booboo. Everyone knows a US ambassador is like a T-2000 terminator from Skynet who never dies. They don't need anything as frivolous as assurances of safety! They could just fly into the air like Iron Man and shoot lasers out of their hands. Silly General, he must be so old to come from a time when U.S. officials working on foreign land had expectations of protection! Silly old man.

Originally posted by OtherSideOfTheCoin
I think to claim that Obama is “paralysed by fear” when it comes to matters of national security is somewhat unfair. Obama took the decision to take out Bin Laden in a extremely risky operation that presidents gone by may not have taken, indeed Clinton once passed up on the chance to take out Bin Laden. Then we also have the massive escalation of the so called “drone war’s”, in addition to this there has been significant operations involving clandestine unites in side Pakistan.

Out with Pakistan Obama supported the so called “troop surge”, he acted with military might against Libya and personally authorized the use of force in the rescue of Captain Phillips in the Maersk Alabama hijacking.

One might not agree with many of the actions that Obama has taken, yet one cannot say he is indecisive or “paralysed by fear”.

Seems like this General is still suck in Vietnam era politics.

You compare his decision making with the fact he took out Osama and that Clinton passed up the chance, but that was before 9/11. No president would have passed up the chance after that. You say this general is stuck back in the Vietnam era, well, he must be there along with the other 500 generals and admirals that signed a full page ad in major newspapers today endorsing Romney. The military is liking Obama less and less everyday, and mostly in part because they know he made the decision to leave four of our own behind! It's not a good environment to have in our government when you have 500 retired generals and admirals put out a full page ad against the commander in chief.

Originally posted by DaTroof
Military people are sad, pathetic followers.

If this General had applauded the administration for not endangering more American lives, all you pro-military folks would be on his side. It's all about being part of a team with you folks, regardless of right or wrong. That disgusts me to the nth degree.

And what team are you a part of? You don't think you're a part of a team right now?

Didnt the attack last for something like 7 hours or so? how long does it take to find out what is going on when you have drones in the area watching everything?

Originally posted by jtma508
Well don't be worrying yourselves. Mittens is looking to be President and he has TONS of military experience!

Wait, what??

Oh.... never mind.

One doesn't need military experience to know how to treat them. If you're going to be their Commander in Chief, then you need their respect

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by Rezlooper

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

And you're happy charging into a situation with no intelligence?? sounds about right on many levels to me....

Custer anyone??

anyone in the military will tell you the more intelligence the better, and at some point you make a decision to "go" or "not go" based on the intelligence you have, knowing there is more intelligence you can get.

Training officers to realise when this point occurs is a major deal.

There may be times when you think it is necessary to go withotu intelligence - but that should be an exception, not the rule.

Well of course more intelligence is better, but sometimes you gotta make a sacrifice to save your peeps! I know if it was my ass on the line out there I'd be hoping my comrades were coming for me and not waiting around to get a better picture of the whole situation.

which is, of course, not at all what was said by anyone!

sheesh - you should try READING - it's been known to be useful for gatering inteligence!

You didn't comprehend what I said there? Maybe you should learn how to read, especially by the way you spell. You know this thing does have automatic spell check

Originally posted by 3n19m470

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul


How did someone get to general without understanding that "dustoffs" in vietnam were often CAUSED by sending troops into harms way with insufficient information about what was goign on??

Panetta didn't say "we have to know everything that is going on" - he said we need to have "SOME real tiem intelligence" - which is jsut basic common sense even in the military - it is why you ahve scouts and recon!!

clearly needing intelligence was not a requirement in Abrams day!!

Well that sure sucks for all the Ambassadors out there who thought they were protected

They have no problem sending them in without "real time intelligence", but a fully armed, technologicaly superior military unit complete with fighter jets, gunships, drones, etc? Nah... Too risky. They might get a booboo. Everyone knows a US ambassador is like a T-2000 terminator from Skynet who never dies. They don't need anything as frivolous as assurances of safety! They could just fly into the air like Iron Man and shoot lasers out of their hands. Silly General, he must be so old to come from a time when U.S. officials working on foreign land had expectations of protection! Silly old man.

You summed it up pretty well here. It simply amazes me that people just can't understand the significance of this whole affair from start (requesting more security) to finish (four dead Americans). Their blind allegiance to Obama has no shame.

reply to post by Rezlooper


The point that I am making is that although one can make arguments against Obamas decisions and disagree with them one cannot fairly say he is “paralysed by fear”, he has a strong track record of making military decisions as I outlined in my first post. When he had to act, he acted, now you can disagree with how he acted all you want but the point is that he did act, if he were paralysed by fear this would not have been the case. It was fear that caused Clinton not to act when he had the change to take out Bin Laden nothing else, Obama had no such fear and was able to act.

I don’t really see too much significance in 500 Generals endorsing Romney, I am sure there are many more retired military officers who are members of the republican party who will speak out against Obama but then again the democrats will have their own supporters in the military. As long as the current Generals respect Obama’s position as CIC then it really does not matter what 500 or 5 million ex-Generals have to say.

I am curious about the “four left behind” that you are talking about, could you please be more specific.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


The four left are the four dead Americans who he made the decision not to protect with more security when requested, and to not send in any support when the fire fight began.

Originally posted by Rezlooper

Well of course more intelligence is better, but sometimes you gotta make a sacrifice to save your peeps! I know if it was my ass on the line out there I'd be hoping my comrades were coming for me and not waiting around to get a better picture of the whole situation.

which is, of course, not at all what was said by anyone!

sheesh - you should try READING - it's been known to be useful for gatering inteligence!

You didn't comprehend what I said there? Maybe you should learn how to read, especially by the way you spell. You know this thing does have automatic spell check

Ah - right - whatever you do attack the person, since you don't actually know anything about what you are talking about.

If you knew what you were talking about, and actually cared about your comrades, you would want them to take enough time to prepare properly so as not to risk their lives any more than necessary whilst saving your useless butt!