## Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jack Roper » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:00 pm

Notice how Mitt Romney keeps morphing his positions about important issues. This is a classic.
The Facts About The Death of Osama bin Laden
Apr 30, 2012 | By ThinkProgress
Obama: “I Said That We’d Go After bin Laden if We Had a Clear Shot at Him and I Did.”
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. The president’s campaign has taken the opportunity to remind the American people of one of his greatest achievements, as well as Mitt Romney’s very different record on the issue. As a result, the Romney campaign and some in the media like Arianna Huffington have accused the president of “politicizing” the occasion.
Here are the facts.
FACT: President Bush turned his focus toward Iraq and the trail for Osama bin Laden went “stone cold.”
Just a few months after we were attacked on 9/11, President Bush remarked:
Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He’s just a person who’s been marginalized. … I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.
The Bush administration, of course, blew a huge opportunity to capture bin Laden early in the War in Afghanistan when bin Laden was allowed to escape from Tora Bora after pleas from commanders and intelligence officials for more resources were rebuffed by top Bush national security officials. In 2005, Bush passed on a mission to capture “senior members of Al Qaeda” in 2005 because “it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan.” Later that year, the CIA shuttered its bin Laden unit entirely as part of a broader shift in resources toward Iraq. By 2006, Bush told Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard that capturing bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.” By late 2006, bin Laden’s trail had gone “stone cold.”
See the complete bin Laden timeline here [you will have to go to Think Progress for this].
FACT: President Obama ordered the military to kill Osama bin Laden and Osama bin Laden is dead.
During the 2008 campaign, the president promised that “if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s border region, we must act if Pakistan will not or cannot.” During an October 2008 debate with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the president stated:
We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.
As he brought the Iraq War to a responsible end, the president refocused attention back toward the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 and those who still seek to do us harm. Making good on his promise, President Obama made the decision to order a daring raid into Pakistan and brave members of our military killed Osama bin Laden.
FACT: In 2007, Mitt Romney publicly attacked Obama for proposing the very tactic that ultimately killed bin Laden.
In 2007, Mitt Romney injected himself into the Democratic primary campaign and criticized Barack Obama for vowing to go after “high-value intelligence targets” in Pakistan with or without permission. Romney said, “I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours.” Here was the August 4, 2007 headline from Reuters:
While Romney claimed today that “of course” he would have also ordered the raid to kill bin Laden, he attacked the president in 2007 for vowing to do just that.
FACT: Mitt Romney called killing Osama bin Laden “insignificant” and said it wasn’t “worth moving Heaven and Earth.”
In April 2007, Romney said, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” According to the Associated Press, Romney also said “the country would be safer by only ‘a small percentage’ and would see ‘a very insignificant increase in safety’ if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power.”
At a press conference earlier this afternoon, President Obama addressed the issue in response to a question from a reporter:
As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assumed that people meant what they said when they said it, that’s been at least my practice. I said that we’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggested they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.
IN ONE SENTENCE: President Obama ordered the raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden — the very same thing Mitt Romney once publicly denounced then-candidate Obama for saying he would do.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Chris12 » Tue May 01, 2012 11:39 am

I don't actually see the problem here.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by drawscore » Tue May 01, 2012 1:43 pm

>>>IN ONE SENTENCE: President Obama ordered the raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden . . .<<<
Actually, he did not. The authority for the raid was delegated to SecDef Leon Panetta, and a three star (at the time) admiral named William McRaven, thus insulating Obama from any fallout if the raid failed (like Carter's attempted hostage rescue in 1980), but positioning him to take the credit if it succeeded. Go back and listen to his speech announcing the success of the raid, and count the number of times he said "I" or "me." Then compare it with military successes announced by Bush 2, Clinton, Bush 1, and Reagan.
McRaven was rewarded for the success of the raid by getting his fourth star, and being appointed to head the United States Special Operations Command, which oversees Navy SEAL's, Army Rangers and Special Forces, Marine Force Recon, Air Force Commandos, and sniper units from all services.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
Drawscore
Last edited by drawscore on Tue May 01, 2012 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jack Roper » Tue May 01, 2012 1:52 pm

Drawscore nitpicking again, how surprising. Bet he was thrilled when Pres. Bush landed that jet on "Mission Accomplished" day several years ago.
Here's a little more of "Waffle" Mitt Romney on getting Bin laden, from the Daily Kos, Apr 30, 2012 at 12:02 PM PDT.
Mr. Romney -- you’re no President Obama (you’re not even Jimmy Carter)
by silver springFollow .
OK… so Mitt Romney, asked if he would have given the order to go after Osama Bin Laden, as President Obama's new campaign video suggests Romney wouldn't have done, replied:
"Of course, even Jimmy Carter would have given that order."
http://www.politico.com/...
But I think that President Obama’s criticism on this point is wholly valid. During the 2007-2008 campaign Romney repeatedly indicated that he would NOT go after Bin Laden if necessary.
In April 2007, Romney spoke directly about bin Laden -- he told the Associated Press:
“it’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
“…Romney’s “heaven and earth” line proved a gaffe at the time as well. Sen. John McCain, who tried to portray Romney throughout the race as weak on national security, told blogger Jennifer Rubin that “it takes a degree of naiveté to think [bin Laden is] not an element in the struggle against radical Islam.”
Byron York, columnist for the (conservative) National Review, held nothing back, writing at the time, “we have already spent billions and gone to a lot of effort to try to get bin Laden … it would be worth still more money and still more effort to kill the man behind 9/11.”
“I can’t imagine any serious Republican candidate for president would say otherwise,” York wrote. “Perhaps Romney should watch the tape of the planes hitting the towers again.”
Later on, in August, Romney again rejected the option of going after bin Laden…
“Obama on Wednesday said if elected president in November 2008 he would be willing to launch military strikes against al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is one of the Republican front-runners, said U.S. troops "shouldn't be sent all over the world." He called Obama's comments "ill-timed" and "ill-considered."
"There is a war being waged by terrorists of different types and nature across the world," Romney said. "We want, as a civilized world, to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme with them."
http://in.reuters.com/...
Several days later, Romney again criticized then-candidate Obama:
“Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), in particular, was singled out for saying last week that he would act against terrorists in Pakistan without the support of its president. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney contrasted those comments with Obama's remark during a recent debate that he would be willing to meet with all foreign leaders.
"I mean, in one week he went from saying he's going to sit down, you know, for tea, with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies," Romney said. "He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week."
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama, quickly responded that "the fact that the same Republican candidates who want to keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war couldn't agree that we should take out Osama bin Laden if we had him in our sights, proves why Americans want to turn the page on the last seven years of Bush-Cheney foreign policy."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Perhaps Romney’s comments from the last campaign shouldn’t be taken seriously – as apparently he’s been on each and every side of almost every conceivable issue. But who are we to know what he really thinks about going after bin Laden? If we take Romney at his word (a dicey proposition indeed) we can only conclude that he would not have gone after bin Laden as President Obama has done.
Even President Carter did attempt to go after the Iranian hostage takers (though the effort proved unsuccessful)… so Mitt Romney is apparently not even up to President Carter’s caliber when it comes to this issue …
… and he is certainly not up to President Obama's caliber. The President’s video in which he questions whether Romney would have gone after bin Laden is perfectly valid.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by drawscore » Tue May 01, 2012 2:05 pm

Jack, it's clear that Obama's your candidate, and the only way you'd vote for anyone else, is if Obama was caught in bed with a dead 16 year old girl or a live 12 year old boy. And if that happened, you might still vote for him.
And Obama's new buddy, Bill Clinton, was offered bin Laden three times, and didn't take him.
Drawscore

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Wed May 02, 2012 8:48 am

> drawscore wrote:Jack, it's clear that Obama's your candidate, and the only way you'd vote for anyone else, is if Obama was caught in bed with a dead 16 year old girl or a live 12 year old boy. And if that happened, you might still vote for him.

The same is apparently true between you and anyone who runs against Obama, so what's the difference?

> drawscore wrote:
> And Obama's new buddy, Bill Clinton, was offered bin Laden three times, and didn't take him.

Something Bill Clinton was man enough to admit in public himself; unlike Bush (who blew more and far better opportunities than Clinton ever had, AFTER bin Laden became what should have been - but wasn't - his #1 priority). Of course, you have to remember that Clinton's chances came before the destruction of the World Trade Center, when Osama did not stand out significantly from any of a hundred other terrorists.

> drawscore wrote:>>>IN ONE SENTENCE: President Obama ordered the raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden . . .<<<
> Actually, he did not. The authority for the raid was delegated to SecDef Leon Panetta, and a three star (at the time) admiral named William McRaven, thus insulating Obama from any fallout if the raid failed (like Carter's attempted hostage rescue in 1980), but positioning him to take the credit if it succeeded.

You have an odd idea of how this sort of thing actually works. The ultimate responsibility was the President's whether the mission succeeded or not.
Read this: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/home ... k&Itemid=1
I am personally unfamiliar with the author btw, but I have no doubt you (that is, Drawscore) will simply dismiss him as an untrustworthy liberal regardless merely because he disagrees with you. So also try
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ation.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/a-y ... -1.1069201
and http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels ... cision-492
It was a politically risky move that could ave ruined him, but he took the chance anyway. At last credit the man with some guts!
This is true of many things you refuse to give him credit for, while at the same time you blame him without hesitation for things he could have had no control over (the high deficit, which ballooned just as badly in relative terms in the Bush years as now and which the economic collapse in Bush's final year made inevitable) or which everyone running for President is guilty of (politicizing the military).
God Himself couldn't meet the double standard that you impose upon Obama, yet Bush (who made far worse errors than Obama in many cases) is almost looked upon as a martyr or a saint by conservatives like you.
Ultimately it comes down to whether you prefer Obama or Romney (the only person now running against him). Since it's Romney (who btw criticized Obama for going after bin Laden) and not someone like, say, Ronald Reagen or Teddy Roosevelt, I'll have to go with Obama regardless of what your extreme-conservative-candidates-only crowd has to say about it. Obama isn't perfect I freely admit *and have said all along), but he's better than Romney and a HELL of a lot better than Bush!!!
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jack Roper » Wed May 02, 2012 2:00 pm

Excellent response, Jason. Now wait for incoming......

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Chase Ricks » Wed May 02, 2012 9:12 pm

http://youtu.be/JsrSAqRrCc0
There is no I in Seal Team 6. But President Obama seems to think he can get away with saying he personally shot and killed Osama bin Laden. Sorry but I can not stand back and watch this politician profit from the lives of actual American heroes. Yes I may have said this out of context but I accept all harassment from those who want to dish it out because I did my duty and posted here.
From whence I came and whence I went heaven said I was too evil and sent me to hell. Demons and devils succeeded in breaking my soul.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Thu May 03, 2012 8:14 am

> Chase Ricks wrote: http://youtu.be/JsrSAqRrCc0
> There is no I in Seal Team 6. But President Obama seems to think he can get away with saying he personally shot and killed Osama bin Laden. Sorry but I can not stand back and watch this politician profit from the lives of actual American heroes. Yes I may have said this out of context but I accept all harassment from those who want to dish it out because I did my duty and posted here.

More biased BS. The Seals did the job yes. The Seals should get more credit, yes.
But it WAS ultimately Obama's decision... as is, in fact, every major military decision like this one. It was a move that could have finished his political career had anything gone wrong, even if bin Laden had been killed anyway. It's the most clear-cut victory of his entire administration (and still the loud mouthed conservatives want it take it away from him!).
As for the fate of the SEALs had things gone wrong, well... they're soldiers. They knew damned well the risks they faced when they became SEALs in the first place. And no one seems to recall that 3000 soldiers died in Iraq alone after the war there was officially over.... during Bush's watch!
What Obama and the SEALs did was to help avenge them and the victims of 911. Something Bush completely failed to do!!!
If Bush or Romney (or any of the other Republicans who had entered the race earlier but have fallen out since) had been the President and had made the call and were running for a second term at this time, you can bet your sweet ass they would have politicized this as well, especially if they were criticized anywhere near as much as Obama has unfairly been. Hell, they'd have crowed about it endlessly. Obama has tried to downplay the death ever since it happened, but does that cut any ice with you conservatives? Of course not, because he's Obama! Even Jimmy Carter (a nice man but a rotten president) was given much more respect that this!
It may be uncool to imply racism is involved here, but I can't help but wonder if Obama would have to put up with so much s**t if he had simply been white!
Maybe if you conservatives would give the man the same benefit of the doubt you'd have given others, he wouldn't have had to do that political ad in the first place! But you're so Gung Ho about trying to take it away from him that he's no wonder he feels he has to bring it up!
So knock it off with the GD double standard! Rather than tear Obama down, try to build Romney up - God knows he needs the help!
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by drawscore » Thu May 03, 2012 3:11 pm

First, you cannot argue with an idiot, because people watching the exchange cannot tell the difference.
Second, there are people in this country who would vote for Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Fidel Castro, or Saddam Hussein if they had "D's" next to their names on the ballot.
Drawscore

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Thu May 03, 2012 4:57 pm

> drawscore wrote:First, you cannot argue with an idiot...

Precisely why *I* am done talking with you... although I think most everyone else reading this can tell which of us is which.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by sarobah » Sat May 05, 2012 6:26 pm

> drawscore wrote:Second, there are people in this country who would vote for Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Fidel Castro, or Saddam Hussein if they had "D's" next to their names on the ballot.

Wow! Forget the politics. That has to be the silliest thing I have seen posted on this site, ever.
It’s also one of those weaselly statements that mean absolutely nothing. There are people in this country who would strip naked, cover themselves in chocolate pudding and roll about on an anthill singing “You’re having my baby.” So what?
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Sat May 05, 2012 9:27 pm

> sarobah wrote: There are people in this country who would strip naked, cover themselves in chocolate pudding and roll about on an anthill singing “You’re having my baby.”

I always knew Australia was an interesting place.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by sarobah » Sun May 06, 2012 1:55 am

> Jason Toddman wrote:

> > sarobah wrote: There are people in this country who would strip naked, cover themselves in chocolate pudding and roll about on an anthill singing “You’re having my baby.”

> I always knew Australia was an interesting place. :lol:

Well,
(1) Australians look good naked (generally speaking),
(2) we make some damn fine chocolate pudding,
(3) we have some of the mightiest anthills on God’s green Earth (look it up),
(4) I think we all, regardless of nationality, look upon Paul Anka fans with pity and contempt.
~ Sarah
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Sun May 06, 2012 7:02 am

I LOVE chocolate pudding!!! As for Paul Anka... I haven't heard that name in years and years!!!
If Romney wins, maybe I'll move over there! I don't look so good naked anymore though - I'm over the (ant)hill!
Anyway, I've always wanted to see a kangaroo and have Christmas in summer!!!
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by sarobah » Sun May 06, 2012 7:39 am

> Jason Toddman wrote:If Romney wins, maybe I'll move over there!

In that case, I don’t think we will be seeing you here in the near future.
Come November, I think ole Mitt is in for a
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.

### Re: Romney on Bin Laden's demise.

Post by Jason Toddman » Sun May 06, 2012 9:17 am

> sarobah wrote:

> > Jason Toddman wrote:If Romney wins, maybe I'll move over there!

> In that case, I don’t think we will be seeing you here in the near future.
> Come November, I think ole Mitt is in for a

I believe so too - based on current information. But you never know when something from out of left field might change everything. History has a way of throwing us curves. Just imagine how different (and likely better) things might be in the world if for instance neither John or Robert Kennedy had been assassinated, or (for the worse) if a failed assassination attempt on FDR in 1932 had actually succeeded.
God forbid such a thing ever happens again, but with all the cranks yammering about how unfit Obama is, it wouldn't surprise me if some nut-job took such things too seriously and tried to take matters into his own hands. IMO even a close-call attempt (like Reagan's in 1981) would be an unmitigated disaster.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...