President Obama is NOT Pres. Carter, and this is not April 1980!

[robfilms]

April 1980, my last year at law school in Washington DC.

That spring day, when the two helicopters went down in a failed attempt to snatch those held by Iranians was a bleak vision of American.

That administration could not get done what needed to get done.

31 years later, 6 Presidents later, and it is clear this Administration can get done what needs to be done.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Be well

Rob

[OWC Jamie]

Trained by Ford.
Come on, you know the drill - always blame the previous administration.

Except when it's time to take credit for accomplishments.

[beagledave]

billb wrote:
Trained by Ford.
Come on, you know the drill - always blame the previous administration.

Except when it's time to take credit for accomplishments.

Yeah one thing that I wished Obama would have done in his speech was to throw a little recognition to Dubya's efforts on this. I know that he personally called Dubya and Clinton to give them a heads up. But a short mention of the efforts of the previous administration would have been nice.

[robfilms]

President Obama mentioned Bush's efforts.

Any more highlighting of the Bush administration might then have looked like he was stating the obvious, Bush's people didn't get it done and President Obama's people did.

The fact that President Obama acknowledged Bush at all was enough.

YMMV

Be well

Rob

[Carnos Jax]

That's what I'd thought too. In addition, I thought another reason more wasn't mentioned was because the entire sequence of events occured only recently.

[cbelt3]

The operation Eagle Claw disaster was the genesis of JSOC, as the concept of 'joint operations' was not consistent in the Special Operations arena. In fact, inter-service rivalry produced such unusual groups such as 'The Blue Berets'.. an experimental special operations group developed through the US Air Force during Vietnam, that essentially duplicated the US Army's Green Berets (I had a co-worker back in the 80's who served in the Blue Berets... you won't find many references to it on the web).

Also, the rescue of 54 embassy staffers in the middle of a heavily defended and stirred-up capitol city is a significantly different mission from dropping a SEAL Team onto a fortified compound in a suburban area for the purpose of apprehending (or killing) one man.

Say what you like about Carter, but the man was a naval officer. Admittedly he was one of Rickover's squids, and as a nuclear engineer was inculcated in the tradition of technical caution and competence. It's not a surprise that Eagle Claw was aborted after too many helicopters became disabled from FOD (Sandstorm).

[beagledave]

robfilms wrote:
President Obama mentioned Bush's efforts.

I was in the middle of something when the news was on, so if I missed the mention, my error.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Mac1337]

As cbelt3 mentioned the two operations are nowhere comparable. I don't know who in his right mind thought you could remove 50+ hostages from a downtown location then fly them a 1000 miles. Even this one came close. One helicopter was lost.

[OWC Jamie]

Don't give the men on the ground any credit.
Nor the end of the road.

[cbelt3]

Dakota wrote:
As cbelt3 mentioned the two operations are nowhere comparable. I don't know who in his right mind thought you could remove 50+ hostages from a downtown location then fly them a 1000 miles. Even this one came close. One helicopter was lost.

That would be Spec Ops HERO Charlie Beckwith.

Who rememberedthe Son Tay raid, which was intended to overwhelm the heavily fortified North Vietnamese POW camp and free 61 American POW's, and get them past a military base holding 5,000 NVA regulars and through the most active AA belt in the WORLD at the time. AND which succeeded in getting in, AND out.

Dude, you have GOT to stop discounting the capability of American fighting men and women. AND the basic understanding of American politicians which is .. you don't tell the boys and girls HOW to do it, just WHAT to do. And it gets done.