Any President would've ordered the OBL Mission (Page 2)

You overestimate the threads that have a point.

Yes, where are those threads?

They have titles like 'Girls of... ' and 'Suits...'.

I think the bigger story is the type of mission that was ordered.  It would've been much easier to send a drone overhead, press a button and launch a missile into the compound.  Politically that would've been the much safer option, no risk to American lives, much less fallout it if turned out obl wasn't there.  That's something I think you can realistically argue just about any president would've done, even if there was only a 50/50 chance obl was there.  

The mission Obama ordered though, sending special ops in (I believe mainly to ensure a positive id  of bin laden and to avoid civilian casualties) was much, much riskier from both an operational and political standpoint and I don't think you can argue any president would've done that.  I think most would've opted for the easy, safe option.  And even if they didn't, I have hard time imagining most of them being successful.  I mean if George Washington had ordered the raid his troops probably would've been terrified of the giant thundering bird they were supposed to get on to take them to the compound and refused to go.  And even if they made it there somehow, if they missed their first shot they'd be sitting ducks in their white powdered wigs and tights while they reloaded their muskets. 

uummm ya Drew... I'm having a real hard time seeing that. You can't just launch attacks on a country on a  50/50 then be completely unable to prove you got what you were shooting at. Heck... Pakistan could have known he was there, but then round up some bodies and claimed America slaughtered a family.

If I take the SEAL at his word that was there, it was not an assasination mission. Yes dead was part of deal, but so was capture. If they captured OBL, then we could parade him around and show him to the world and he would not be a martar. We got dead... but we also got proof with zero collateral damage... that is the proper play, not a cruise missle launched "at" a "ally".

I dunno.  I'd put Clinton in the push category.  Before Somalia, yes.  After Somalia, no.  It's difficult to put this into any historical context-with any of these Presidents- but I think that if Clinton and his military advisers had Somalia fresh on their minds it would have been a long shot for them to give the go order without almost unattainable levels of intel.  That's not necessarily a shot against Clinton but political realities for a politician.

Agreed.

I was against the Iraq war from the beginning and Bush's handling of it. Be that as it may, deep down I have to believe that he went with what he thought was best for the country. I don't care to think the alternative... but I have to believe, that when it really counts, when people's lives are on the line... that the Commander in Chief does his best to do what is right with all the info they have. Sure we can Monday morning QB it and look at all the other angles... but I just choose to believe that the President does the best he can to make the best decision... even if a different President would have made a different decision.

All I can say is huge kudos for the President all the way down to the guy that fueled the helicopter and the men and women pouring over intel for years to finish a job that America has waited for far too long.

You do know that the mission in Iraq was to remove Saddam from power, right?

When you say (in images) "Mission Accomplished", you are saying you have completed the job. When Hillary summited Everest, he was asked whether he thought that Mallory had done so, and Hillary pointed out (correctly so) that to have conquered a mountain means also to have safely come back down. Which, even if Mallory had hit the peak, he did not return, so he did not conquer the mountain. 

Similarly, if you hire someone to remodel your kitchen, and they rip up the floors, pull off the cabinets, install the new flooring and furnishings, and then say "OK, we're done", you don't pay them until they have cleaned up the mess they made and removed the debris and packaging.

Removing Saddam (and without getting into whether it was an appropriate use of our military resources) entails not only getting him out of power, but also safely withdrawing the troops, and not leaving the country worse off than when we started the whole enterprise. So, no. Mission was not accomplished at the time of the infamous photo op.

And Sudan also, as I recall.  He had actionable intel and he pulled the trigger.

But it's really hard to throw this topic into a black & white yes/no, since we don't know what specific intel Obama had.  Maybe it was rock solid 100%, maybe it was 50-50 and he was taking a shot in the dark and got lucky.

Each president has his own thresholds for a) doing nothing, b) calling in an air strike, c) putting covert men on the ground, or d) all out war.

Seems as if you are trying to minimize the decision.  He could have just bombed the place and not put troops at risk, but he went for the higher risk, higher payout (intelligence information) route.  perhaps all the others would have made the same decision- who knows.  They flew helicopters, at night, into Pakistan without telling them.  a million things could have gone wrong (and some did go wrong).   Obama would have gotten the blame if it failed, so you need to give him the credit for the success- however you choose to minimize it.  FWIW- Romney said that he wouldn't go into Pakistan.

Good thing he sent in an extra helicopter.  At least he learned something from Jimmy Carter.

A POTUS has near total control of the military and state department, and exceptionally limited control over the economy.  I wonder why we pin the economy so much on the POTUS, when their role elsewhere is so much more connected to what they actually do and decide.

I'm sorry, I know you said it off handed... but really... Obama himself planned and sent in a extra heliocopter? Wow, he is a much better special ops organizer than I thought. I guess he get's the credit for the extra heliocpter too and not just the green light to the plan that the real proffessionals came up with. Looks like all that community organizing really paid off.