Whar Grade Do You Give President Obama In Handling His First Crisis As Commander In Chief?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Poll question: Whar Grade Do You Give President Obama In Handling His First Crisis As Commander In Chief?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. No bluster. Low key.

but the job was done.

[mix]

10. THAT is what I like.

Obama also knows the political risks of putting himself at the center of every crisis. He did not turn the incident into an orgy of self-promotion, as 43 would have.

A+, Mr. President.

[Uzybone]

2. This is crisis #55731

Bush left the crisis coffers overflowing.

[polichick]

7. That's pretty much what I was thinking - not nearly the first crisis, but job well done!

[saltpoint]

3. The freepers are likely fuming that they can't crow about a "weak" President

Obama.

Damn it all, the captain's life was saved.

[mix]

11. huge, symbolic moment

a defining one even

[BeyondGeography]

22. Reminds me of us when we were getting our ass kicked politically

Except we had the comfort of rooting against an idiot.

[question everything]

4. Fu**ing A!! (nt)

[Incitatus]

5. Well, only 3 out of 4 were killed so I guess 75% C.

:sarcasm:

[rasputin1952]

8. When I was in the Army, as Sgt of the Guard I'd tell my guards

that, "if possible, and you need to use deadly force, we want them wounded, not dead. Getting info from a corpse is difficult."

I understand the use of deadly force in this situation, and I understand your "sarcasm" smilie...but I just wanted to put that out there...:hi:

edit: typo...:blush

[Fire1]

16. Might I add that the Captain 'did the hard part.' n/t

[rasputin1952]

18. He did...

he took on the responsibility he had to...for that, he deserves recognition...:D

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. That's Not Surprising In A Commando Operation

It's not like they couldn't have just given up in the face of overwhelming force.

[FrenchieCat]

6. No Drama Obama!

[ecstatic]

12. Well... Biden warned us of this lol

:P

“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

[mtf80123]

13. B-

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Elaborate Please

...

[mtf80123]

26. I take that back

A+

He did great!

[CTyankee]

15. Summa cum laude. With highest honors. Good job, Mr. President. n/t

[Top Cat]

17. A President we can count on....

[SoFlaJet]

19. Obama 1 Pirates -3

A

[fortyfeetunder]

20. Was this the test Joe Biden was talking about?

If so, looks like he passed it!

[MrSlayer]

21. Could not have handled it better, A+

Captain rescued, pirates dead, no ransom paid, no casualties on our side. Perfect.

[slackmaster]

23. The Navy did its job

Obama gets some credit for being the C in C and allowing people to do what they are trained to do.

[depakid]

24. The FBI hostage negotiators were on the job as well

Unfortunately for most of the pirates, they severely overestimated their BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement).

Before people go overborad with the nationalism, we should recall that other nations have pulled off more difficult rescues recently.

French commandos rescue tourists from Somali pirates

French commandos stormed a sailboat to free two French tourists who were being held by heavily-armed Somali pirates, President Nicolas Sarkozy has said. One pirate was killed and another six captured in the lightning raid, which lasted 10 minutes. The hostages were unharmed.

With the backing from a French warship stationed nearby, some thirty commandos swooped on the pirates. They received support from Germany and Malaysia, according to the Elysée.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/2968620/French-commandos-rescue-tourists-from-Somali-pirates.html

Though these sorts of engagments are surely not without their risks:

Fatal French commando rescue of pirate hostages underscores risk of sneak attack

A fatal French commando rescue of hostages seized by Somali pirates Friday shows the risks of trying the same thing to free the U.S. skipper held by outlaws on the high seas, experts said.

The question in the case of captured Maersk Alabama freighter Capt. Richard Phillips is whether the U.S. should wait the pirates out - or take them out.

"Patience. Time is a weapon," said Christopher Voss, a retired FBI lead international hostage negotiator. "There is a lot of psychological pressure on these guys. They're dazed and confused." FBI negotiators have been trying to talk the captain's four captors into giving up for several days. But after he eluded the pirates on a lifeboat and tried to swim away, the pirates chucked radios and a satellite phone dropped on them by the Navy to establish contact. As their water and food supply dwindles, the pirates will grow weak and may be easier to cut a deal with.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/11/2009-04-11_fatal_french_commando_rescue_of_pirate_hostages_underscores_risk_of_sneak_attack.html

[Hippo_Tron]

25. It depends on what happens next

I was calling for the ransom to be paid and I will admit that looks like it was the wrong move in retrospect. However I didn't have the luxury of having access to the military scenarios presented to the President and their probabilities of success. I do hope that they are declassified some day so that I can see what happens.

The real question is, what happens next time? Are we going to keep using the military every time there is a kidnapping? Will the military options always be as good as they were this time?

[Occam Bandage]

27. Using the Navy for every kidnapping of an American in international waters

is acceptable and expected in my eyes. It certainly sets a better precedent than giving a $2,000,000 reward to everyone who kidnaps an American--and protection of Americans on the high seas is, after all, the founding mission of the Navy. Heck, we went to war with the world's greatest power (in terms of overseas power projection capability) in 1812 because they were kidnapping Americans on merchant ships.

[BlooInBloo]

28. You knew you didn't have access to that info ahead of time...

And yet you still felt qualified to make a call. A call based on ignorance that you were aware of beforehand.

[Occam Bandage]

30. But failure to demand Obama listen to your admittedly ignorant opinions

is simply resigning yourself to dictatorship. Or something.

[BlooInBloo]

31. Heh indeedy.

[Hippo_Tron]

32. I speculated about what I would do in his situation...

Is there a problem with my doing that? Obviously I'm aware that Obama has access to information that I don't and I wasn't calling the white house or writing demanding that he take a certain action based on my uninformed opinion. I simply responded to those who said they would absolutely use force (people who were also ignorant of the military scenarios) by saying why I thought it was a bad idea.

[BlooInBloo]

33. "I was calling for the ransom to be paid" - from ignorance you were aware of ahead of time...

But it's a free country - you're welcome to call for whatever you want, out of as much ignorance as you can possibly muster.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. By calling, I mean posting on a message board...

And by posting I don't mean "Call Obama right fucking now and tell him this" I mean I was just hypothetically stating what I would do. I really don't see how this could offend anybody. By your logic nobody should've been suggesting that we don't go to war with Iraq because it would've been out of ignorance since Bush and Cheney had access to information that we didn't.

[AtomicKitten]

29. So far so good.

He didn't micromanage and let the Navy Seals do their thing, and they were spectacular in executing the mission. I'm not normally a yeah military or death kind of person, but damn those boys can shoot. Surgical.