Ding Dong bin Laden is gone

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by JWBear

A false analogy, IMO. The fall of the Berlin Wall was not a military action directed by a US President. It had very little to do with the US, in fact.

And I still can't, for the life of me, figure out why Bush should be congratulated for something that the current administration accomplised that he failed to do in his 8 years in office.

Wow....we sure do have a different view of 1980's geopolitics. I, however, view mine as opinion, and you seem to view your opinion as fact. A stark difference.

Both of these issues are matter of opinion, I suppose, and we disagree.

And I do agree with GD on the Constitutional question. It is war. There is also the point that it is widely believed (and I think Panetta even alluded to this) that we were worried that Pakistan would warn OBL. Talk about a fire storm. Can you imagine the outrage if it were discovered Obama had OBL but tipped off people that warned him? Not only would Obama be vilified (and would have been rightfully so - just as he does deserve credit for giving the order), but there would be active calls for war with Pakistan. Yikes.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Wow....we sure do have a different view of 1980's geopolitics. I, however, view mine as opinion, and you seem to view your opinion as fact. A stark difference.

Both of these issues are matter of opinion, I suppose, and we disagree.

It sure sounded like you were stating it as fact to me.

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Here's what I liken it to. The Berlin wall fell when GHWBush was President. Did he deserve THE credit? Not all, but some, and there was credit due the previous administration of Reagan and the policies thereof.

Communism was already on it's last legs when Reagan took office. The soviets simply could not compete with the western world. It would have collapsed regardless of who the president was.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by JWBear

Communism was already on it's last legs when Reagan took office. The soviets simply could not compete with the western world. It would have collapsed regardless of who the president was.

Perhaps, but not in the time frame it did. It was only Reagan, but other leaders of the time, including Lady Thatcher and Pope John Paul.

Kennedy deserves some credit for having the cajones he did during the Cuban Missile crisis. Hell, OBL does too, as ISM alluded to earlier. I would argue that Carter did everything he could to prop them up, but that's a different matter all together. I find the history of the collapse a very interesting one.