It didn’t really work that way. Bush was involved in two wars and frankly the intelligence wasn’t there to get Bin Laden until many years after the invasion of Afghanistan. Obama continued the intelligence gathering started by Bush and then executed on it when the opportunity presented itself. It’s not a Bush/Obama issue.
I much prefer Obama to Bush for any number of reasons, but I actually doubt that in actually there was that much of a difference in the priority assigned by the two presidents.
Bush would have loved nothing better than to show up with Bin Laden’s head on a pike, but had been utterly unsuccessful in tracking down Bin Laden. So in a sour grapes sort of way he decided to say that he wasn’t interested in Bin Laden, and could you please quit nagging him about it. This was of course an extremely bad thing to say politically, but probably better than saying that he had been trying as hard as he could for seven years but had failed to find Bin Laden and had no prospects of finding him any time soon.
Meanwhile was running as much against Bush’s legacy as he was against McCain saw an opportunity to exploit a weakness by saying that unlike Bush he would make it a priority. Fortunately, as it happened the CIA got a break on Obama’s watch and Obama was able to keep his promise.* But I doubt that it was a change in priority that gave the CIA the break it needed.
*That’s not to say that Obama doesn’t deserve some credit. The choice to act on that information in the way he did was a gutsy move that could have massively backfired.
I don’t think you can let Bush off that easy. We knew that Bin Laden was in the Afghanistan/Pakistan area yet Bush reassigned troops, equipment and intelligence away from that theater in order to focus on Iraq. By early February, not even six months since 9/11, the top anti-terrorist unit (Task Force 5) was withdrawn from Afghanistan in order to prepare for Iraq. Spy planes, predators and satellites were likewise retasked. All Arabic speaking CIA intelligence members in the area were reassigned to Iraq. In July 2006, the CIA completely shut down it’s division responsible for hunting Bin Laden.
Combine that with the PNAC papers and it’s pretty clear that Bush was far more interested in invading Iraq than he ever was in finding Bin Laden.
As for Obama, within six months of taking office, he sent a directive to Leon Panetta specifically telling him to make locating OBL a top priority. No offense, but it seems like a night and day difference in priorities to me.
The intelligence wasn’t there because Bush ordered it not to be there.
There’s also another critical difference. If Bush was trying to capture or kill bin Ladin then he failed. The only way you can argue that Bush didn’t fail in this is to say he wasn’t trying.
Obama set out to capture or kill bin Ladin and he succeeded.
Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda loved Bush. IIRC there was a leaked CIA report that the releases of bin Laden’s tapes were apparently deliberately timed to whip up fervor for Bush & his aggression whenever he appeared to be losing steam.
No, he wouldn’t. Osama bin Laden never mattered to him at all; he was after Iraq, bin Laden was just a distraction. If anything he was more useful to Bush as an uncaught bogeyman.
We all know now that bin Ladin was living in Pakistan and he wasn’t making that much of an effort to hide. The Bush administration apparently had made a decision not to offend Pakistan by running operations in that country. The issue came up during the 2008 campaign and the candidates offered different positions. McCain essentially said he would follow Bush’s policy: Pakistan is an ally and he wasn’t going to abuse that alliance. Obama said that he would conduct secret operations in Pakistan if he felt they were necessary. So it does seem that there was a change in priorities after Obama became President. We were no longer “hands off” in Pakistan.
As others have pointed out, Obama’s foreign policy weakness is not negated by an opinion poll about “doing the right thing”.
Foreign policy strength is determined by successful implementation of your policies and goals, not opinion polls. And sadly, Obama has been slapped down time and time again every time he tries to set the tone.
And most Americans, if they don’t have their head up Obama’s ass, can see that. Just look at any recent poll on Obama’s approval rating w/ regards to foreign policy. It is clear to most that he’s not doing well.
Lots of wrongness here, most of it of the opinion variety. Here’s my take: he got us out of Iraq, he got Bin Laden, he’s getting us out of Afghanistan (slower than I’d prefer), far fewer Americans have died both inside our borders and abroad due to enemy attacks and terrorism then in the previous administration, and he didn’t get us embroiled in any foreign quagmires.
Sounds like a pretty damn strong record to me, especially speaking as a veteran.
And furthermore - “International Opinion” of America, I’m sure, has nothing at all to do with how successful intelligence gathering operations are, how many people are willing to co-operate with America and the general way that intelligence operations can be conducted.
I’m interested in how you derived “hatred” from my response.
What would you call it? It’s certainly not “apathy”. Possibly “disdain”, but given how much space Obama is renting in your head, that seems kind of a weak term as well. It’s certainly not merely “dislike”. I didn’t hate Bush, but I complained about him a lot less than you complain about Obama.
I’m sure you’re perfectly willing to argue that you don’t hate Obama. From the outside, though, it’s pretty obvious you do.
Well, I think even Bush had enough sense not to attack a country that had actual WMDs. I think harping on this ‘line in the sand’ business comes from warmongers who thought they’d get another invasion and were disappointed.
Obama used threats to get Syria’s WMD stockpiles/program dismantled (or mostly, anyway). I don’t think a hostile fellow like Assad would go along with that if he wasn’t afraid of Obama’s threats. Now, if we decide military action is the only option left in Syria, we won’t have to worry about Assad’s forces launching sarin gas at the rebels, his neighbors, our troops, and so on.
People who like war for its own sake may not like it, but I think Syria has been handled well. The place is a disaster with or without our military intervention. We’re better off without.
iiandyiiii, while I agree with your conclusion based on the figures quoted I have zero confidence in the source of the numbers. The stock market prices, unemployment figures, inflation figures, gold and silver prices and all pertinent information originating with or backed by the administration have no basis in reality and are merely propaganda disseminated to the public through the bought off media in order to manipulate attitudes favorable to the bureaucracy’s agenda of world hegemony and total control. Obama and this administration have no scruples when it comes to truth; it lives by the lie…
Tell me about the moon landing.
Ain’t that just a master class in revisionism?:eek:
Putin, not Obama. Obama made some threats, but neither the UN nor Congress nor the UK nor anybody except the French were going to go along with it.
Which demonstrates why being popular is different from having an effective foreign policy. North Korea isn’t going to do anything different because Obama is Miss Congeniality in Europe. Putin isn’t going to leave the Crimea alone. ISIS isn’t going to back off in Iraq. Egypt still gets its foreign aid even though they had a military coup. Bahrain still gets weapons and equipment even while they are beating and torturing thousands of dissidents.
He got the Nobel Prize for being black and not being Bush. That’s all he can expect in return for being popular, and more than he deserves.
Regards,
Shodan
Which proves that Obama is so internationally powerful, he doesn’t even need to apply his own threats to get things done. When he wants something done, he makes his lackey Russia do it for him.
Doesn’t work in Ukraine, though.
Regards,
Shodan
Apparently it does. They have a pro-Western government now.