Incompetence, or outright lies? Why can't Obama get his story straight?

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While there are several players in the drama that is the death of bin Laden, apparently only 2 showed any real competence; our intelligence organs and the actual forces involved in the operation.

The intelligence aspects are self-evident.  The military aspect somewhat less so, primarily because we still don't know what happened... and they keep changing the story.

Why?  From BLACKFIVE:

Meanwhile, between NSC staffers, the WH Press Secretary, Homeland Security, CIA and a multitude of “Senior Administration Officials” on background, the story has morphed into various versions of events. While the political side of me sees this correctly as another manifestation of the incompetence of this Administration, this vacillation is causing real harm to the significance of our victory here and to the reputation of the SEAL Teams. Let me assure you right now that there is no such thing as a “Kill only “ mission. If that SEAL operator came through the door to find UBL with his hands up, compliant, and unarmed (including no evidence of a suicide vest) he would have taken a muzzle strike to the face, but not any rounds. He would have swallowed some teeth, been flex cuffed, and dragged roughly out to a marshalling area and then onto the helo. To start out with the story that UBL had used his wife as a shield while shooting at the assaulters and to devolve that into to a woman was wounded and UBL was unarmed and shot in the face is quite a large spectrum of “truth”. Add to that the false notion of the “Kill only” mission, and now you have the entire SEAL community being thrown under the bus as wonton killers of women and unarmed civilians.

The ineptitude is reeking here.  Why can't they get their stories straight?

He was armed, he was unarmed.  He used a woman as a shield, he didn't use a woman as a shield.  He "resisted" in some unknown, nebulous way, or he didn't resist in some unknown, nebulous way.

Because Obama felt the need to set new records in getting rid of the body by dumping it with the fishes, many questions go unanswered, but not unasked, about Obama and his medical history (Did he really need dialysis, or were we being gamed about that as well?)

Obama's Propaganda Minister has gone so far as to refuse to acknowledge that waterboarding played a role in any of this, or, for that matter, to deny it.

And that leads us to this:  (Seattle Times)

White House struggles to get story right on raid

Killing Osama bin Laden was a big victory for the U.S., but how exactly the raid went down is another story - and another, and another.

By ERICA WERNER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Killing Osama bin Laden was a big victory for the U.S., but how exactly the raid went down is another story - and another, and another.

Over two days, the White House has offered contradictory versions of events, including misidentifying which of bin Laden's sons was killed and wrongly saying bin Laden's wife died in gunfire, as it tries to sort through what the president's press secretary called the "fog of combat" and produce an accurate account.

Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that officials were trying to get information out as quickly as possible about the complex event witnessed by just a handful of people, and the story line was being corrected.

"We provided a great deal of information with great haste in order to inform you. ... And obviously some of the information was, came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on," Carney said.

The contradictions and misstatements reflect the fact that even in the case of a highly successful and popular mission, the confusion inherent in a fast-paced, unpredictable military raid conducted under intense pressure in a foreign country does not lend itself immediately to a tidy story line, some experts said.

"People are demanding the equivalent of a movie, they want to know scene by scene the most trivial details. You're in the middle of a combat operation," said Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"One of the things we all have to be careful about is the idea that you can suddenly rush to transparency and understanding in a matter of minutes or hours on the first day of an event like this."

More:
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Faulty intelligence and information is far worse than no intelligence.  Combine that with the claim that even when presented with the facts, the Empty Suit took 16 hours to make a decision... Because he's so indecisive that I'm sure it's a major struggle for him to decide what he's having for breakfast.
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In this instance, the job was done.  But the window of decision can be small... and fleeting.  And unless Obama was channeling Reagan during that 16 hours of indecision, then it shows yet another troubling sign... of the many troubling signs... that we're stuck with a manager...a bureaucrat... and not a leader.
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Make a decision, Mr. President.  Do something... even if it's wrong.
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Because one of these days, you dithering is going to cost us... huge.

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