US Raid on ISIS in Syria

U.S. officials also said Jade Helm is not a hostile federal takeover of Texas.

Can we trust that?

 

There's a pretty good case to be made that the ONLY thing the media should report on covert operations is the end result.

 

It's cute that you're trying to portray me as paranoid -- or maybe just unwilling to accept anything that comes out of the Obama WH.

I thought the press' job was to be skeptical, to be adversarial, to question what our government tells us, and to seek to independently confirm what they report.

And, it's not like we haven't been down this road before. We know the official version of events that is put out is often exaggerated, filled with made up details, and designed to put everyone involved -- including those who approved the mission -- in the best possible light.

I believe the broad story is true and correct. We went in, killed a bunch of people, and got out safely.

Great job.

But, when you start giving me details like "hand-to-hand" combat, and precision shots that take out fighters holding women and children and human shields, my BS detector goes off -- especially wen these details come out as fast as they did.

But, hey, maybe this is the one case where the details of a covert raid were immediately shared with people in a position to distribute it to the press, and where it was all relayed in perfect detail.

 

Were you just as willing to not accept anything out of the Bush WH, or were you just as skeptical?

 

Is it really THAT unbelievable that our guys would have to punch a few guards? Is it really THAT unbelievable that some terrorists might use women and children as shields, and that our guys might try to avoid killing them, too? A lot of people have admitted to using them or planning to use them as shields.

Those two things are as unbelievable as Hersh's claim that the U.S. government has been involved in a decades-long, multi-country conspiracy that no one even hinted at until now, and that has been detrimental to all countries involved for quite some time?

Also, this story had three different sources say the same thing about "hand to hand combat." One more than Hersh did. And that was just in the initial reporting. People probably believe it because it's believable, and what they consider to be adequately sourced.

If I were to worry about anything, it would be the one official quoted who started talking tough about having "devastated" ISIL and its leadership. That's the thing that needs more reporting before quoting anyone on it.

 

Uh, you remember that photo of Obama and Hillary and others watching the OBL strike go down?

The U.S. has instrumented our warfighters with day/night vision cameras, and developed communication networks to stream what individual fighters are doing and seeing in real time. And this is piped back to the Pentagon and White House.

So, several people in DC actually watch these kinds of things live, then open their mouths about what they saw, and be somewhat correct. It usually takes a full debriefing of the warfighters and creation of a situation report / after action briefing to get the complete and more accurate picture of what happened.

 

This is what I was talking about a few years ago here. Create a PPV website and call it War.org to let people watch ops just like this and charge 99 bucks a year and you'd fund the military for life while allowing us to take money that would have gone toward defense spending and use it for other social programs.

Or something.

 

When was the last time we saw a Bin Laden video?

 

The USA spends 581 billion a year on the military. We would need 5,868,686,868 subscriptions at $99 a pop. That's pretty much every person in the world.

 

Lotta blood lust out there.