People think of the president as being fairly removed from military tactics. That really isn't the case. Here's a little breakdown of the decision-making process for killing Osama that highlights how engaged the president is (from politico):
"The original plan for the raid was to bomb the house, but President Obama ultimately decided against that. “The helicopter raid was riskier. It was more daring,” an official said. “But he wanted proof. He didn’t want to just leave a pile of rubble.” Officials also knew there were 22 people living there, and Obama wanted to be sure not to kill all the civilians. So he ordered officials to come up with an air-assault plan. The forces held rehearsals of the raid on April 7 and April 13, with officials monitoring the action from Washington."
And, from paleoconservative Peter King: "I give the president full credit for this, it took a lot of guts,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.), whose district was home to dozens of New York City firefighters and cops killed in the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept 11th 2001. “He’s the commander-in-chief, he was the guy who put it on the line. There was no guarantee –none - that this would work. We could have had our helicopters shot down… It was a really delicate operation.”
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