Mitt Romney:
"He was extraordinarily weak and timid in a critical moment," Romney said on Fox News. "This will have severe implications for us long term. ... I find it incomprehensible that he didn't destroy it or go get it ... the idea of letting it fall into the hands of people who will use it against us, use the intelligence against us, was an enormous mistake on the part of this president."
Dick Cheney:
"The right response would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it," Cheney said. "You can do that from the air and, in effect, make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone,"
IDIOTS!
Assume that the captured drone has military significance. Bomb it or send in some soldiers to retrieve it is the position of Romney and Cheney. Obama is weak because he didn’t bomb Iran.
For those not following events in the Middle East, there are strong rumors that Israel and/or the USA will attack Iran to destroy their nuclear program in the next month, consistent with the large US naval presence. Iran, in response, is at DefCon 1 – weapons armed and ready to shoot. They have dispersed and targeted their missiles and prepare to close the Straits of Hormuz. They expect war any minute.
If, for example, we shot a single cruise missile into Iran to destroy the drone, their logical assumption would be that the rumors were true – the US is attacking. Their immediate reaction would be to attack – launch all of the missiles towards Israel, Iraq, and other targets, and close the Straits of Hormuz. They would then attack the US naval forces in nearby waters.
Is a drone – any damn drone – worth starting a war with Iran?
Obama is a strong leader because he didn’t attack Iran. No war game with Iran has turned out well, and most put the world’s economy in the tank for years.
Now about the drone. The RQ-170 is a good drone, but not especially advanced. From Wikipedia,
The design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing planform, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing.[10] Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology
One other thing about drones. The only really cool stuff is electronic. It is assumed that contact will be lost sometimes, so the drone auto-lands itself. When it is recovered, it looks for a certain set of steps. If those steps are not followed, it auto-scrambles the electronics. Yes, they got a cool radar. But a cool radar is not worth fighting a war over.
Once again, the GOP has shown it blood-thirsty-ness, its complete lack of understanding of the Middle East, and the need to attack Obama whatever he does.
Obama doesn't lack balls, he just knows when to use them.
The Vote is yours… Obama or Idiot.