Democrat Joe Biden has been lurking in the 2020 presidential shadows being presented by those with their 2020 fingers crossed as an adult in the romper room of pubescent progressives waiting for their Spartacus moments as they learn the complexities of basic math and leadership skills.

Biden was the top choice for 28 percent of likely Democratic primary voters surveyed in a recent University of Massachusetts Amherst poll, despite his not having declared a 2020 presidential bid. Yet while critics of President Trump’s foreign policy accuse him of a degree of recklessness and immaturity that place the nation’s security at risk, Biden’s service in an administration that gave us the criminal negligence and incompetence of Benghazi, provides us with an example of why he should not be trusted with the nation’s security or the lives of its heroes.

As author and attorney David Shestoksas points out in his review of Betrayed: The Shocking True Story of Extortion 17 as told by a Navy SEAL's Father, Biden betrayed the heroes that killed Osama Bin Laden to further his political ambitions:

On May 1, 2011, Aaron Carson Vaughn, member of America’s elite special operations force, Seal Team VI, called his father, Billy Vaughn and exclaimed:

“Dad, we got him!”

 The elder Vaughn asked: “Got who, son?”

Aaron Vaughn replied: “Who do you think? Go turn on the TV.”[1]

On television shortly thereafter, President Obama declared to the nation that Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the deadly attacks of September 11, 2001 was dead.

Vice-President Biden Applauds and Endangers the Seals

Vice-President Joe Biden, at an awards banquet on May 3, 2001,[2] remarked:

“Admiral James Stavridis… can tell you more about… the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday… I’d be remiss also if I didn’t say an extra word about the incredible events, extraordinary events of this past Sunday.  As Vice President of the United States, as an American, I was in absolute awe of the capacity and dedication of the entire team, both the intelligence community, the CIA, the SEALs.” (emphasis added)

Less than a day after Biden’s remarks Aaron Vaughn called his mother Karen:

“There’s chatter and all of our lives are in danger including yours, Mom.”

Three Months Later A Deadly Attack on Seal Team VI

On August 6, 2011, in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan, Aaron Vaughn and 30 other Americans,[3] including 15 members of SEAL Team VI[4] were killed when their fifty year old helicopter, designated Extortion 17, was hit by a rocket propelled grenade.

Leon Panetta is one who has taken President Trump to task for his alleged “loose lips.” Panetta himself, it would seem, was also one who needed to be surrounded by adults to keep his loose lips in check, having put the lives of those who took out Osama bin Laden at risk. As Breitbart reported:

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, for example, told CNN on Tuesday that Trump “cannot just say whatever the hell he wants and expect it doesn’t carry consequences.”

Panetta should know, because it was his loose talk after the Osama bin Laden raid that exposed a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who helped locate the Al Qaeda leader.  As a result, Afridi was imprisoned on fabricated charges and will live under fear of assassination for the rest of his life.

As Breitbart News noted in 2013, a Pakistani report on Dr. Afridi reportedly concluded “Dr. Afridi was implicated by a ‘statement by the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was the CIA Director when May 2 happened, confirming the role of Dr. Afridi in making the U.S. assassination mission a success.'”

Panetta did not reveal that critical intelligence in a private meeting with a foreign emissary, but to the entire world, on CBS News’ 60 Minutes.

Then there is Joe Biden, whose loose lips got members of Seal Team 6 targeted for revenge and killed in an Afghan mission known as Extortion 17. As Investor’s Business Daily recounted on May 28, 2013:

Extortion 17 was the call sign of a special operations mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011, that responded to an Army Ranger unit engaged in a firefight with the Taliban and in need of backup.

The Chinook helicopter carrying the rescue team was shot down by a Taliban-owned rocket-propelled grenade over the Wardak Province on Aug. 6, 2011, killing 38, including 30 Americans and 15 members of Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden just three months prior.

The shoot-down was described at the time as a "lucky shot," but the families of the dead SEALs believe that, like Benghazi, it was a pre-planned operation of revenge facilitated by a government that put them in harm's way without adequate support and with a bull's-eye painted on their backs.

At a Pentagon briefing on Monday, May 2, 2011, a senior defense official was asked if it was a Navy SEAL team that found and killed the world's most wanted man. The terse and proper response was: "Not going to comment on units or numbers."

Then on May 3, Vice President Joe Biden got up to speak at a dinner at Washington's Ritz Carlton Hotel marking the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic Council to spill the beans about Adm. James Stavridis and "the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday."

From that moment, the families believe, the Taliban looked for an opportunity for revenge, and a government more concerned with politically correct rules of engagement than victory helped them get it.

Biden skated on the leak that got SEAL Team 6 targeted for revenge. Those who now condemn Trump for trying to save American and, yes, Russian lives, were silent, especially Leon “Loose lips” Panetta. Panetta and Biden, like Hillary Clinton at Benghazi, put lives in jeopardy and got men killed.

The deaths of more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that took out Osama bin Laden is connected to a loose-lipped vice president who likes to sometimes pose as a presidential action figure.           

To be a politician takes more chutzpah than courage. The chattering class, as the mainstream media is sometimes called, were more worried about how the successful Bin Laden raid by Navy SEALs might affect President Obama’s reelection chances in 2012. So did administration officials, as the leaks and chest-thumping began almost immediately.

SEAL missions depended on bravery, courage, skill, daring -- and secrecy. Initially, when President Barack Obama announced that “a small team of Americans” had killed Osama bin Laden, he did not identify it was the SEALs. Nor did the senior defense official at the Pentagon briefing: “Not going to comment on units or numbers.”

Then on May 3 Vice President Joe Biden got up to speak at a dinner at Washington’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Atlantic Council: “Let me briefly acknowledge tonight’s distinguished honorees. Admiral James Stavridis is a, is the real deal. He can tell you more about and understands the incredible, the phenomenal, the just almost unbelievable capacity of his Navy SEALs and what they did last Sunday.”           

The RPG that felled the SEALs may have just been a random act of war. The Taliban could have just gotten lucky. Or they could have been plotting and waiting for revenge, looking for helicopters that might be carrying more SEALs on another mission, a big bulls eye painted on their backs by a vice president who forgot that loose lips can sink ships, and can also get Navy SEALs killed.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.