Bin Laden Raid Book: First-Hand Account Of Navy SEAL Mission Will Be Released On Sept. 11

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I bet they always put you at the front of the formation for ruck marches to. Bastard.:mad:
Reed


:)

A 15-minute mile pace is very comfortable for me, I always told my guys as long as they were in front of me, they would make time. The only time I went fast was when I was rucking by myself.
 
haha wait guys i had my message backwards..
i meant that the 25 SEALs killed in suicide bombing in Virginia would be more devastating**

so you three who agreed with me, you need to disagree now.

<--- still foreign
 
haha wait guys i had my message backwards..
i meant that the 25 SEALs killed in suicide bombing in Virginia would be more devastating**

so you three who agreed with me, you need to disagree now.

<--- still foreign

I was uncertain about your initial post (thanks for the clarification) and therefor decided to just put in my argument on the matter, without trying to parse yours, so here goes.

I think that *if* anyone is going to get demoralized about a hit, then military personnel *should* be more demoralized about a hit on the civilians they are charged with defending, than a hit on themselves. Civilians, on the other hand, *should* be more demoralized about a hit on "our troops" than a hit on themselves. However, my understanding of human nature, and Americans in particular, leads me to believe the opposite is true in both cases. And I think that is a sad testament to our character. However, on the bright side, I don't think Americans, military or civilian, are prone to demoralization when attacked. Instead, they get pissed and motivated. So it may be a moot point.

(The only caveat regarding civilians being prone to greater demoralization about a hit on themselves is that some Americans don't seem like they'd be too upset if the enemy killed fellow Americans with whom they disagree politically; such is the division we have in America these days between "liberals" and "conservatives". Again, sad, but off topic. The foregoing paragraph stands on it's own, without this digression.)

In my original post, it was agreed that AQ is here. It was agreed that AQ was planning hits. In response to a challenge, I even agreed that AQ would hit soft targets if they could. (That was a stipulation to a challenge which actually made my point even stronger). So, they are here. They want to hit. They can hit soft or hard targets. The question is, which would be preferable *if* there will be a hit?

So here's a hypothetical that is a worst case scenario against my argument: The possibility of a hit on the non-military loved ones of Special Operations personnel.

If AQ is at the mall to take out the wife and baby of an operator, or the wife and baby of John Doe, is anyone willing to argue that the former are more special than the latter? To do so, even in the exigencies of war, and discussions of morale, smacks of quartering troops, or conducting the defense of this nation in such a fashion as to destroy the very thing it is designed to defend. It's UN-American, in my opinion.

I've heard these men call themselves "gun fighters." It brings to mind former POTUS Bush's talk of wanted posters and the old west, and the movies I grew up with. Gunfighters who made a name for themselves spent the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders, not only for enemies and other men like themselves, but also for the next young punk who wanted to earn a name for himself as a killer, and the one who took down X. This was alluded to by someone else, above, not me.

It's a tough life and Big Boy Rules apply. If you want to avoid that shit then either you don't live it, or you better keep your name out of the lights. But *if* your name is out there, for whatever reason, better it be the gun fighter or his loved ones who are stalked than John Doe or the people the gunfighter was sworn to defend. The gunfighter, and his loved ones, are a smaller target, easier to protect, and might even be bait in the worst case. And, while his family might not have, the gunfighter signed on for these possibilities. I won't go into the choices, if any, made by his family. But if we, as a nation, don't want that, or are worried about it, then maybe the operators and family should all stay on base somewhere until the war is over (Wow, I can't believe I even thought of this war ever being over; that brings up a whole 'nother subject about Spec Ops).

It's pretty much a uniquely American thing where we get to go abroad, kick ass, and then come home to relative safety. Most other countries don't have that luxury. If we are starting to lose that luxury, and if we are starting to suffer what other countries have had to deal with since Christ was a Corporal, then wouldn't it be best if our enemy did what we say we do: Go abroad and seek out combatants? Who are we to complain when the they would do what we would have them do?

Again, this is all based on "if".
 
haha wait guys i had my message backwards..
i meant that the 25 SEALs killed in suicide bombing in Virginia would be more devastating**

so you three who agreed with me, you need to disagree now.

<--- still foreign

I think you had it right the first time. Given bare numbers alone, people in the US are more likely to know someone who works at Wal-Mart than someone on active duty in the military. Military types getting killed isn't "real" to them. 25 SEALS died in a suicide bomb? "Oh, well, sucks to be them, glad I'm not a SEAL." 25 people get blown up in Wal-Mart? ":-o I shop at Wal-Mart!! That could have been me! I better sit in my house until the bad people all go away." Shit just got real.
 
Well at the same time a CONUS attack against our special operations members will put the fear in them : "if they aren't safe then we definitely arent"
 
Are you guys really war gaming this shit? Listen, America is ready to shit its pants at a moments notice. One IED on a highway somewhere and this country will shut down for days if not weeks. The thing doesn't even have to go off, it could be a fake and the media cycle would run the story over and over to generate ad revenue, scaring the hell out of the public in the process.
 
I think you had it right the first time. Given bare numbers alone, people in the US are more likely to know someone who works at Wal-Mart than someone on active duty in the military. Military types getting killed isn't "real" to them. 25 SEALS died in a suicide bomb? "Oh, well, sucks to be them, glad I'm not a SEAL." 25 people get blown up in Wal-Mart? ":-o I shop at Wal-Mart!! That could have been me! I better sit in my house until the bad people all go away." Shit just got real.

^^^This.
 
Are you guys really war gaming this shit? Listen, America is ready to shit its pants at a moments notice. One IED on a highway somewhere and this country will shut down for days if not weeks. The thing doesn't even have to go off, it could be a fake and the media cycle would run the story over and over to generate ad revenue, scaring the hell out of the public in the process.

^^^This too. Unfortunately.

I'd use like buttons and whatnot, but I guess I don't rate. 8-)
 
Are you guys really war gaming this shit? Listen, America is ready to shit its pants at a moments notice. One IED on a highway somewhere and this country will shut down for days if not weeks. The thing doesn't even have to go off, it could be a fake and the media cycle would run the story over and over to generate ad revenue, scaring the hell out of the public in the process.


Didn't we already find and IED or 2 down south that belonged to a cartel? It may have been in Mexico itself...
 
We’ve also seen IED tactics and techniques used by insurgents increase in sophistication and proliferate globally. Take, for example, the explosively formed projectile that we saw in Iraq has made its way to the Gaza Strip, and recently in Somalia — all tracking back to Iran and Iran-supported organizations. Vehicle-borne IEDs that we’ve seen in the Middle East, we’re now seeing in Mexico. And the use of female suicide bombers — pioneered by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka — spread throughout the Middle East, worked its way to Southeast Europe, and most recently have been employed in Somalia and Nigeria.
https://www.jieddo.mil/content/docs/20120608_LTG Barbero Remarks_RUSI_As Prepared.pdf
 
Nope, you just haven't used the search button enough, it will set you free...;)

When I am *not* logged in, I see disagree and agree X's and Checks but cannot press them. When I am logged in, those X's and Checks disappear all together. I'm not sure why I should have to use a search button to "like" a post, or even what I would search for to figure out what is usually a default option. Meh, it's not a big deal. I'd like to be able to edit my posts too (my second one in this thread was pasted from Word but the paragraphs, indents, etc. did not transfer and it's almost unreadable). Apparently you can only edit if you are vetted and I'm not, so . . ..
 
PM sent. All of this is info can be found, answered, and enabled by using a search, but YMMV ;).

I agree with Jack's point, I think the media would literally nut all over themselves at the opportunity to run with a story like that as bad as that sounds.
 
Haven't been around for quite sometime. This thread has a lot of replies. Honestly too much to sit here and read right now. Can someone some up basically what the thoughts are here on the book?

Thanks
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/no-easy-day-bin-laden-raid-book_n_1837947.html


NEW YORK -- The much-anticipated firsthand account of the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden reveals the terrorist leader was unarmed and was already dead with a bullet to the brain when the SEALs entered his bedroom in the compound at Abbottabad, Pakistan.

As the SEALS ascended a narrow staircase, the team's point man saw a man poke his head from a doorway, wrote a SEAL using the pseudonym Mark Owen (whose real identity has since been revealed by Fox News) in “No Easy Day,” a copy of which was obtained at a bookstore by The Huffington Post.

"We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots. BOP. BOP," writes Owen. "I couldn't tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room."

Team members took their time entering the room, where they saw the women wailing over Bin Laden, who wore a white sleeveless T-shirt, loose tan pants and a tan tunic, according to the book.

Despite numerous reports that bin Laden had a weapon and resisted when Navy SEALs entered the room, he was unarmed, writes Owen. He had been fatally wounded before they had entered the room.

"Blood and brains spilled out of the side of his skull” and he was still twitching and convulsing, Owen writes. While bin Laden was in his death throes, Owen writes that he and another SEAL "trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless."

Then the SEALS repeatedly examined his face to make sure he was truly bin Laden. They interrogated a young girl and one of the women who had been wailing over Bin Laden’s body, who verified that it was the terror leader.

The shots fired inside the room appear to contradict the mission they were given. During a meeting with top commanders, a lawyer from either the Pentagon or the White House "made it clear that this wasn't an assassination," writes Owen, who recounted the instructions: "I am not going to tell you how to do your job. What we're saying is if he does not pose a threat, you will detain him."

Searching bin Laden’s neatly organized room, Owen found two guns -– an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol -– with empty chambers. “He hadn’t even prepared a defense. He had no intention of fighting. He asked his followers for decades to wear suicide vests or fly planes into buildings, but didn’t even pick up his weapon. In all of my deployments, we routinely saw this phenomenon. The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was.”
The book calls out inaccurate accounts of the assault. "The raid was being reported like a bad action movie," Owen writes. "At first, it was funny because it was so wrong."

Contrary to earlier accounts, Owen says SEALs weren't fired upon while they were outside the gate of the compound. There was no 40-minute firefight. And it wasn't true that bin Laden had "time to look into our eyes."

Owen, a 36-year-old SEAL who also took part in a previous 2007 attempt to get Bin Laden and was involved in the heroic 2009 operation to free Captain Richard Phillips from pirates off the coast of Somalia, also had harsh words for President Barack Obama.

Though he praises the president for green-lighting the risky assault, Owen says the SEALS joked that Obama would take credit for their success. On his second night in Afghanistan waiting for final orders, sitting around a fire pit and joking about which Hollywood actors would play them in the bin Laden movie, one SEAL joked, “And we’ll get Obama reelected for sure. I can see him now, talking about how he killed bin Laden,” according to Owen.

Owen writes: “We had seen it before when he took credit for the Captain Phillips rescue. Although we applauded the decision-making in this case, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that he would take all the political credit for this too.”

Later, while watching Obama’s speech announcing the raid, Owen writes: “None of us were huge fans of Obama. We respected him as the commander in chief of the military and for giving us the green light on the mission.” When one SEAL jokes again that they got Obama reelected, Owen asks, “Well, would you rather not have done this?”

He writes: “We all knew the deal. We were tools in the toolbox, and when things go well they promote it. They inflate their roles. But we should have done it. It was the right call to make. Regardless of the politics that would come along with it, the end result was what we all wanted.”

Later, when they meet Obama at the White House, Owen says he was reluctant to sign the American flag presented to the president because it would disclose his identity. So, at least one SEAL scribbled a random name on the flag. While going through the metal detector to meet the president, Owen’s pocketknife set off the alarm.

After listening to Obama’s speech and enduring Biden’s “lame jokes that no one got (He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner)" the president invited the team to return to his residence later for a beer.

But Owen writes a few weeks later: “We never got the call to have a beer at the White House.” Joking with a fellow SEAL, “Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” Walt cracks: “ You believed that shit. I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in an email: "As President Obama said on the night that justice was brought to Osama bin Laden, 'We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.'"
 
^^Hahaha. How ironic.

====================

OK so it's not clear if the Federal Gov't has the authority to stop a book like this from getting out?

Anti-Obama SEAL group wants bin Laden raid book stopped

A group of ex-Navy SEALs wants the Obama administration to use any means available to halt publication of a new book detailing the Osama bin Laden raid.

Scott Taylor, president of the Special Ops OPSEC Education Fund, called on Attorney General Eric Holder to get an injunction against the publication of "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden."

OPSEC — headed by a former Republican candidate for Congress — released a 22-minute video earlier this month that accused President Obama of compromising national security through national security leaks and the release of information about the bin Laden raid.

"We are asking you to commit any and all resources of the Department of Justice necessary, including your authority as the U.S. Attorney General, to immediately seek the extraordinary remedy of an injunction in federal court to prevent this book from being published and distributed until it can be subjected to proper review procedures by the appropriate government agency. A failure to act to prevent an unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or classified information is a failure to act to protect those who serve our country," Taylor wrote to Holder.

"We have no desire to condemn a book we have not yet read and remain hopeful current reports about its contents are simply the product of hyper-aggressive marketing," Taylor wrote. "However, the potential threats from unauthorized disclosures to those who still serve in Special Operations units are too great to simply wish for the best."

"Too many detail about units like that one were already leaked by senior members of the Administration in the days after the Bin Laden raid and those who serve simply cannot afford any more to become public," he wrote.

"No Easy Day" was written pseudonymously by a former SEAL, but Fox News revealed the author last week as Matt Bissonnette. Both the White House and the Pentagon deny cooperating with the book, and say that no one in the federal government has reviewed it to avoid disclosures of sensitive information. Such reviews are typical for books by former government or military personnel writing about sensitive missions or classified information.

However, it's not clear that the federal government has the authority to stop any book from being published. In several high profile cases about prior restraint, federal courts have been reticient to impose gag orders on the press — even in the case of national security.

In the famous Pentagon Papers case, the government rejected attempts by Richard Nixon's administration to stop the New York Times from publishing classified Vietnam war reports. And the government dropped a 1979 attempt to stop the publication of nuclear secrets in a magazine.

The conventional wisdom is that the raid book (set to be released on Sept. 11th) is good news for Obama — given that the death of bin Laden is one of his major foreign policy successes in a race against a ticket with no military or foreign policy experiment. But it could just as easily backfire — putting a spotlight on the administration's records on security leaks and alleged politicization of certain national security successes.

UPDATE: "We are aware of the letter and are reviewing it," Dean Boyd, Department of Justice spokesman told POLITICO.
 
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