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Correcting the ‘fairy tale’: A SEAL’s account of how Osama bin Laden really died

American said:
The point that the author is making is that had they withheld the news of bin Laden's death for a while, it was have delayed the loss of usefulness of the intel.
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They only could have delayed that information from the public. Al Qaeda would probably have figured things out pretty quick, though. My guess is that they knew Bin Laden was dead before the general public did anyway.
 
American said:
Well I don't think this was unexpected. I mean they aren't going to take someone contesting the story lying down. We don't know what kind of fiction could be on either side.
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The article does makes a great point about the simple facts that are incorrect in the book, like when McRaven was appointed and by whom.

Such simple, easily checked facts being portrayed in error do raise serious credibility concerns about the author. If he can't get simple, public record information correct, then it is absolutely absurd to trust the "top secret" info he is presenting.

If the article is accurate about the public record inaccuracies in the book, the author has 0 credibility.
 
Misterveritis said:
Maybe I don't understand your post. But I am inclined to think that it is just simply wrong.
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The leader of Al Qaeda is dead. There are many eyewitnesses to the raid, because it's in a city. Al Jazeera was reporting on it before Obama said anything. The world (not just Bin Laden's main lieutenants) had gotten an inkling of what had happened within hours of the raid with no help from the White House press secretary, and within days, the world would have found out. Obama had two options: release the information quickly and everyone celebrates or try to cover up the raid, watch the cover up completely fail within days, look like a jack-ass, and the intelligence is still just as useless. The information was getting out before the intelligence could be used no matter what the White House did.
 
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More developments:

Spec ops command: SEAL raid book ‘a lie’ - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Special Operations Command is calling a former Navy SEAL’s book bogus over its claims to describe the “real” version of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

“It’s just not true,” U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Col. Tim Nye said. “It’s not how it happened.”

Packed with conspiracy theories and attacks on the Obama White House, Chuck Pfarrer’s “SEAL Target Geronimo” claims an alternative version of the raid in which the SEAL team shot bin Laden within 90 seconds of arriving at the Pakistan compound where the al-Qaida mastermind was holed up.
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Is this going to descend into a he-said, she-said kinda deal?
 
the stories dont seem logical at all,no special forces member would say anything,ive worked with them before and they keep most of their secrets to the grave.our sf quite often blend in unoticed in the middle east and it would have been easy to use our intelligence to perform a silent assasination unoticed.And it is a belief among many military members there was a reason we never killed him before.reason being if you kill obl the muslims see him as a martyr killed by oppressive enemies,but if he kept running and died any other way,he would be seen as a coward not a hero.if obama was a real leader in that situation he would have worried about a silent death rather than one seen by the world,effectively putting more people in danger overseas just to gain a name.
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
The leader of Al Qaeda is dead. There are many eyewitnesses to the raid, because it's in a city. Al Jazeera was reporting on it before Obama said anything. The world (not just Bin Laden's main lieutenants) had gotten an inkling of what had happened within hours of the raid with no help from the White House press secretary, and within days, the world would have found out. Obama had two options: release the information quickly and everyone celebrates or try to cover up the raid, watch the cover up completely fail within days, look like a jack-ass, and the intelligence is still just as useless. The information was getting out before the intelligence could be used no matter what the White House did.
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Or he could have said, "We don't comment on operations."

But to do that he would have needed to be an adult.
 
Misterveritis said:
Or he could have said, "We don't comment on operations."

But to do that he would have needed to be an adult.
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What good would that have done? Al Jazeera already knew. Honestly, how long do you think it would have taken for Bin Laden's lieutenants to find out?
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
What good would that have done? Al Jazeera already knew. Honestly, how long do you think it would have taken for Bin Laden's lieutenants to find out?
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Bah, who cares about lieutenants, those lowly butterbars don't know **** anyways!
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
What good would that have done? Al Jazeera already knew. Honestly, how long do you think it would have taken for Bin Laden's lieutenants to find out?
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Find out what, exactly?

Why tell your enemy who carried out the raid, what they collected, and how fast we can exploit it? In war we want to keep our enemies in the dark about what we know versus what we are guessing. Or at least that is what worked in past wars. I suppose Obama's Wars are different somehow.
 
Caine said:
Bah, who cares about lieutenants, those lowly butterbars don't know **** anyways!
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They are exactly the people who would probably render the intelligence found moot.

Misterveritis said:
Find out what, exactly?
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that Bin Laden was assassinated

Misterveritis said:
Why tell your enemy who carried out the raid, what they collected, and how fast we can exploit it? In war we want to keep our enemies in the dark about what we know versus what we are guessing. Or at least that is what worked in past wars. I suppose Obama's Wars are different somehow.
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Not telling the public anything would not have affected a thing. Al-Jazeera was already reporting on Bin Laden's death before the White House. Tell me, how was Obama supposed to keep Bin Laden's death under raps when simply not reporting it would not have worked.
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
They are exactly the people who would probably render the intelligence found moot.



that Bin Laden was assassinated



Not telling the public anything would not have affected a thing. Al-Jazeera was already reporting on Bin Laden's death before the White House. Tell me, how was Obama supposed to keep Bin Laden's death under raps when simply not reporting it would not have worked.
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This confirms that you and I are not speaking of the same things.

The one term Marxist president Obama could have said, "We conducted a military operation in the past few hours with the goal of capturing or killing bin Laden. The mission was a success."

He did not need to go on to say we collected computers with dozens of hard drives, videotapes, and a host of other valuable records identifying his top lieutenants in a dozen countries....

The one term Marxist president is a dangerous ass.
 
The sad thing is, I only looked in on this thread to see how you would work in "one term Marxist president." As I pretty much figured, it was on something that has nothing to do with Marxism.
 
rocket88 said:
The sad thing is, I only looked in on this thread to see how you would work in "one term Marxist president." As I pretty much figured, it was on something that has nothing to do with Marxism.
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Do you believe that just because someone's core values are derived fro Radical Karl's writings that everything he does must bear the Marxist stamp?

Sometimes he is just an ill educated ass.
 
American said:
While you may cheer the news, al Qaeda is quickly making the intelligence gathered during the mission useless.
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Don't know if you study history or not, but in case you don't.

Sometime during WW11 the U.S. military was often talking about ways to get a cretain German coding machine they were often looking where it would be made or where one was, even after they captured one.
The Germans unaware of this kept using the same codeing machine.

Unfortunatly, after this headline I doubt Al Queada will be using the same intelligence,

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS, haven't you ever heard that saying?

Some times it is neccessary for the American public not to know certain things .

Since you are in a giving information mood ,how much money went into the pre-invasion of Iraq , how much money has America spent in Iraq so far, how much money is the private corporation of Halibutian getting for staying in Iraq?:peace
And about those WMDS??
 
i also didn't like that one of the high ups said ... boy we sure don't want another operation eagle claw. and would they normally come right out and say so soon "it was seal team six" ? why wasn't he taken alive ?? i thought the natgeo show on it was ridiculous. and the timing of it all. unbelievable.
 
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presluc said:
Don't know if you study history or not, but in case you don't.

Sometime during WW11 the U.S. military was often talking about ways to get a cretain German coding machine they were often looking where it would be made or where one was, even after they captured one.
The Germans unaware of this kept using the same codeing machine.

Unfortunatly, after this headline I doubt Al Queada will be using the same intelligence,

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS, haven't you ever heard that saying?

Some times it is neccessary for the American public not to know certain things .

Since you are in a giving information mood ,how much money went into the pre-invasion of Iraq , how much money has America spent in Iraq so far, how much money is the private corporation of Halibutian getting for staying in Iraq?:peace
And about those WMDS??
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Actually it was the British that captured the Enigma machine and broke the German code. The only place the Americans did that was in Hollywood.
 
Wiggen said:
Actually it was the British that captured the Enigma machine and broke the German code. The only place the Americans did that was in Hollywood.
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Apples and oranges.

Do you actualy think that the British after capturing the Enigma machine that broke the German code, that they would actualy broadcast over the BBC that they had captured an Enigma machine?:peace
 
Misterveritis said:
This confirms that you and I are not speaking of the same things.

The one term Marxist president Obama could have said, "We conducted a military operation in the past few hours with the goal of capturing or killing bin Laden. The mission was a success."

He did not need to go on to say we collected computers with dozens of hard drives, videotapes, and a host of other valuable records identifying his top lieutenants in a dozen countries....

The one term Marxist president is a dangerous ass.
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Do you honestly think that Bin Laden's lieutenants didn't know that he had some important information? Do you honestly think that it would take more than the amount of time it takes to rub two neurons together to figure out, "Hey Bin Laden was killed in a tactical raid. The Americans are probably going to take as much information as they can. As Bin Laden's collaborators, we should try to counter this somehow."?
 
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DrunkenAsparagus said:
Do you honestly think that Bin Laden's lieutenants didn't know that he had some important information? Do you honestly think that it would take more than the amount of time it takes to rub two neurons together to figure out, "Hey Bin Laden was killed in a tactical raid. The Americans are probably going to take as much information as they can. As Bin Laden's collaborators, we should try to counter this somehow."?
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I see your point and somewhat agree.

However let me post two sentences from the American news report, hypathedical of course.

1. We have killed Bin Laden unfortunately all of the important information we wanted was destroyed in the blast.

2 We have killed Bin Laden and recovered all the important tactical information he was going to use.


I ask a simple question during a time of the war on terrorist, which of these would be more intelligent?:peace
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
Do you honestly think that Bin Laden's lieutenants didn't know that he had some important information? Do you honestly think that it would take more than the amount of time it takes to rub two neurons together to figure out, "Hey Bin Laden was killed in a tactical raid. The Americans are probably going to take as much information as they can. As Bin Laden's collaborators, we should try to counter this somehow."?
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sigh.........
 
Wiggen said:
Actually it was the British that captured the Enigma machine and broke the German code. The only place the Americans did that was in Hollywood.
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It is a confused history with roles played by the Poles and the French in addition to raids at sea that captured machines or codebooks (from U-boats), It had its frustrations. When the German's added a fourth wheel it kept the Brits in the dark for nearly a year.

One fun note is that when the Brits made big tactical mistakesx the Germans used it as evidence that their encipherment system was still secure.
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
Do you honestly think that Bin Laden's lieutenants didn't know that he had some important information? Do you honestly think that it would take more than the amount of time it takes to rub two neurons together to figure out, "Hey Bin Laden was killed in a tactical raid. The Americans are probably going to take as much information as they can. As Bin Laden's collaborators, we should try to counter this somehow."?
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Maybe they know maybe they didn't, no one can be sure of that.

If they know keeping infromation from them is still a plus.
If they didn't know keeping information from them is a plus plus.
In short one thing I learned when I was in the military on military tactics you never make it easy for the enemy you are at war with.

This much I know informing the enemy that their information is obsolete is not helping America's cause.:peace
 
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