The Mission to Get Osama Bin Laden

Nicholas Schmidle got access, and the results are riveting.

The Mission to Get Osama Bin Laden : The New Yorker

Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan. Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled inside the aircraft...

The story we've waited for - read it all...

Nit-picking

Sometimes, I'll click a link and end up at the Huffington Post. It's never a good idea...

Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had targeted bin Laden during their presidencies, and both had failed to either capture him or kill him. The failure to snare bin Laden weighed most heavily, perhaps, on the Bush Administration, which occupied the White House during the 9/11 attacks, and the al Qaeda leader’s killing falls exactly eight years to the day when Bush famously declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.

Bush didn't ever declare "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. The words never came out of his mouth. He did declare an end to major-combat operations, when major-combat operations had concluded, but the "Mission Accomplished" was a banner hung on the USS Abraham Lincoln by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln when Bush gave a speech on the carrier, as it was heading home, its "mission accomplished..."

Details about the fight itself are still difficult to come by. According to local reports in Pakistan, a helicopter involved in the attack had a mechanical problem and crashed. U.S. forces intentionally destroyed the remainder of the wreckage to reduce signs of their presence in the area...

How does a bombed, destroyed helicopter represent a "reduce[d] sign of [its] presence in the area"? It doesn't. They destroyed the wreckage to prevent any usable technology from getting into the wrong hands. The idea that the American presence could be hidden by blowing up the downed helicopter is so silly that I'm amazed anyone would print it.

I've had conversations on this topic with someone who's been there and knows all about this. Helicopters do go down. When that happens, other helicopters go in and put a sling around them and lift them out. When that is not possible, the downed helicopters are stripped of weapons and communications equipment and then destroyed so that there aren't any usable pieces left. Which makes sense.

Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. forces

It's about time...

Osama bin Laden, the long-hunted al-Qaeda leader and chief architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, was killed by U.S. forces Sunday in what officials described as a surgical raid on his luxury hideout in Pakistan.

I'm not sure that this actually changes anything, but it had to be done. Really, if there were one outcome from the military action that the US began in 2001 that was essential, it was the death of Osama bin Laden. That has now been accomplished.

This does not stop those who are engaged in jihad. It may make some of them more eager to strike. It certainly doesn't end the conflict, and doesn't come close to ending the struggle between Islam and the west. But it was necessary, and it's great that it has been done. Congratulations to all involved, and some credit even goes to President Obama (albeit nowhere near as much as he'll try to claim) for not keeping his campaign promises to shut down Guantanamo (where the intel that led to this action came from) and pull out of the mid-east.