Saturday, August 06, 2011

Who Outed Seal Team 6?

Since President Barack Obama announced that “a small team of Americans” had killed Osama bin Laden, US government officials have carefully stuck to the line that they will not talk about which units were involved.

Obama did not say it was the SEALs. In numerous television appearances, Obama’s counter-terrorism chief John Brennan didn’t and his deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough didn’t. Despite the numerous news reports that named the SEALs, none of the anonymous briefers from the CIA and Pentagon would confirm it.

Who was it who spilled the beans and put the life of every Navy Seal in danger? Here’s what "legendarily verbose and loose-lipped Vice President Joe Biden said at a dinner at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel" a few days after Obama Bin Laden was killed by American forces in Pakistan: "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 Telegraph, May 4th, 2011

Today, in KABUL, Afghanistan, Taliban Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter killing 30 American warriors, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war. "The downing was a stinging blow to the lauded, tight-knit SEAL Team 6, months after its crowning achievement. It was also a heavy setback for the U.S.-led coalition as it begins to draw down thousands of combat troops fighting what has become an increasingly costly and unpopular war." (30 U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan) News updates are describing that 22 of those 30 (or 31) warriors were members of SEAL Team 6.

Who Was It Who "Spiked the Football" Rather Than Protect the Anonymity of Seal Team 6?
Once the National Security Beans were Spilled, it was "Katy Bar the Door" if you can, as Obama, his aides, the CIA and the Pentagon practically tripped over one another in their zeal to have their President bask in the glory of Seal Team 6. It is described today of all days by Maureen Dowd, of the New York Times, August 6, 2011:
[Obama] personally refocused the mission to capture the 9/11 architect after W. dropped the ball. He has told people what a thrill it was to meet SEAL Team 6 — and the dog Cairo — which pulled off the hit, noting that the men looked less young and fearsome than he expected, and more like guys working at Home Depot.

The White House clearly blessed the dramatic reconstruction of the mission by Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker — so vividly descriptive of the SEALS' looks, quotes and thoughts that Schmidle had to clarify after the piece was published that he had not actually talked to any of them. "I'll just say that the 23 SEALs on the mission that evening were not the only ones who were listening to their radio communications," Schmidle said.

The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of bin Laden to counter Obama's growing reputation as ineffectual. The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair will no doubt reflect the president's cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.

The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration. It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president's image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero SEALs.
Connecting the Dots - What Really Happened?

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