Biden outed Seal Team 6

[snopes]

A retired general today assailed the commander of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he argued should be kept under wraps.

Special Operations Commander Adm. Bill McRaven was confronted by retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught, who said he didn't understand why the recent raids by the Navy SEALs, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media.

http://news.yahoo.com/navy-seal-comm...-abc-news.html

[Lainie]

"Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam [Hussein] from the hole, we didn't say one damn word about it," he continued. "We turned him over to the local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole, and he did so. And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut."

Until now.

ETA: I really don't get the logic behind this part:

"Now I'm going to tell you, one of these days, if you keep publishing how you do this, the other guy's going to be there ready for you, and you're going to fly in and he's going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your SEALs. Now, watch it happen. Mark my words. Get the hell out of the media," he concluded, as laughter broke out at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington, D.C.

First of all, as we've discussed already, no one is publishing "how you do this." And if the other guy can lie in wait and kill SEALS, why can't he lie in wait and kill any other operatives?

[Lost_Cavalier]

"Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam [Hussein] from the hole, we didn't say one damn word about it," he continued. "We turned him over to the local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole, and he did so. And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut."

Yes, because everybody believed that the guys photographed dragging Saddam out of his spider-hole wearing sanitized (no identication or insignia) uniforms, wielding custom weapons, and sporting beards that fell under the "modified grooming standards" only available to Special Forces operators were totally regular grunts from the 4th Infantry Division. Oh, and the belated attempt to blur out said details didn't raise one eyebrow.

Your cover story worked like a charm, sir.

[snopes]

During his speech to the nation and world, Obama did not divulge the name of SEAL Team Six, saying only that a "small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability."

It quickly leaked that SEAL Team Six had executed the raid, but this was hardly surprising as the SEALs are the principal Special Operations Forces in the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater, something that has been discussed in multiple news stories over the past several years and in bestselling books such as "Lone Survivor" by former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell.

Perhaps if you had absolutely no knowledge of the U.S. military, or indeed access to Wikipedia where SEAL Team Six has had an entry since 2004, it would be news to you that SEAL Team Six, along with the Army's Delta Force, are America's premier counterterrorism units. Obviously, a mission to take out bin Laden would not be entrusted to any other than these elite units.

So the notion that the public naming of the unit that killed bin Laden endangers the lives of its members and their families is overwrought. Members of SEAL Team Six are well able to take care of themselves and their families. And who first leaked the involvement of SEAL Team Six in the bin Laden operation remains unclear.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/opinio...oat/index.html

[UrbanLegends101]

Originally Posted by Richard W

Well, that was the mistake in the first place. Once Al Qaeda knew that bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Operations troops, then they would be able to carry out their cunning plans to kill U.S. Special Operations troops. The White House should just have said "We hear bin Laden has been killed, but we've no idea how it happened. It could have been anybody!" Then Al Qaeda wouldn't have known who to try to kill!

Releasing the codename "SEAL Team Six" is hardly blowing anybody's cover...

I don't think a White House statement of that nature would worked unless the Special Ops folks drove up to the bin Laden house in a group of Tata trucks and bashed in the gate. Unfortunately, that helocopter left on the scene pretty much narrowed down the credit to basically only one country, the US.

[firefighter_raven]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...87L16C20120822

The U.S. government was surprised by the news that a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan has written a book about the operation in which the al Qaeda leader was killed, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

"No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden" was written by a Navy SEAL under the pseudonym Mark Owen with co-author Kevin Maurer and is to be released next month on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

[firefighter_raven]

* - title was to long for top bar and needed to be shortened
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...legal-trouble/

The author of a recently announced insider account of the raid that killed Usama bin Laden has been identified to Fox News as a 36-year-old former Navy SEAL Team 6 member from Alaska who also played a role in the high-profile rescue of an American captain kidnapped by Somali pirates.

IMO listing his real name is much worse then any mention of a unit

[snopes]

Richard Miniter, the author of a number of books with a conservative slant about U.S. national security, has just released a new one about President Barack Obama whose title, "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors who Decide for Him," leaves you in little doubt about the overall theme of the book.

Based on [my own] reporting and also what is available on the public record, Miniter's account of the intelligence that led to bin Laden and the decision-making surrounding the operation that killed him is a pile of poppycock served up with heaps of hogwash.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/29/opinio...oks/index.html

[snopes]

Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information.

http://www.freep.com/article/2012110...ean-6-punished