No Easy Day

 

No Easy Day is subtitled: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden and has become one of the most controversial books of the last few years... but not as controversial as it should be. It is the autobiography of an anonymous former US special forces soldier who wrote under the nom-de-plume "Mark Owen". (His real identity has been exposed, but I will not add to that here; the man has family.) It has been written with the full approval of government legal experts who checked it for classified information, although Owen does not mention submitting it to DOPSR, the outfit David Grusch used, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/06/david-grusch-mini-portal.html. The first half of the book covers the author's early life in Alaska, growing up in the great outdoors and going on adventures with his father. He joined the US Navy when he left university with an ambition to become an "operator" in the special forces group the "Navy SEAL's". He eventually qualified for "SEAL Team 6", "Green Team", or to give it its official name: Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He then takes part in a number of missions, mostly in the Middle East; and this includes a lot of technical details. He describes the culture and community of the special forces world in detail and I was surprised how much it gelled with my own experience of hospital portering, despite the vast differences in our mutual professions' role and social standing. Perhaps this is because both are exclusively male dominions, a rare thing these days. It's what's called in the patronizing language of the feminists, "male bonding" or "bromance". (That being said, HP's are not 100% men; about 5% are women.) Another experience I sympathized with was his team's frustration with enduring interference from ignorant but influential bureaucrats; this is obviously something universal in government service, see here for more details: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/good-idea-fairies.html.
 
The second half of the book covers Operation Neptune Spear, SEAL Team 6's assignment in 2011 to raid the alleged secret base of Osama bin Laden. The CIA had been tracking him for over fifteen years and because they put a trace on various people known to be working within his network, they found out where he was hiding. It was not in some nomadic community in the forest or in a deep cave in high mountains. He was holed up in a compound in a well-to-do district of Abbottabad, a city in Pakistan. As I explain in the background links, the CIA were not necessary to draw attention to the house. It was already a notorious source of gossip in the neighbourhood. Children were careful not to play near it because if they lost a ball over the wall they would never get it back. The dustmen never collected from it and drone footage showed the residents burning all their rubbish. Bin Laden himself used to walk in circles around the garden for hours, earning him the nickname "the pacer." On Mayday, Seal Team 6 struck. They flew towards the compound in two helicopters codenamed "Chalk 1" and "Chalk 2". These were backed up by a pair of Chinooks acting as a tanker and potential reinforcements. The operation started badly with Chalk 1 losing control and crashing in the garden. Luckily nobody was hurt. The pilots destroyed the aircraft to prevent it falling into the enemy's hands. Chalk 2 was originally planned to land on the roof, but they chose not to take the same risk and landed outside. The SEAL's had to break in using explosives to smash the doors. A third group stayed outside to keep away local sightseers. They were helped by a combat dog. The team then ran through the house checking every room and either arresting or shooting everybody they saw. Three people were killed by the team, but they only received minor injuries in return at worst. Bin Laden himself was shot by an unidentified member of the team on the top floor. On page 214 Owen describes how it was his job to take photographs and DNA specimens of the body to identify it. He describes his nervousness in case he made a mistake because these photographs "could end up being widely viewed."... err, no. The SEAL's then carry the body back to the helicopters and have to escape in a hurry because the Americans did not consult with the Pakistani authorities over this mission and they might be mistaken for Indian infiltrators and attacked. As it was, some fighter jets were scrambled, but luckily the choppers escaped. One of them almost ran out of fuel, but they all got back to base in Afghanistan safely. What followed reads like a scene from a bad movie. When the helicopters land, some Army Ranger medics come forward to take the body away, but the SEAL's refuse and choose to carry the body bag themselves into a nearby hangar. Everybody now comes to view the body and a young female CIA agent weeps. Owen discovers that he was almost killed by a piece of shrapnel hitting his neck, but the handle of his bolt cutters took the impact; Sylvester Stallone couldn't have been any luckier! On page 305 the author casually states: "As soon as he was finished (an FBI forensic officer taking more specimens from bin Laden's corpse), the Rangers escorted the body to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson for burial." This is a crucial part of the story because it directly contradicts what was reported, as I pointed out at the time, see background links. According to the later official story and No Easy Day, Osama bin Laden was buried at sea with the help of one of the crewmembers who was an ordained imam. This was just hours after the DNA and photographic evidence had been gathered. It had not been analyzed properly and a no coroner's report was released. Despite this, it appears that the decision to dispose of the body secretly had already been made. I was on nightshift when President Obama announced that bin Laden had been killed. I rushed home as soon as I was off duty and switched on the TV. I watched a BBC News interview with an anti-terrorism expert from the US embassy in London who said that the earthly remains of Osama bin Laden would definitely be taken to the United States where they would be displayed at a selected press conference. The Al-Qaeda leader had been shot in the head and had lost part of his skull, but his face was still recognizable. Cosmetic photographs of it would have been put in the public media. After about a week, the body would be repatriated and given to the bin Laden family for burial. None of this ever happened; and I cannot find the recording of that BBC interview in any archive. As for the photo of bin Laden dead; it has never been published. There is a very gruesome fake doing the rounds, but this was adapted from a computer game still. The rest of the book is a kind of "home for tea and medals" session. The team meets the president. I found it amusing that Mark Owen thought Joe Biden, Obama's Vice at the time, was like a "drunk uncle"; his intoxication has got worse since. Owen says that one of his motives for writing the book was that all other reports are wrong and he wanted to set the record straight. He has fallen out with a lot of the rest of the special forces community as a result, but the media are very much on his side. He also pledges to donate most of his royalties to service charities. Here he is on 60 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvw0OEDiHTE. However, behind this tale of contention and noble duty certain disturbing questions raise their ugly heads. Why should we believe this story of Osama bin Laden's death if, as both the author and myself have observed, all the other reports are wrong? If bin Laden did die of kidney failure in 2002, as an Egyptian newspaper observed; or at the hands of a British agent, as Benazir Bhutto told David Frost; why has it been necessary to mythologize his death now? To get Obama re-elected? The SEAL's in the book wryly voice their suspicions about their commander-in-chief's motives along those lines. Why have members of SEAL Team 6 been so accident prone as of late? Coincidence? A curse? Despite all its modesty, heroism and emotion, No Easy Day reads like a fictional military thriller. Perhaps that's all it is.
See here for background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/09/911-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-is-dead-duh.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-death-of-seal-team-6.html.