Valerie
Platinum Member
- Sep 17, 2008
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Yeah, right, that's why the one idiot wrote a book about it.
I saw that guy interviewed the other night and he did not seem like an an idiot... He actually said he wrote the book with the blessing of his fellow soldiers. They felt it was important that he told the story and they trusted that he would be the one to tell it properly...
SEAL's first-hand account of bin Laden killing - CBS News
From Wikipedia:
On August 25, 2012, members of al Qaeda spread Bissonnette's personal information, calling upon militants to exact revenge upon him, identifying him as one responsible for the death of bin Laden.[11]
On August 30, 2012, the Pentagon announced that it was considering legal action against the former U.S. Navy SEAL for material breach of non-disclosure agreements with his first-hand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.[12] The DoD's chief counsel, Jeh Johnson, sent Bissonnette a letter threatening him with legal action in an effort to pressure him and his publisher to withdraw the book from release until it could be vetted by the DoD.[13] According to the DoD, Bissonnette had signed a Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreement and a 2007 Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) Nondisclosure Statement that requires pre-publication security review under certain circumstances. Bissonnette's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, responded that the non-disclosure statements only require review of items that touch certain, highly classified programs, and Bissonnette's book does not meet that description.[14]
Former SEAL Brandon Webb reported on September 4, 2012, that he had learned through sources in the SEAL community that Bissonnette had decided to write the book based on poor treatment he received from the US Navy shortly before he separated from the service. According to Webb, when Bissonnette told his comrades on SEAL Team Six that he was going to leave the service, he was ostracized by his leadership and ordered to return to his home base even though his unit was in the middle of a training exercise. The book's publisher disputed Webb's account, repeating co-author Maurer's statement that, "After spending several very intense months working with Mark Owen on this book, I know that he wrote this book solely to share a story about the incredible men and women defending America all over the world. Any suggestion otherwise is as ill-informed as it is inaccurate."[15]
On September 4, 2012, Pentagon officials said the author revealed classified information and it could endanger other special operations servicemen. While the Pentagon's assessment of Owen's book goes on, Department of Defense Press Secretary George Little told reporters the department "believethat sensitive and classified information is contained in the book" and called its publication without review the "height of irresponsibility."[16]
In the book, Bissonnette mentions several SEAL-related charities and asks readers to consider donating to those organizations. On 5 September 2012, one of the organizations, the Navy SEAL Foundation, stated that it would refuse to accept any donations related to the book or associated activities.[17] Unnamed retired SEAL officers interviewed by the Washington Times stated that, in their opinion, the book doesn't contain classified information. The officers stated that, nevertheless, they expected the SEAL community to shun Bissonnette because he broke the informal code of silence that DEVGRU members traditionally adhere to.[18]
Yeah, I realize it's extremely controversial and everything, and initially I had the very same reaction to this story that you did, but that interview really left me wondering what to think...