Article: Getting Bin Laden

[stringman]

Hello again from the Northern Hemisphere. Here's a couple articles I think you guys would be into. They recount the Bin Laden killing and what really went down on the SEAL mission:

Details Of The Bin Laden Raid, Recounted By The SEALs (Interview on NPR) [shorter article]

Getting Bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad. (New York Times) [longer article]

Quote from the first article:

Mr. SCHMIDLE: The lights are out inside the house. So they're pixilated green images. They look down the hall and they see this tall individual, very rangy with a fist length beard peaking out of the door, and they're sure that it's bin Laden.

So three of the SEALs begin moving down the stairs in single file. As they push open the door, there are two women standing in front of bin Laden. One of them is his youngest and fifth wife, Amal, and she's sort of hysterical and is screaming at them. And she begins to step towards the first SEAL. And the first SEAL lowers his weapon and shoots her in the calf to disable her, and then proceeds to grab both of the women, wrap them in a bear hug and take them to the side of the room.

INSKEEP: Why did he grab them and take them in a bear hug?

Mr. SCHMIDLE: Because the assumption was that they could be wearing suicide vests. And so the idea was that if he grabbed them, bear hugged them, put his back to his colleagues - that if the women exploded, he would absorb the blasts, but the second shooter would still be able to kill bin Laden.

INSKEEP: Meaning that he would guarantee the success of the mission by having himself killed if they had actually been wearing suicide vests.

Mr. SCHMIDLE: Exactly.

INSKEEP: And of course, he knew that when he was doing that.

Mr. SCHMIDLE: Exactly.

Anyway I hope you're all well. I'm in London at the moment, having recently returned from sailing the Greek islands on my cousin's yacht, and tomorrow I'm going on a work trip to Switzerland. Yeah, life is pain

[Bubby]

yeah you suck....