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The article by Nicholas Schmidle in the New Yorker—“Getting Bin Laden”—seems to be the most detailed account yet published on the mission to kill the al-Qaeda leader. Although it provides background and a postscript, it focuses largely on the SEAL mission itself. Of-course any piece like this is only as good as its sources, and we don’t really know who Schmidle’s sources are, but the story comes across very credibly, to this reader at least, and I definitely recommend reading it in full. It should fill any American’s heart with awe at the caliber of those wearing the uniform and putting themselves on the line every day. As the article makes clear, the mission that night was in some ways not unusual at all; these kinds of dangerous and daring attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets are executed on a regular basis. The unusual things in this case were (1) venturing so far within Pakistan and (2) the name of the primary target. In some ways, as scary and nerve-wracking as it is even to read the account months later, this mission was significantly easier than the average one, in that Osama bin Laden’s compound was not well-defended. Of-course it’s easy to know that after the fact, aware as we are now that there were no booby-traps or suicide vests awaiting the SEALs. They couldn’t know those things that night. Continue reading “How Osama bin Laden met his end”