The Mission

Read the article below for a fascinating, chilling, and somewhat disturbing account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Disturbing in that you realize that this kind of operation is going on practically EVERY DAY somewhere.

I want to "get" the "bad guys" as much as anyone, but we need to do it while observing international law. And not just observing international law, but respecting it. I don't think that's asking too much.

Getting Bin Laden
What happened that night in Abbottabad.
By Nicholas Schmidle in The New Yorker
8/8/11

Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan. Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled inside the aircraft.

Read the rest here.