BattlelandPakistan
There was a more important story over the weekend than the U.S. propaganda effort to demystify Osama bin Laden by releasing five silent video clips. It involved another kind of quiet coming from Pakistan worth noting, as Karin Brulliard did in Saturday’s Washington Post:
In a nation that is home to an alphabet soup of militant
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BattlelandTerrorism
After a decade of Osama bin Laden, the lessons he taught us crystallized over the weekend, a week after his death at the hands of the U.S. military. They became clear when the Obama Administration released some of his homemade videos. Administration officials said they showed bin Laden to be a hands-on leader of al Qaeda, still in …
BattlelandTroops
After all the SEAL glory this week, the Army’s contribution to special-ops news is grim: the top soldier in the Army Special Forces Command has been removed from his post as commanders investigate charges apparently linked to an extra-marital affair, according to a story Friday in the Fayetteville Observer.
BattlelandTroops
SEALs go through their infamous Hell Week during their training, when physical stress amid mental duress and sleep deprivation breaks nearly all strong, smart men. This past week, it seems, we have all been through SEAL Week.
And it’s not over yet: Saturday morning the Navy will christen USS Michael Murphy, a guided-missile …
BattlelandTerrorism
Fascinating piece by Time vet Tim McGirk on Osama bin Laden’s fifth wife — and clues she offered about her husband that U.S. intelligence might have missed:
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that U.S. counter-terrorism experts spent years trying to decipher the name and the whereabouts of bin-Laden’s elusive courier when
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BattlelandWeapons
President Obama is going to thank some of those involved in Monday’s mission against Osama bin Laden during his visit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on Friday. Whether or not the SEALs will be there isn’t known: they’re based 500 miles away, at Fort Bragg, N.C. But some key enablers live at the Kentucky base: the Night Stalkers of Task …
BattlelandVeterans
Powerful and poignant Time video piece by ace videographer Natasha Del Toro about the veterans coming home from America’s two wars — widely hailed as heroes, and praised for their service and sacrifice — and why they are having such a tough time landing jobs.
“Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have fought in the toughest parts of …
BattlelandVeterans
This surprising chart is contained in a new Pentagon report. “Annual numbers of hospitalizations with primary (first-listed) diagnoses of suicidal ideation at discharge have steadily and sharply increased (from 5 in 2006 to 355 in 2010),” the Pentagon notes. That’s a 7,000% increase in patients who reported thinking of killing …
BattlelandWeapons
The mystery mutt who accompanied the SEALs on their mission to Osama bin Laden’s lair is coming in for a fair amount of attention. After all, people love their dogs, and if one can help take out the world’s most wanted terrorist, all the better. Their noses know: the dog’s keen sense of smell, to sniff out …
BattlelandTerrorism
The man who commanded the SEAL team that hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden studied to be a reporter. If the Pulitzer Prize board establishes a new category — for killing the world’s most wanted terrorist — it’s a safe bet Bill McRaven will win it next spring.
Vice Adm. William McRaven, himself a SEAL, was on the ground in …
BattlelandTerrorism
They both were too identified with the groups they fronted: al Qaeda and Florida orange growers…according to a strange piece in Adweek.
BattlelandTerrorism
…is going to take longer than you might think, according to colleague Bruce Crumley over at Time’s Global Spin.
BattlelandWeapons
