Free Republic

It’s not that the truth about bin Laden’s death is unknowable; it’s that we don’t know it. And we can’t necessarily console ourselves with the hope that we will have more answers any time soon; to this day, the final volume of the C.I.A.’s official history of the Bay of Pigs remains classified. We don’t know what happened more than a half-century ago, much less in 2011.

The Obama administration is violating a judge’s order to turn over documents in the Aug. 6, 2011, shootdown of a U.S. helicopter — call sign Extortion 17 — that killed members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, a watchdog group is charging.

The Obama administration is violating a judge’s order to turn over documents in the Aug. 6, 2011, shootdown of a U.S. helicopter — call sign Extortion 17 — that killed members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, a watchdog group is charging. On the fourth anniversary of the worst one-day loss of military life in the war on terror, families of the dead say they are aghast that the government will not honor basic requests under the Freedom of Information Act. “It has now been four years since Extortion 17 was shot down,” said Doug Hamburger, whose Army air crew...

They have plotted deadly missions from secret bases in the badlands of Somalia. In Afghanistan, they have engaged in combat so intimate that they have emerged soaked in blood that was not their own. On clandestine raids in the dead of the night, their weapons of choice have ranged from customized carbines to primeval tomahawks. Around the world, they have run spying stations disguised as commercial boats, posed as civilian employees of front companies and operated undercover at embassies as male-female pairs, tracking those the United States wants to kill or capture. Those operations are part of the hidden history...

Streamed live on May 20, 2015 WOW, watch author Don Brown blow the lid off of the official government report about the tragic shoot down of SEAL TEAM SIX helicopter, Code Name - Extortion 17. On August 6, 2011—three months after members of Navy SEAL Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden—Taliban forces took down a United States helicopter, call sign "Extortion 17." The attack killed the Air National Guard crew, seven unidentified members of the Afghan military, and seventeen members of Navy SEAL Team Six—warrior brothers from the same Team that had killed Osama Bin Laden just ninety days prior....

By Ben Kamisar - The former Navy SEAL who says he killed Osama bin Laden is slamming a new report that challenges the White House’s account of the mission, calling it “garbage.” “The story that I read, the part from [Seymour] Hersh, was full of lies,” Rob O’Neill said on Fox News's "Shepard Smith Reporting." “It took me a long time to read it because I had to put it down — I couldn’t read the nonsense.” Hersh on Sunday published in story in the London Review of Books that says Pakistani intelligence officers played a significant role in the...

Bin Laden Plotted New Attack By SIOBHAN GORMAN Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring. Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound. The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials...

It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll:...

This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. And prosecutors say the documents are essential for understanding the scope of al Qaeda’s plotting. More than 1 million documents and files were captured by the Navy Seals who raided bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, the Obama administration released just 17...

Hey gang, long time no see. Anyone know if Part 1 of the Bin Laden takeout is available on FiOS on demand or streaming on the net? I apologize if I have posted this incorrectly. Rusty.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday took some indirect swipes at Vice President Joe Biden at an off-the-record gathering, a state representative in attendance told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I know she’s running for president now, because toward the end, she was asked about the Osama bin Laden raid. She took 25 minutes to answer,” George State Rep. Tom Taylor told the newspaper. “Without turning the knife too deeply, she put it to [Vice President Joe] Biden.”

One couple knows all too well the pain suffered by the parents of James Foley, the American photojournalist executed on camera last month by the Islamic State. Billy and Karen Vaughn also lost their son Aaron Carson Vaughn in 2011, when the SEAL Team Six soldier's Chinook helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan. Now the couple are calling on President Barack Obama to step down, citing his reaction to the Foley video and 'lack of leadership' in confronting ISIS.

Tough words from Billy and Karen Vaughn, whose only son Aaron gave his life in a 2011 crash of a SEAL Team Six Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan, perhaps in the shootdown shortly after the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. For years, Barack Obama relied on the success of the bin Laden mission to make the argument that he could lead the nation in war. Now the Vaughns accuse Obama of “a cowardly lack of leadership,” and demand his resignation over the administration’s failure to stop ISIS when it had opportunities to do so: On Monday, the Vaughns wrote...

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed — fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult — if not impossible — to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr. President. Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan — with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the...

After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace. My offering was my only son — Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011. Many times over the past three years, I have been...

SEAL Team Six, the U.S. military group credited with taking down Osama bin Laden in 2011, could have Fort Lauderdale next in its sights. A proposed operation in the city — involving hovering combat helicopters, exploding flash-bang devices and the sounds of gunfire — is in the works. (snip) What type of exercises can be expected? The agreement mentions the possibility of using low-flying helicopters and simulated ammunition to train personnel on a "rooftop fast-rope insertion" into a building.

Special operations sources have claimed that the terror leader was shot more than one hundred times in the fatal 2011 raid. A new report from a website known within the intelligence and armed services community claims that the sheer number of times that Osama bin Laden was shot is the reason why the government has never released photos of his dead body. Citing two confidential sources, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report tells how 'operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into Bin Laden’s body'. The site goes on to argue that while the Navy SEALs may have...

The 2011 downing of a helicopter in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 30 American troops—including 17 Navy SEALs, a number of whom were members of the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden—was not compromised but did suffer from faulty planning, a defense official said on Thursday. Some of the families of the fallen said they appreciated the controversial hearing where the official testified. However, they said the testimony left them unsatisfied and vowed to press for more answers. The contested mission known as Extortion 17 involved a CH-47D Chinook helicopter shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)...

If you’ve seen the recent big screen stories of US Navy SEALS in Afghanistan, in Lone Survivor and Zero Dark Thirty, you are no doubt struck by the sacrifices these elite warriors make on the modern battlefield and the impeccable examples of heroism these movies have portrayed — not propaganda but truth. However, there is another US Navy SEAL story from Afghanistan that’s not receiving much attention, simply because its truth is an indictment of failure on the part of the Obama administration, US Congress, and senior military leadership. It is the story of the fate that befell a CH-47D...

This presidency can surely be said to be the most shrouded in secrecy of all times. From birth certificate conspiracies to everything else this man has had the indecency to lie about in order to ensure political prevalence, Obama can surely be labeled a sociopath. A letter has come forward stating that although you may believe it, things he can only express through words have proven to him that Obama did not in fact kill Osama during that raid.