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U.S. Navy SEALs are used to bullets and bombs, but a book by one of the commandos who killed Osama bin Laden has deployed the secretive unit into the even bigger electoral battle for the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo Easy Day: The Firsthand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden\u201d is due to come out on the politically charged date of Sept 11, less than two months before President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney face off at the polls.<\/p>\n
Dutton, an imprint of Penguin, says the author was one of the SEALs who entered bin Laden\u2019s hideout in May 2011 \u201cand was present at his death.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writer is identified by the pseudonym Mark Owen and is said to have left the military after 13 consecutive combat deployments, culminating with Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The book is co-written with Kevin Maurer, a U.S. journalist.<\/p>\n
In the book, Owen says, he wants \u201cto set the record straight about one of the most important missions in U.S. military history. \u2018No Easy Day\u2019 is the story of \u2018the guys,\u2019 the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cover of the book, already advertised on Amazon, shows the ghostly figure of a soldier holding a rifle, but gives little away about what\u2019s inside.<\/p>\n
Speculation is rife over how the likely sensational story will play in a tight election where Obama is touting the al-Qaida founder\u2019s killing in Pakistan as one of his major achievements.<\/p>\n
As commander in chief, Obama at a minimum signed off on a mission that would have been a huge embarrassment had it ended badly. With success, Obama accomplished what his supposedly more hawkish predecessor, George W Bush, failed to do in eight years.<\/p>\n
However, Obama\u2019s critics\u2014ranging from Romney to a group of former special forces and CIA operatives\u2014accuse the president of leaking sensitive information to milk the mission for political gain.<\/p>\n
Another challenge has appeared in a new book by journalist Richard Miniter, \u201cLeading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,\u201d which claims that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to prod an indecisive Obama to order the raid.<\/p>\n
Leslie Feldman, professor of political science at Hofstra University, said the White House will be waiting anxiously for the SEAL\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy gut feeling is it\u2019s not good,\u201d she told AFP. \u201cMitt Romney\u2019s people will be scouring every page of that book and if they come up with one little sentence they can use, one little fact, then they\u2019re going to throw that at President Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not good for him, but it depends on what the guy says,\u201d Feldman added.<\/p>\n
The White House had no comment about the book on Thursday.<\/p>\n
At the Pentagon, officials appeared to have been taken by surprise.<\/p>\n
Books by former servicemen are meant to be checked for sensitive information and in this case, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Gregory said, \u201cwe did not receive any requests to review.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author could face prosecution if the book reveals information that compromises national security, he added. \u201cA decision has to be made as to the seriousness of the disclosure and the Department of Justice would be the department to follow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CIA also said it had not been asked to review the text.<\/p>\n
The politically explosive nature of the bin Laden raid was already highlighted when film producer Kathryn Bigelow agreed to push back her film \u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d to a date after the November election. The Oscar winner had come under fire from Republicans who said she was too close to the White House.<\/p>\n
But the political loyalties of Owen remain a mystery, even if his true identity may not be secret for long.<\/p>\n
Fox News reported that Owen is in fact Matt Bissonnette, a 36-year-old from Alaska, a revelation that one Pentagon official called \u201cdisturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox reported that the soldier-turned-author could face legal trouble, as well as criticism from former comrades, for spilling the beans on such a secret mission.<\/p>\n
Owen writes that his main goal is simply to help young men \u201cbecome a SEAL, or at least live a life bigger than him.\u201d The publisher says that \u201cthe majority of the proceeds\u201d from the book will be donated to charities helping the families of killed SEALs.<\/p>\n
Don Shipley, a former SEAL who now runs a private training facility, said he\u2019s not upset by the appearance of the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it was right or whether it was wrong I\u2019m sure it would have come out eventually,\u201d he told AFP in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n
As for the debate over Obama\u2019s role, Shipley said the president needn\u2019t be worried.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody put boots on the ground in there and I think it was an incredibly ballsy move when they could have just launched a missile,\u201d he said. \u201cThe president was the one who made the decision. He can puff his chest out a little.\u201d <\/p>\n
Photo by AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Navy SEALs are used to bullets and bombs, but a book by one of the commandos who killed Osama bin Laden has deployed the secretive unit into the even bigger electoral battle for the White House. \u201cNo Easy Day: The Firsthand Account Of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden\u201d is due to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":784,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}