helmet cam on the shooter ... a bit showy, eh? ... well, not really ...

one of the more fascinating details to emerge from osama bin laden's assassination is that it was witnessed live by the people who ordered it, courtesy of a camera mounted on the helmet of the designated shooter.

think about this for a while.

they put the camera on a certain person, for several reasons.--

update:  i have received private correspondence from a friend who knows far more about these sorts of things than i do/or, apparently, did.  will leave it at that.  he point out to me that several of my assumptions and conclusions as to tactical and strategic matters in this were mistaken, some widely.  (kind of a garbage in, garbage out sort of a proposition.) i have asked him to publicly comment on such things at this post, and i hope he does.

i really don't mind being corrected.  far better that we all understand these things a little better, than i emerge uncorrected, when correction is in order.  it is not right for me to assume the mantel of "authority" in such matters, if i am talking through my hat.

some of the things he postulated i disagree with, and would welcome a good argument over the points.

but, he had some very pertinent things to say about the helmet/rifle cams, and also how the command and control of the assault would have gone down.  he said with teams like this, individual members of the group would have had control of various areas/points in the building assigned to them, and that my assumptions about a team leader exerting command authority was mistaken, substantially so, probably enough to be way off base.

live and learn.  i hope that he will comment.  it would not be the first time that i was publicly educated, nor the last, and the process does not bother me very much at all.  this grizzled old ass of mine has a lot of scar tissue on it, from where it has been shredded before: i have kept my dignity, and my sense of humor intact, i will survive.  

i am, after all, an interested amateur in such matters.  he is hardly an amateur.   end update.  

2nd update:  look for "virgil caine's" remarks in the "comments" below, as his experience offers invaluable insight into how this raid was conducted.  friends, you don't often get information like this.   end 2nd update.

keep in mind that this mission was not without great risk.  it could have ended in failure, in disaster for the teams that went in, and one only has to imagine what might have happened had osama's protectors had more suitable weapons to defend against helicopter.

and, i am sure that in the contingency planning for this, the mission planners examined the scenario of late arriving calvary who might have killed or captured the teams even after having killed obama, and leaving the world and u.s. planners without knowing for sure the mission were successful in that regard.

so, the camera was a very useful adjunct to mission planning and intel, as even if the mission went south after the assassination there would remain very good proof of a successful kill.  it is a bit callous for planners to engage in such calculation, but their's is a risky profession.

now, the primary mission is stated to have been the killing of bin laden.

but, a secondary objective would have been to have brought him out alive, if possible, and if the risks involved in capture were reasonably acceptable.

in short, what i am getting at, is that someone in the assault team would have been assigned the decision making responsibility on this issue, and he would have been the one to decide, if circumstances permitted and warranted, whether to simply kill osama bin laden or take those additional steps required to execute his capture.  and not simply execute him.  this person would have had authority, for instance, depending on whether the mission was unfolding smoothly, to enter into discussions with bin laden to effect his surrender, or to negotiate the release of his guards in exchange for his surrender.

none of this would have been entirely likely, of course, witness bin laden exercising islamic "chivalry" using his wife as a living shield even as he made his last ditch defense, ... , but, conceivable.  so, they would have given someone on the team command authority to make the decision.

kill or capture.  shoot when found and confronted, or palaver if it were palaver he wanted.  and, of course, this person would most likely have been given absolute kill authority depending upon the unraveling of circumstances and the fight.

so, it made sense to bring the camera along, and it made sense to put the camera on the designated shooter, as given things, he would have been the most likely to do the shooting.

it is my further guess that this person, even though being intrepid as navy seals are, while in command was also somewhat a protected asset as the attack progressed.  he had command, he had command of the "kill" decision if circumstances allowed control of that situation, and he is most likely to have been the person in contact with the mission handlers, wherever they were.  in something as fluid as this, the command structure would not have wanted to have changed horses in mid-stream.  so, he was near the tip of the spear as the attack progressed, and when it reached the attack on osama's redoubt in the compound bedroom, he would have been brought to the end of the spear, to act as its tip, one way or the other.

gq_d bless the men who carried out this assault, gq_d protect the shooter, and gq_d bless the u.s.a.

next.  bring 'em on.  next.

john jay   05.03.2011

on stealth helicopters.  hat tip, theo spark.  http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2011/05/very_very_inter.html  .

and, now they say they did not watch osama bin laden take the bullet in the eye on live t.v., and that authority was there to kill or capture.  from http://www.theblaze.com/blog/ , this article trying to explain the back peddling of leon panetta, the director of the cia, in the room while the raid was going down, about whether the shooting of osama bin laden was watched live by the president and his coterie.  the gang that could shoot straight in charge of "the gang that couldn't shoot straight," if their lives depended upon it.  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cia-director-there-was-no-live-video-of-obl-raid/ .   it must be very embarrassing for such warriors to be "led" by such twits.  i learned of this at atlas shrugs, "navy seals, not the president, made the decision to kill bin laden."   http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/05/navy-seals-not-the-president-made-the-decision-to-kill-bin-laden.html

for what it is worth, leon panetta insists that there was "kill or capture" authority given to the seals conducting the mission.  consider this in light of the detailed discussion on this point by "virgil caine" in the comments section below.

Comments

[Virgil Caine]

JJ,

Some clarity:

1. The assaulter's did not make a kill/capture decision on the objective. The decision would have been made prior to executing the op during the planning phase.
2. Infiltrating the airspace would not have been problematic. I am quite certain Paki radar never picked up on the rotary or fixed wing aircraft assigned to the op. In addition to the rotary wing a/c used during the op there would have been fast movers assigned and potentially AC-130 Gunship to support the assaulter and blocking position elements. I'm certain we owned the airspace around the objective. I'm also certain that the PAK military wasn't able to broadcast much of anything in the AO during the op.

3. The objective would have been secured during the raid via blocking positions or forces outside of the compound. If the Pak cav came a calling they would have been rudely interrupted by the blocking positions. Pak C&C would have been problematic as well. They would have taken NO ACTION w/o orders from higher and they would not have been able to speak to higher as they had no ability to communicate. Had they tried to respond to the raid they would have died en mass.

4. Each assault/raid element would have been assigned a section of the compound and this would have been further broken down into floors, rooms and parts of rooms. Each operator and team would have secured their individual objectives/points of domination and no one would have been assigned a specific individual as a target. As this was a "lethal interdiction" and "sensitive sight exploitation" raid combined all operators more than likely had helmet cams/weapon mounted cams in addition to various other technical recording devices.

5. Capturing UBL alive served no useful purpose. He wasn't in the loop at the operational or tactical level and strategically had been removed from the day to day running of AQ. His successor is already in place and the war continues. Zawhiri more than likely has temporary control though he does not get along well with the Saudi's or Yemeni's who largely comprise AQ. I suspect he'll be replaced by someone of Yemeni or Saudi background.

[john jay]

virgil, friends:

spoken by the voice of training and experience.

virgil and i have corresponded about this q"off premises," and i asked for it, didn't i?" laughing.

i think this gives all of us considerably more insight into this than we have gained by the media, and, because of this, i am happy to receive this education.

as indicated in my "update" above i don't necessarily agree about everything virgil says.

as to the tactics, operation and control of the insertion, which virgil describes as a "lethal interdiction," (quaint phrase, that, laughing)i take absolutely no exception, and find his analysis, ... , well, fascinating.

i do not know that i am compelled, however, to accept his assessment that the paki's could have done nothing to have prevented the raid from proceeding as it did, and i do not think they were incapable of offering stiff resistance to the insertion (no, no, not going there, ... , just take it at face value).

the paki's have modern jets and pilots who can fly them, and if they had scrambled locally they could have given our planes considerable trouble, in my estimation.

certainly c-130 gunships and electronic countermeasure planes would have been susceptible to attack, and if successful, much of the air cover protecting our ground troops in situ might have been eliminated.

had the paki's fought through to this situation, then the local assetts they had in the area, much of it mere "100's" of yards away from the bin laden compound could have given even the seals serious trouble.

one of the helicopters carrying the seals in was shot down by ground fire, from not very many people. if paki troops had gotten in close with heavy machine guns or rockets, they could have left the seals with no egress from the area.

sticky wicket, that.

radio suppression, countermeasure management, all of that is neat stuff.

none of it is impervious to resistance, however effective it is in hindering it.

on this, i respectfully disagree. the success of this operation was not a sure thing.

but, on the conduct of the insertion, i cede the ground to virgil. and, i thank him very much for taking the time to gather his thoughts, and to submit them for your consideration.

what he says is very, very interesting, and has the ring of authority to it.

john jay

[john jay]

p.s.

q_d bless our soldiers, sailors and marines, the finest military in the world, and bulwark of our freedoms here and abroad.

they are us, and we are them. jjjay.

[rob]

It's awesome to see camera technology being used like this in the military. The popular "situation room" picture shows Obama and his staff watching the live helmet cam stream.

What it comes down to: A monumental moment in history involves helmet cams. Woohoo.

[Eric]

Hey, they did it in "Aliens" in 1985. Who says movies don't show the advancement of technology, oh wait, that was Reagan era technology. It's a damn shame America got so bass-ackwards during the Clinton years that Americans forgot how far advanced our military was, and still is.

Pray God the day comes when there will be no more democrat/socialist/marxists/ pussies in Americas political make-up.

U.S. Constitution... Article IV, Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government..

Never is "democracy" mentioned in the Constitution.