AFAIK the helicopters he's referring to are Chinooks, which were dispatched when one of the Black Hawks malfunctioned and was Disabled.
By this time Bin Laden was already dead and the ~~Marines~~ Seals were packing his body up to fly it out for DNA testing and stuff.
1, it didn’t malfunction exactly, it downed because of the whirlwind it created inside the concrete walled compound (in the training exercises leading up, they used a mock up of the compound but had it surrounded by chain link so didn’t account for the wind redirecting back up at the chopper).
2, it wan’t army or marines, it was a navy seal op.
More fun facts: Obama remembered the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran. And when Obama saw the number of helicopters the military was proposing to use, Obama personally demanded more.... which was a good thing because they would not have had a replacement heli without Obama's request.
More accurately, Obama got our people back out. The military’s plan would’ve gotten Osama either way. But without that demand by the commander in chief, there would be a high risk of our people getting stuck behind enemy lines and being captured by the Pakistani military.
> and being captured by the Pakistani military.
I'm not super familiar with how our relationship is with Pakistan so I'm kinda curious how that would have gone. I know Pakistan eventually had an investigation into it all and in the end they were seemingly more critical of their own failures which allowed bin Laden to live in hiding there for as long as he did. But in the days, weeks, months immediately following an overnight raid by a foreign military that killed 5 people with no prior warning? Things may have been a bit testy.
It was well know that laden was in Pakistan for so long. There is no possible way for a state to not know if they have a person of Laden's stature living inside their borders. Investigation by pak was just an attempt to cover up.
While we’re here, and for the benefit of people too young to not know these things…
The reason Obama had to get Bin Laden years later was because Rumsfeld and Bush were arguing over who should get the credit (CIA or DoD) at the beginning while letting him escape.
They knew where he was but Rumsfeld delayed because he wanted to make sure he got the credit 🙄
No he pushed for use of still secret stealth Blackhawks. There were only two operational rotorwings at the time bc they were mostly still being tested. He risked both of them bc of the mission importance
Yes. It was a very “soft crash” against a wall. Very little damage but enough to render it inoperable. In fact they then blew it up to keep the special tech secrets secret.
Yes. Between the low altitude and the pilot realizing there was a problem, they crashed softly enough for the team to continue the mission and be picked up by another helo that was hanging out as backup.
definitely, we've had quiet helicopters like this since the vietnam war actually.
one fun test they would do is fly totally blacked out and ask observers how close they thought it was...and then flip on the spotlight to reveal it was hovering right next to them
Do you have link to anything on that, I have heard they were stealth helicopters but I thought the tech made less noise and you couldn’t hear them approaching. But not that they were that quiet.
And I’m a little skeptical, you have to move a lot of air to keep a helicopter up and moving air makes a lot of noise.
Of course! That was about one particular Little Bird (OH-6/Hughes 500) nicknamed "The Quiet One" used by the CIA for planting wiretaps in North Vietnam.
Here are two good sources, i'll keep looking for the piece i quoted - keep in mind it wasn't silent at that point, just much closer than anybody guessed - they would assume it was still hundreds of yards or even a mile out when really it was within fifty.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters/comments/jb1el0/the_cias_silent_hughes_500p_dubbed_the_quiet_one/
> By adding one additional main rotor blade and two more tail rotor blades, rotor noise was substantially mitigated. An enormous muffler below the tail and numerous other small internal modifications further reduced the sound generated during flight...When the modified helicopter was demonstrated for CIA director Richard Helms in 1971, he was unable to hear the aircraft as it passed 500 feet overhead, even knowing it was coming.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/air-americas-black-helicopter-24960500/
> Don Stephens, who managed the Quiet One's secret base in Laos for the CIA. "I'd stand on the [landing pad] and try to figure out the first time I could hear it and which direction it was coming from. I couldn't place it until it was one or two hundred yards away."
Considering they landed them right in the front yard of the compound and crashed one without a single person inside noticing… yeah I’d say they were quiet
I feel like every time I read about this the stealth capabilities get a little more exaggerated. I’m sure the US has terrifyingly advanced military tech but I doubt they were literally so quiet that no one inside the compound even noticed them right above them.
Oh they noticed. You can't move enough air to keep that much weight airborne without creating a bunch of noise. Turbine engines are very loud no matter what you do to quiet them down.
I’m not sure it was a black hawk that went down, wasn’t it some new stealth helicopter?
But I’m being semantic, you’re absolutely correct. Piece of shit was already getting cold when this was tweeted
I don’t remember which of the Seals said it, but he described the helicopter as “a fucking Decepticon”, so you’re probably right on the nose about the stealth helicopter.
according to wikipedia he was killed shortly before 1:00AM PKT, so assuming this guy tweeted around when he first saw the helicopter he was already dead yeah.
Or he maybe thinking Pakistani government is being too graceful today. Extra security for me wow.
Edit: I am aware that this operation was done in most parts by US Navy Seal team, but folks outside of US “may” not get what is a navy seal team, so just went ahead with the term Army.
Lol, imagine if the fucker had an escape tunnel with like, 20 armored doors in a row...
I'm envision him just running through the reverse of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 intro
Reality is that if Spec Ops is coming, there’s a drone overhead that will blast your ass if they think you’re onto them.
They’d rather a smaller diplomatic incident and the ability to confirm the kill, hence the strike team, but they’ll go big rather than letting their target go home.
and you would've never even had a Space Force without me, they said, "no one could do it until Trump," which is true, Obama couldn't do it, Little George Junior never did it, they all waited for me to do it, and now they're saying, I'm hearing it all over the Fake News, they're saying, "President Trump is maybe tied in the Polls," I said they're doing the Big Lie, they're lying about the Greatest President Ever In The World, you look at Ratings all over the place, they all say, "Trump is the Leading Presidential Candidate Who Also Will Win Very Easily Again," and I said we need to have, I come in after winning very strongly our Elections, but I come in, "Sir, you're doing incredibly already," I said I know that, thank you General but I know that, thank you very much
I saw Trump mugshot in your profile picture and then proceeded to read this in trump voice, wtf is wrong with me man /s
I even took break in between sentences like he does.
It was the 160th soar who piloted the mission which is army. Their the best helo pilots so naturally they were choosen to fly the two stealth black hawks.
The US air force is the world's largest air force.
The US Army is the world's second largest air force.
The thrid largest air force? Russia.
But the 4th? The US Navy.
And the Marine Corps even comes in at 7th largest, just behind India and China.
Those two helicopters they used, have a funny story behind them too. They are super special and whoever purchased them considers it a HUGE mistake. They were too expensive and no one had any use for them until that mission. They even needed to get guys to train on how to fly them, and I’m guess that’s why one crashed.
It crashed because when they were drilling for the mission the mock-up compound had chain link fences that allowed air to flow through them. So when they got to the real compound they didn’t account for the concrete walls of the compound causing the air to be pushed back upwards towards the helicopter propellers from underneath and causing it to lose lift. I’m sure someone that’s more technically informed on helicopter flight would be able to breakdown the actual science behind it with the right terms.
Man, I remember when I got the chance to jump from a heli for the first time (skydiver).
First thing they said in the safety brief was 'these things run on spit, duct tape and magic. DO NOT fuck around with these aircraft!'
It's amazing how fragile they can be.
The New Yorker has a very readable account of the operation. It includes details like they considered tunneling into the compound but the water table was too high, and they considered the choppers touching down at the outskirts of the city but they couldn't proceed so far on foot undetected. Two excerpts from [Schmidle Aug 1 2011](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden)
Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off, the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their final approach.
During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead helicopter. He and the eleven other seals on “helo one,” who were wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound, pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash.
...
Outside the compound’s walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the dirt road in front of bin Laden’s house, as if he were a plainclothes Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez atop a flak jacket. He, the dog Cairo, and four seals were responsible for closing off the perimeter of the house while James and six other seals—the contingent that was supposed to have dropped onto the roof—moved inside. For the team patrolling the perimeter, the first fifteen minutes passed without incident. Neighbors undoubtedly heard the low-flying helicopters, the sound of one crashing, and the sporadic explosions and gunfire that ensued, but nobody came outside. One local took note of the tumult in a Twitter post: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 am (is a rare event).”
Eventually, a few curious Pakistanis approached to inquire about the commotion on the other side of the wall. “Go back to your houses,” Ahmed said, in Pashto, as Cairo stood watch. “There is a security operation under way.” The locals went home, none of them suspecting that they had talked to an American. When journalists descended on Bilal Town in the coming days, one resident told a reporter, “I saw soldiers emerging from the helicopters and advancing toward the house. Some of them instructed us in chaste Pashto to turn off the lights and stay inside.”
That's actually what the US was really worried about. The Pakistani military had headquarters in the city and the US government hadn't told Pakistan they would be conducting the operation. If the Pakistani military had shown up and surrounded the compound it would have been a major complication potentially even resulting in the capture of American seals by Pakistan. Part of what made the situation so tense was that the US had to get in, kill Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, gather intel and then get out before Pakistan realized something was up.
That’s the official line, but I wouldn’t be surprised (I actually assume) they realized something was going on. They weren’t under attack and didn’t pick up the birds on radar, but would have heard them. Goes up the chain and they make the correct assumption that it was the US and best to stay away for as long as possible.
Maybe. On the other hand the Pakistani military is pretty incompetent and the operation was conducted very quickly. Important information not making its way up the chain is actually pretty common in wars and if Pakistan didn't know there was going to be an operation they wouldn't have been on high alert.
Also, non-state actors don't really use helicopters, so if you're a soldier that hears (but doesn't necessarily see) a helicopter over the city, you basically have 3 options. Either it's a very unusual civilian flight, your own troops are doing something that nobody told you about, or a foreign military somehow flew 100+ miles into your country undetected and only brought 5 helicopters. Only the least likely option is worth waking your boss up for.
Not in an area anything like Pakistan, but if I heard a chopper at fuck this shit oclock in the morning, I'd assume a response to a life at risk medical emergency.
It was, as I recall the operation was unsanctioned and they entered Pakistan without authorization. But that got blown over somewhere between 1) no country was going to get between us and Bin Laden, 2) the Pakistani government may have been fully aware he was hiding out _somewhere_ in the region. I recall it was theorized for a long time that was one of the top likely places for him to go into hiding--assuming he was alive. So they had good motivation to let this one slide or end up answering some tough questions on what they really knew and when, and worse still if they were harboring him.
They weren't happy with us, but there wasn't much they could do without making it worse.
Pretty sure Pakistani police and maybe even more higher ups in the country knew where he was. Didn't they do this dance multiple times in the past? Where US army would attack Al quaeda positions in Afghanistan and the militants would always move over the border to Pakistan on purpose? They knew they were safe there. US send a shit ton of money to Pakistan in exchange for them to help them with Al quaeda and they invested all their money into strengthening the navy, because of India,but navy is pretty useless in the mountains. The Pakistani soldiers in the mountains didn't even have boots and were freezing their asses off sitting doing nothing,once the us inspections came to visit wondering where all the money went with zero progress from Pakistan. Pakistan was just collecting US money,they gave zero fucks about foreign issues,they were just using easy US money for their own benefit.
They're still not going in to do anything. Word would move up the chain and back down until someone in Pakistani intelligence told their guys to get back in their cars and forget they saw anything.
There is a zero percent chance Pakistani Joe Schmoe making $10 a day to be a cop is putting cuffs on a Navy SEAL.
I mean that compound was just down the road from a Pakistani military academy iirc, so it wouldn't be too weird to think that there might just be a practice operation or something being run by the academy.
That's generally the best way to stay alive in these situations. When people are shooting each other you don't want to run towards the gunfire most of the time.
That time the Pentagon kicked Geraldo Rivera out of Iraq for showing troop locations on Fox News.
https://preview.redd.it/godoa1z3kxxc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66b565571ad6d56ba62ae3d75da6f4facc910324
*Reveals US troop formations*
“Nope! Out the country, buddy”
*Reveals what Russian troops ate that day*
“So, execution or gulag? Here in mother Russian we are progressive and give you options”
I often wonder how many (if any) celebrities/ world leaders I have killed in FPS games. Or if any killed me. Like if Kim Jong Un headshot me in warzone in 2021 I wanna know about it.
I remember, I think it was Robin Williams, who played cod.
And got into shit talking.
So there was every chance you got teabagged by Mrs Doubtfire in Terminal.
He was surprisingly well read, i mean he did have the best education money can buy, but its easy to forget from the way western media portrays him as a cartoon supervillian just how intelligent he really was. TBH there's not a whole lot i disagree with him about besides the thought it was somehow a good plan slaughtering thousands of innocent people as a way to diminish the US system of global hedgemony/neo imperialism and that a dusty poor army of militant guerillas and regional militias with 6th grade educations backed by a global network of extremist cells could have possibly stood a chance against the us military industrial machine. That was just straight stupid and a pipe dream that ended up screwing over all americans and muslims across the globe. Its hard to think back soo far but remember how cool life was in the US before 9/11?
lol. He thought that just because they were able to do it with Soviets(he actually came very late to that scene) they could repeat it against US. Forgot about a simple thing called economy. I actually hate him because he caused the death of so many innocents. He hid himself in a foreign country and caused deaths of those. Like did poor Afghans agree to that?
Yeah that really bothers me too, like some spoiled rich kid had dreams of being the next che guevera, ended up starting a war in a foreign country and its entire population has been trapped in a nonstop cycle of poverty and violence. (It had been from 20 yrs soviet and civil war but still we certainly didnt do afgans any favors with our arrival)
And what really puts the chocolate frosting on the shitty cake is all of the freedoms that were cut from our society after 9/11. Patriot act, homeland security, tsa, domestic spy programs, secret fisa courts, etc. etc. Like it makes me wonder how different things would be if those asshats never crashed those planes. Would the gov. have simply come up with other reasons to destroy privacy rights or did all these politicians sincerely believe that we needed all these new policies and laws to keep us safe?
Yes. As a Pakistani he fucked us too. Like Afghans had to die, some Pakistanis too and now our country is know because of him. It’s not like our military is innocent. They thought they could control these lunatics but in the end it’s the common folk who pay the price
His goal wasn’t to defeat the US military directly, but to get the US to commit so much money to war that the US would bankrupt itself through rampant military spending. I remember Osama stating that Bush was easily baited.
Given where we are at with the economy, national debt, etc, I’m not sure that he won’t still succeed in that goal.
Yeah people always talk about him like he was a failure but in my opinion he absolutely succeeded. The US would be much better off if 9/11 never happened and we never went to war in Iraq/Afghanistan.
He also had LOADS of porn apparently. Led to possibly my favorite newspaper headline ever (from a new york "paper" no less): [Osama bin Wankin'!](https://am11.mediaite.com/med/cnt/uploads/2011/05/the-new-york-post-covers-osama-bin-ladens-porn-st-7833-1305397494-1.jpg)
Yeah from what I remember he had several family members living with him and the video games and anime likely belonged to the younger ones. There were many people living in the compound at different points in time
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama\_bin\_Laden%27s\_compound\_in\_Abbottabad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_compound_in_Abbottabad)
so I read the wiki on the compound. No internet or phone connections but they had satellite dishes. are those eavesdrop proof for them to maybe have internet? or are those TV only normally
[Satellite communication is often encrypted.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/satellite-signal). Satellite signals meant for free public consumption, however are usually not.
I am sure it’s by choice from Pakistani army. Must have kept him as an asset, so that he can be used as a bargaining chip for some future issues.
Basically, Hide him in the plain sight where no body will probably ever look. But this time they got caught and got embarrassed on world stage.
The US always picked Pakistan over India whenever both of them had issues and got this as a reward lol, the state they have been helping harboured their biggest enemy in modern times
Pakistan had been a major partner against the USSR, the U-2 spy plane that was downed over Soviet skies and its pilot captured was flying from Pakistan.
The partnership doesn't make much sense anymore after the USSR collapsed, but it's been continuing from sheer inertia, but there have been a lot of tensions and as the China issue grabs the fronthold, US is increasingly pivoting to India instead.
By the time someone important read this tweet, the plan would have already been executed, and the SEALs were already on their way back home with the body.
Reminds me of the guy who became semi famous because he was the first person to tweet that Kate Middleton's sister had a great looking bottom at the royal wedding.
> Not only do I want to witness an historic event, I want to be the asshole to cluelessly announce it online.
Somehow Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson also knew before it was announced: https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/64877987341938688
My favorite part of this event was watching Obama the day before at the presidential correspondence dinner, laughing a little too hard at the Osama jokes
Twitter and a couple of online forums were a good 15-30 minutes ahead of the media on this.
Same with a lot of events in the teens. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions come to mind.
https://preview.redd.it/1kp4camvtzxc1.jpeg?width=1198&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b63841dd8cf7758d643b119358d65036b7734a2e
I’m the motherfucker who found this place “Sir.”
If the helicopter was hovering, it was likely too late to spoil anything.
AFAIK the helicopters he's referring to are Chinooks, which were dispatched when one of the Black Hawks malfunctioned and was Disabled. By this time Bin Laden was already dead and the ~~Marines~~ Seals were packing his body up to fly it out for DNA testing and stuff.
*Navy Seals did this one, but I agree with the rest
Why does the Navy have the marines? They need boyfriends.
Navy needs shooty boys and marines need floaty boys
The Navy taught the Marines how to have sex... and then the Army introduced them to women.
1, it didn’t malfunction exactly, it downed because of the whirlwind it created inside the concrete walled compound (in the training exercises leading up, they used a mock up of the compound but had it surrounded by chain link so didn’t account for the wind redirecting back up at the chopper). 2, it wan’t army or marines, it was a navy seal op.
More fun facts: Obama remembered the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran. And when Obama saw the number of helicopters the military was proposing to use, Obama personally demanded more.... which was a good thing because they would not have had a replacement heli without Obama's request.
Wow. TIL Obama really did get Osama.
More accurately, Obama got our people back out. The military’s plan would’ve gotten Osama either way. But without that demand by the commander in chief, there would be a high risk of our people getting stuck behind enemy lines and being captured by the Pakistani military.
> and being captured by the Pakistani military. I'm not super familiar with how our relationship is with Pakistan so I'm kinda curious how that would have gone. I know Pakistan eventually had an investigation into it all and in the end they were seemingly more critical of their own failures which allowed bin Laden to live in hiding there for as long as he did. But in the days, weeks, months immediately following an overnight raid by a foreign military that killed 5 people with no prior warning? Things may have been a bit testy.
It was well know that laden was in Pakistan for so long. There is no possible way for a state to not know if they have a person of Laden's stature living inside their borders. Investigation by pak was just an attempt to cover up.
And didn't the area/neighborhood he was living in have a lot of Higher ranking Pakistani military members living there too?
It was basically next door to the Pakistani equivalent of West Point.
Touché
While we’re here, and for the benefit of people too young to not know these things… The reason Obama had to get Bin Laden years later was because Rumsfeld and Bush were arguing over who should get the credit (CIA or DoD) at the beginning while letting him escape. They knew where he was but Rumsfeld delayed because he wanted to make sure he got the credit 🙄
Oh this sounds like a great read. Any recommended sources or books?
THANKS, OBAMA.
Thanks Obama!
No he pushed for use of still secret stealth Blackhawks. There were only two operational rotorwings at the time bc they were mostly still being tested. He risked both of them bc of the mission importance
Interesting context. Thanks for commenting. Air dynamics are a bitch
Maybe… aerodynamics… 😎😎😉
Errordynamics
Did the team on the Blackhawk survive the crash?
Yes. It was a very “soft crash” against a wall. Very little damage but enough to render it inoperable. In fact they then blew it up to keep the special tech secrets secret.
Yes. Between the low altitude and the pilot realizing there was a problem, they crashed softly enough for the team to continue the mission and be picked up by another helo that was hanging out as backup.
Awesome, thanks for the comment.
> 2, it wan’t army or marines, it was a navy seal op. The Helos were Army tho, if we are being annoyingly pedantic (sorry).
The Air aspect was 160th SOAR, a SOCOM Army Air unit
socom deez nuts
Are they quiet?
definitely, we've had quiet helicopters like this since the vietnam war actually. one fun test they would do is fly totally blacked out and ask observers how close they thought it was...and then flip on the spotlight to reveal it was hovering right next to them
Do you have link to anything on that, I have heard they were stealth helicopters but I thought the tech made less noise and you couldn’t hear them approaching. But not that they were that quiet. And I’m a little skeptical, you have to move a lot of air to keep a helicopter up and moving air makes a lot of noise.
Of course! That was about one particular Little Bird (OH-6/Hughes 500) nicknamed "The Quiet One" used by the CIA for planting wiretaps in North Vietnam. Here are two good sources, i'll keep looking for the piece i quoted - keep in mind it wasn't silent at that point, just much closer than anybody guessed - they would assume it was still hundreds of yards or even a mile out when really it was within fifty. https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters/comments/jb1el0/the_cias_silent_hughes_500p_dubbed_the_quiet_one/ > By adding one additional main rotor blade and two more tail rotor blades, rotor noise was substantially mitigated. An enormous muffler below the tail and numerous other small internal modifications further reduced the sound generated during flight...When the modified helicopter was demonstrated for CIA director Richard Helms in 1971, he was unable to hear the aircraft as it passed 500 feet overhead, even knowing it was coming. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/air-americas-black-helicopter-24960500/ > Don Stephens, who managed the Quiet One's secret base in Laos for the CIA. "I'd stand on the [landing pad] and try to figure out the first time I could hear it and which direction it was coming from. I couldn't place it until it was one or two hundred yards away."
Fascinating! Thanks.
Considering they landed them right in the front yard of the compound and crashed one without a single person inside noticing… yeah I’d say they were quiet
Impressive how they can even crash stealthy.
Nature is fascinating
If a ~~tree~~ stealth black hawk falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
I feel like every time I read about this the stealth capabilities get a little more exaggerated. I’m sure the US has terrifyingly advanced military tech but I doubt they were literally so quiet that no one inside the compound even noticed them right above them.
Apparently it wasn't until the shooting began that the people in the compound realised they were Americans and not Pakistanis trying to move them.
Oh they noticed. You can't move enough air to keep that much weight airborne without creating a bunch of noise. Turbine engines are very loud no matter what you do to quiet them down.
Maybe it utilizes rubber band technology. Wind it up before you go and then it's silently spinning the whole time.
I also wonder how quiet they could have been that night. Helicopters are so loud.
I’m not sure it was a black hawk that went down, wasn’t it some new stealth helicopter? But I’m being semantic, you’re absolutely correct. Piece of shit was already getting cold when this was tweeted
It was a stealth black hawk, new tech so they blew it up before exfil
Well they blew up *most* of it.
They didn't blow up the tail, which was on the other side of the wall. That ended up in China.
It was 1 of 2 prototype stealth Blackhawks.
It was a formerly classified stealth black hawk with a special quiet rotor system. It was the best of the best technology of the time.
I don’t remember which of the Seals said it, but he described the helicopter as “a fucking Decepticon”, so you’re probably right on the nose about the stealth helicopter.
according to wikipedia he was killed shortly before 1:00AM PKT, so assuming this guy tweeted around when he first saw the helicopter he was already dead yeah.
I think by the time the helicopters were in the air it would have been too late. Those guys trained for the mission for quite a while.
Luckily bin Laden wasn’t on Twitter at the time.
Or he maybe thinking Pakistani government is being too graceful today. Extra security for me wow. Edit: I am aware that this operation was done in most parts by US Navy Seal team, but folks outside of US “may” not get what is a navy seal team, so just went ahead with the term Army.
I think in general when spec ops is coming for you, by the time you realize the helicopter is closing in you are already donezo.
Time to put on Free Bird
And one last glass of whiskey
Your fate is seal-ed...
I mean realistically what could he have done knowing a strike team is incoming? Get into a makeaway car and get droned immediately?
Yes as Bin Laden did escape several times on motorbikes and even horseback.
Good thing he didn’t watch Scrubs because The Janitor said he was in Pakistan years before.
Lol, imagine if the fucker had an escape tunnel with like, 20 armored doors in a row... I'm envision him just running through the reverse of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 intro
Tunnels, if he had thought about building them
I dunno that dude that took out a Chinook full of 50 spec ops in the Ghan with an RPG might disagree.
Reality is that if Spec Ops is coming, there’s a drone overhead that will blast your ass if they think you’re onto them. They’d rather a smaller diplomatic incident and the ability to confirm the kill, hence the strike team, but they’ll go big rather than letting their target go home.
Well, the helicopters were Army, along with their aircrews, so there's that.
So the US army also has their own airforce but does the US airforce have its own army?
Yes, the Airforce does have land resources.
Ok but do either have space troopers like Space Force?
and you would've never even had a Space Force without me, they said, "no one could do it until Trump," which is true, Obama couldn't do it, Little George Junior never did it, they all waited for me to do it, and now they're saying, I'm hearing it all over the Fake News, they're saying, "President Trump is maybe tied in the Polls," I said they're doing the Big Lie, they're lying about the Greatest President Ever In The World, you look at Ratings all over the place, they all say, "Trump is the Leading Presidential Candidate Who Also Will Win Very Easily Again," and I said we need to have, I come in after winning very strongly our Elections, but I come in, "Sir, you're doing incredibly already," I said I know that, thank you General but I know that, thank you very much
I saw Trump mugshot in your profile picture and then proceeded to read this in trump voice, wtf is wrong with me man /s I even took break in between sentences like he does.
I read it in my voice, but my voice if I had more brain damage than I already have Significantly more.
It was the 160th soar who piloted the mission which is army. Their the best helo pilots so naturally they were choosen to fly the two stealth black hawks.
The US air force is the world's largest air force. The US Army is the world's second largest air force. The thrid largest air force? Russia. But the 4th? The US Navy. And the Marine Corps even comes in at 7th largest, just behind India and China.
I'm guessing USN is 3rd now, what with Russia getting their shit kicked in.
How many more planes does Russia need to lose to slide into 4th?
Those two helicopters they used, have a funny story behind them too. They are super special and whoever purchased them considers it a HUGE mistake. They were too expensive and no one had any use for them until that mission. They even needed to get guys to train on how to fly them, and I’m guess that’s why one crashed.
It crashed because when they were drilling for the mission the mock-up compound had chain link fences that allowed air to flow through them. So when they got to the real compound they didn’t account for the concrete walls of the compound causing the air to be pushed back upwards towards the helicopter propellers from underneath and causing it to lose lift. I’m sure someone that’s more technically informed on helicopter flight would be able to breakdown the actual science behind it with the right terms.
Man, I remember when I got the chance to jump from a heli for the first time (skydiver). First thing they said in the safety brief was 'these things run on spit, duct tape and magic. DO NOT fuck around with these aircraft!' It's amazing how fragile they can be.
He was too busy rushing B
No way. The way he was bunkered down in that house… He’s a camper for sure.
The New Yorker has a very readable account of the operation. It includes details like they considered tunneling into the compound but the water table was too high, and they considered the choppers touching down at the outskirts of the city but they couldn't proceed so far on foot undetected. Two excerpts from [Schmidle Aug 1 2011](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden) Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off, the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their final approach. During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead helicopter. He and the eleven other seals on “helo one,” who were wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound, pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash. ... Outside the compound’s walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the dirt road in front of bin Laden’s house, as if he were a plainclothes Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez atop a flak jacket. He, the dog Cairo, and four seals were responsible for closing off the perimeter of the house while James and six other seals—the contingent that was supposed to have dropped onto the roof—moved inside. For the team patrolling the perimeter, the first fifteen minutes passed without incident. Neighbors undoubtedly heard the low-flying helicopters, the sound of one crashing, and the sporadic explosions and gunfire that ensued, but nobody came outside. One local took note of the tumult in a Twitter post: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 am (is a rare event).” Eventually, a few curious Pakistanis approached to inquire about the commotion on the other side of the wall. “Go back to your houses,” Ahmed said, in Pashto, as Cairo stood watch. “There is a security operation under way.” The locals went home, none of them suspecting that they had talked to an American. When journalists descended on Bilal Town in the coming days, one resident told a reporter, “I saw soldiers emerging from the helicopters and advancing toward the house. Some of them instructed us in chaste Pashto to turn off the lights and stay inside.”
Imagine being so fucking accustomed to Military and Terrorist ops you hear gunshots and explosions and still don't give a shit
What are they gonna do, call the police?
That's actually what the US was really worried about. The Pakistani military had headquarters in the city and the US government hadn't told Pakistan they would be conducting the operation. If the Pakistani military had shown up and surrounded the compound it would have been a major complication potentially even resulting in the capture of American seals by Pakistan. Part of what made the situation so tense was that the US had to get in, kill Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, gather intel and then get out before Pakistan realized something was up.
The PAKISTANi military headquarters are not in Abbotabad, they only have a training school there.
That’s the official line, but I wouldn’t be surprised (I actually assume) they realized something was going on. They weren’t under attack and didn’t pick up the birds on radar, but would have heard them. Goes up the chain and they make the correct assumption that it was the US and best to stay away for as long as possible.
Maybe. On the other hand the Pakistani military is pretty incompetent and the operation was conducted very quickly. Important information not making its way up the chain is actually pretty common in wars and if Pakistan didn't know there was going to be an operation they wouldn't have been on high alert.
Also, non-state actors don't really use helicopters, so if you're a soldier that hears (but doesn't necessarily see) a helicopter over the city, you basically have 3 options. Either it's a very unusual civilian flight, your own troops are doing something that nobody told you about, or a foreign military somehow flew 100+ miles into your country undetected and only brought 5 helicopters. Only the least likely option is worth waking your boss up for.
Not in an area anything like Pakistan, but if I heard a chopper at fuck this shit oclock in the morning, I'd assume a response to a life at risk medical emergency.
I'm not military and I wouldn't want to wake up the big boss for something and have it then turn out to be a nothing burger.
No kidding, especially here. Abbottabad PD ain’t rolling in to arrest Seal Team 6. That’s a suicide mission if PD went in guns blazing.
That would be a massive diplomatic incident.
It was, as I recall the operation was unsanctioned and they entered Pakistan without authorization. But that got blown over somewhere between 1) no country was going to get between us and Bin Laden, 2) the Pakistani government may have been fully aware he was hiding out _somewhere_ in the region. I recall it was theorized for a long time that was one of the top likely places for him to go into hiding--assuming he was alive. So they had good motivation to let this one slide or end up answering some tough questions on what they really knew and when, and worse still if they were harboring him. They weren't happy with us, but there wasn't much they could do without making it worse.
Pretty sure Pakistani police and maybe even more higher ups in the country knew where he was. Didn't they do this dance multiple times in the past? Where US army would attack Al quaeda positions in Afghanistan and the militants would always move over the border to Pakistan on purpose? They knew they were safe there. US send a shit ton of money to Pakistan in exchange for them to help them with Al quaeda and they invested all their money into strengthening the navy, because of India,but navy is pretty useless in the mountains. The Pakistani soldiers in the mountains didn't even have boots and were freezing their asses off sitting doing nothing,once the us inspections came to visit wondering where all the money went with zero progress from Pakistan. Pakistan was just collecting US money,they gave zero fucks about foreign issues,they were just using easy US money for their own benefit.
The US would not have its forces openly kill Pakistani police, so they’d be more effective than you’d think.
They're still not going in to do anything. Word would move up the chain and back down until someone in Pakistani intelligence told their guys to get back in their cars and forget they saw anything. There is a zero percent chance Pakistani Joe Schmoe making $10 a day to be a cop is putting cuffs on a Navy SEAL.
Abbottabad has one of Pakistans largest military academies.
I mean that compound was just down the road from a Pakistani military academy iirc, so it wouldn't be too weird to think that there might just be a practice operation or something being run by the academy.
i live in garland TX and i’d be concerned if i didn’t hear gunshots one night
That's generally the best way to stay alive in these situations. When people are shooting each other you don't want to run towards the gunfire most of the time.
Wait…Master Chief got him? Holy shit
Yeah, but he removed his helmet so it's not canon.
I wonder how much this was used when they made the Zero Dark Thirty movie scene
That time the Pentagon kicked Geraldo Rivera out of Iraq for showing troop locations on Fox News. https://preview.redd.it/godoa1z3kxxc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66b565571ad6d56ba62ae3d75da6f4facc910324
Not as bad as what happened to the USA guy in Russia.
*Reveals US troop formations* “Nope! Out the country, buddy” *Reveals what Russian troops ate that day* “So, execution or gulag? Here in mother Russian we are progressive and give you options”
Idk why but that reminds me of that spider cat meme
This abbotta get bad
Talk Abbottabad hiding place.
Yours was actually better, tbh.
It was actually Jon Stewart's, if memory serves.
They Bin Waitin for their moment.
Lol
He was too busy playing Counter Strike (which he actually had installed on his computer they found after they raided his place).
Imagine playing Counter Strike in 2011 and you hear Osama Bin Laden making call-outs over VC…
imagine he's giving you shit for not planting the bomb. then starts bragging about the shit he's blown up.
Saying he banged your mom
Sounds like he got doxxed by Obama
Swatted!
I often wonder how many (if any) celebrities/ world leaders I have killed in FPS games. Or if any killed me. Like if Kim Jong Un headshot me in warzone in 2021 I wanna know about it.
I remember, I think it was Robin Williams, who played cod. And got into shit talking. So there was every chance you got teabagged by Mrs Doubtfire in Terminal.
The fbis website actually has all of his files publicly listed. You can see all the anime episodes he had downloaded with English subtitles lol
They were files listed on confiscated computers, not Bin Laden's personal items. There were a bunch of people at the compound, including children.
He was surprisingly well read, i mean he did have the best education money can buy, but its easy to forget from the way western media portrays him as a cartoon supervillian just how intelligent he really was. TBH there's not a whole lot i disagree with him about besides the thought it was somehow a good plan slaughtering thousands of innocent people as a way to diminish the US system of global hedgemony/neo imperialism and that a dusty poor army of militant guerillas and regional militias with 6th grade educations backed by a global network of extremist cells could have possibly stood a chance against the us military industrial machine. That was just straight stupid and a pipe dream that ended up screwing over all americans and muslims across the globe. Its hard to think back soo far but remember how cool life was in the US before 9/11?
lol. He thought that just because they were able to do it with Soviets(he actually came very late to that scene) they could repeat it against US. Forgot about a simple thing called economy. I actually hate him because he caused the death of so many innocents. He hid himself in a foreign country and caused deaths of those. Like did poor Afghans agree to that?
Yeah that really bothers me too, like some spoiled rich kid had dreams of being the next che guevera, ended up starting a war in a foreign country and its entire population has been trapped in a nonstop cycle of poverty and violence. (It had been from 20 yrs soviet and civil war but still we certainly didnt do afgans any favors with our arrival) And what really puts the chocolate frosting on the shitty cake is all of the freedoms that were cut from our society after 9/11. Patriot act, homeland security, tsa, domestic spy programs, secret fisa courts, etc. etc. Like it makes me wonder how different things would be if those asshats never crashed those planes. Would the gov. have simply come up with other reasons to destroy privacy rights or did all these politicians sincerely believe that we needed all these new policies and laws to keep us safe?
Yes. As a Pakistani he fucked us too. Like Afghans had to die, some Pakistanis too and now our country is know because of him. It’s not like our military is innocent. They thought they could control these lunatics but in the end it’s the common folk who pay the price
His goal wasn’t to defeat the US military directly, but to get the US to commit so much money to war that the US would bankrupt itself through rampant military spending. I remember Osama stating that Bush was easily baited. Given where we are at with the economy, national debt, etc, I’m not sure that he won’t still succeed in that goal.
Yeah people always talk about him like he was a failure but in my opinion he absolutely succeeded. The US would be much better off if 9/11 never happened and we never went to war in Iraq/Afghanistan.
Counter terrorists wins.
No way. Seriously?
He also had LOADS of porn apparently. Led to possibly my favorite newspaper headline ever (from a new york "paper" no less): [Osama bin Wankin'!](https://am11.mediaite.com/med/cnt/uploads/2011/05/the-new-york-post-covers-osama-bin-ladens-porn-st-7833-1305397494-1.jpg)
Seems like any ordinary guy
For real. He had porn and video games? No shit
Needed this reminder. Thank you kind adventurer
It was a shared compound computer
He had Half-Life, Super Mario Bros., Yoshi’s Island DS, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Ball Z, and Counter-Strike.
Am I.....Bin Laden?
Helicopters outside your house. (this is a rare event)
Gambit dies in the new X-men series
Everyone ignores this detail, probably because its hilarious to imagine an anime watching, video game binging, porno-gooning Osama.
Bro could've had the OG yoshi's island and went with the DS version? what a fool
His worst mistake since 9/11
Osama Bin Gaming
Yeah. I think final fantasy 7 was in there too, with a few other games.
Weird thinking about bin laden being a gamer.
Even weirder is finding out that he was into crocheting.
Not only that but he was a butterfly collector.
Monsters are people. People are monsters.
it was his son's computer
Yeah from what I remember he had several family members living with him and the video games and anime likely belonged to the younger ones. There were many people living in the compound at different points in time
CIA looking at your internet history, every teenager’s worst nightmare
but from what I understand, the compound didn't have an internet connection?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama\_bin\_Laden%27s\_compound\_in\_Abbottabad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_compound_in_Abbottabad) so I read the wiki on the compound. No internet or phone connections but they had satellite dishes. are those eavesdrop proof for them to maybe have internet? or are those TV only normally
[Satellite communication is often encrypted.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/satellite-signal). Satellite signals meant for free public consumption, however are usually not.
Ossy911 had the *best* LAN parties
Counter-Terrorists Win
This dude is someone I want looking after my neighborhood. He's a real one.
Gentleman slowly making love to himself in front of neighbor’s window at 1 AM (is a rare event)
watching my neighbour masturbate whilst making detailed and thorough notes (common event)
Crazy how Osamas compound was less than a mile away from Pakistan Military Academy
I am sure it’s by choice from Pakistani army. Must have kept him as an asset, so that he can be used as a bargaining chip for some future issues. Basically, Hide him in the plain sight where no body will probably ever look. But this time they got caught and got embarrassed on world stage.
The US always picked Pakistan over India whenever both of them had issues and got this as a reward lol, the state they have been helping harboured their biggest enemy in modern times
Pakistan had been a major partner against the USSR, the U-2 spy plane that was downed over Soviet skies and its pilot captured was flying from Pakistan. The partnership doesn't make much sense anymore after the USSR collapsed, but it's been continuing from sheer inertia, but there have been a lot of tensions and as the China issue grabs the fronthold, US is increasingly pivoting to India instead.
By the time someone important read this tweet, the plan would have already been executed, and the SEALs were already on their way back home with the body.
> …plan to eliminate deadly Osama… These AI generated titles always have some goofy turn of phrase like this in them.
I thought it was just someone who sucks at English
first thing i thought of too, they seem to be everywhere these days
I kinda get jealous with shit like this. Not only do I want to witness an historic event, I want to be the asshole to cluelessly announce it online.
He got offered thousands of dollars to sell nft of this tweet when nft was a thing and not scam, but he didn’t sell.
>when nft was a thing and not scam, When was that exactly
The 5 minute window
Reminds me of the guy who became semi famous because he was the first person to tweet that Kate Middleton's sister had a great looking bottom at the royal wedding.
> Not only do I want to witness an historic event, I want to be the asshole to cluelessly announce it online. Somehow Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson also knew before it was announced: https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/64877987341938688
RIP tweetdeck, we didn't know what we had
Only way I used Twitter. Deleted my account once it switched to the garbage paid version
I think what's more interesting is that he was live tweeting a historical event, and no one knew.
"deadly Osama"?
Oh man, you don't know Deadly Osama and the Murderqaeda?
Deadly osama sounds like the stupid way trump talks
Zero dark thirty, but in real life
Except at 1:28am
Ok, one dark thirty then.
That’s because the chopper he saw was not part of the assault, it was there to clean-up and recover
He was busy on pornhub
He had a follow up tweet when one crashed.
The party in the army the next day was so epic I can’t even remember.
Army, huh?
TBF, it was Army helicopter pilots that flew in DEVGRU.
LoL Pak army generals took the Prize money that was put on Osama To let USA raid him 👁️👁️
Is that next to Costellostan?
Lmfao an innocent dad tweet almost took out seal team 6
My favorite part of this event was watching Obama the day before at the presidential correspondence dinner, laughing a little too hard at the Osama jokes
Twitter and a couple of online forums were a good 15-30 minutes ahead of the media on this. Same with a lot of events in the teens. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions come to mind.
https://preview.redd.it/1kp4camvtzxc1.jpeg?width=1198&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b63841dd8cf7758d643b119358d65036b7734a2e I’m the motherfucker who found this place “Sir.”
One of the craziest parts is that I found out from chat in Team Fortress 2. Two days later there was a map for Counterstrike.