Book on the 'Bin Laden Incident' - An Outrage?

[Jellyfish]

In the closed and close-knit world of current and retired U.S. Special Operations officers, the news that an unauthorized account of the 2011 Navy SEALs raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound was coming to bookstores next month hit like a ton of bricks.
The pending publication of the book, No Easy Day: The First Hand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden, so stirred Admiral William McRaven, chief of the Special Operations Command, that he sent a letter Thursday to special-operations forces warning against using their elite military affiliation for personal gain, according to Pentagon officials who asked not to be named.
n the letter, McRaven said that while it was within the rights of former special-operations soldiers to “write books about their adventures, it is disappointing when these actions either attempt to represent the broader [special-operations forces] community, or expose sensitive information that could threaten the lives of their fellow warriors.”

McRaven also issued a veiled warning to the author: “Every member of the special-operations community with a security clearance signed a non-disclosure agreement that was binding during and after service in the military. If the U.S. Special Operations Command finds that an active-duty, retired or former service member violated that agreement and that exposure of information was detrimental to the safety of U.S. forces, then we will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate.”

On Internet forums the special-ops community maintains to discuss their craft, the common response, according to two participants, was: “WTF.”  “I am on a few list-servs,” said Roger Carstens, a former Army Special Forces officer and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. “This topic has been a heavy and heated discussion with almost everyone asking WTF?”

The reason for the shock and outrage is that inside the world of the SEALs—the Navy’s premier Sea, Air and Land Team force that conducts sensitive missions that are rarely disclosed to the public—talking out of turn is almost never done. While other elements of the U.S. intelligence community has been wracked by leaks from insiders and turncoats like ex-CIA officer Philip Agee, the SEALs throughout their 51-year history have avoided such embarrassing disclosures. This is because the elite officers who comprise the secret SEAL Team Six practice a Mafia-like code of Omerta. In the case of the handful of books written about the SEALs, anything published was reviewed by the Pentagon to scrub the texts of any classified information.

Source - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/24/will-no-easy-day-book-on-bin-laden-raid-break-seals-code-of-silence.html

[Gandalf]

As the story is fiction, what would be the problem?

[SkyHawk]

As the story is fiction, what would be the problem?

It could be classified as Historical Fiction therefore linking some actual occurences to fictional characters or vice versa..I don't see a problem with the writing of the book, however I feel that if any former military member wants to right a book about their past experiences they should go through the Pentagon first to make sure nothing is revealed that the general public needs to know about. After all, I feel that some things are better left unknown to the general public then others..

[Gandalf]

It could be classified as Historical Fiction therefore linking some actual occurences to fictional characters or vice versa..I don't see a problem with the writing of the book, however I feel that if any former military member wants to right a book about their past experiences they should go through the Pentagon first to make sure nothing is revealed that the general public needs to know about. After all, I feel that some things are better left unknown to the general public then others..

There were several things regarding this operation that still makes me wonder if it was not a pure work of fiction.

[Huntsman]

Still a better love story than twilight  :cool: