The mission that killed al Qaeda boss

In early October 2007, then Senator Barack Obama was trailing Hillary Clinton by more than 20 points in national polls and it was only three months before the first primary contest in Iowa.

Obama was in his long journey from college kid, to senator and then to presidential candidate – in his yearlong attempt to woo America.

Standing by the drying corn stalks of Iowa reluctantly swaying in the wind, Obama must have looked defeated and forlorn. He had a funny name: “Obama”, which many Americans couldn’t pronounce without muffling and it reminded them of someone they hated (Osama) and a middle name “Hussein” which did not help.

He was behind in national polls and from moneyed Washington to rural America, from coast to coast and shining sea to shining sea, his top supporters were anxious. It was getting late and the rookie biracial senator was virtually unknown.

His nemesis for the democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, pushed the narrative that Obama was too inexperienced, untested and naive to be trusted with America’s national security.

Then Senator Obama surprisingly countered with a simple, yet profound sentence, “I’m tough, I’m from Chicago”.

Chicago is apparently a city of toughies, heroes and ragamuffins; home not only to the great Abraham Lincoln but also the dreaded all-American gangster, Al Capone – whose rule was absolute.

Now a new book paints a new picture of President Barack Obama, the tough man from Chicago, who made the ultimate call to take the fight to the fugitive Saudi-born terror mastermind, Osama bin Laden. There’s an old saying that, “Into each life, a little rain must fall”.

However, in Osama’s life, there seemed to be a dearth of rain and goodwill but his life was marked by stealth ambushes, shattering glass, entangled masses of bodies ripped by bombs and fierce fire fights.

The book, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden, gives for the first time anywhere, the first-person account of the planning and execution of the deadly bin Laden raid from a Navy Seal who confronted the terrorist mastermind face to face and witnessed his final moments.

Written under the pen-name Mark Owen, the author recounts some of his chaotic adventures from the streets of Iraq to the mountaintops of Afghanistan and to the third floor of Osama bin Laden’s compound. Operator Mark Owen has worked for some time for the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group – commonly known as SEAL Team Six.

Writing a book as a Navy Seal was a monumental challenge – the author had first to navigate the politics of it: the American military is flustered because it’s afraid that the book could out some of its secrets and endanger the lives of its soldiers. But the author seems to have done some research even going to the extent of hiring a retired Special Operations lawyer.

Since African governments have used the Official Secrets Act to put a lid on information dissemination, African authors can learn a thing or two from Mark Owen in their attempt to strike a balance between the public’s right to know and the government’s requirement to keep official secrets that could compromise national security.

They need to engage expert communication and publishing lawyers to do “libel checks” and to be on the lookout for anything that could compromise national security.

Once a manuscript crosses that threshold, it should be published. If authors were to follow the whims of politicians and the government, some books would never be published! As much as the government has a right to keep some things under wraps, the public also has a right to know.

No Easy Day derives its title from the Navy Seal philosophy: “The only easy day was yesterday”. The rest of the book is a look into the adventurous and dangerous lives of elite operation forces; their chaotic lives in training and battle and fleeting moments of rest.

If the world had authors as bold as Owen (without endangering national security), our freedom of information would have more meaning – it’s a tricky balance but for Kenya to be more democratic, we have to find and embrace it.

Democracy doesn’t thrive in secrets, gags and censorship by government but in openness, transparency and accountability even if this leads to uncomfortable scrutiny of government operations and processes.

The writer is the CEO, Phoenix Publishers. The views are his own.