Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill served his country on 400 sorties in 16 years and shot and killed Osama bin Laden in perhaps the most famous deadly raid in modern American history.
The Montana native knows more than anyone about fighting terrorists and the grim realities of war.
But as he watched from afar the bloodthirsty Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he saw soldiers die for a leader who “lost his marbles” with an endgame to cement his place in the history books, and witnessed how the US reacted when he perceived. like weakness.
In an exclusive interview with , the decorated veteran criticized the Biden administration for canceling missile nuclear tests over the weekend while Russian troops began attacking Ukrainian citizens, and that the Pentagon is more concerned with its climate change agenda than attempts to contain Putin.
“The madman cannot be defeated by nuclear weapons, by weakness. It’s like trying to stop a bully in the schoolyard by appeasing him, that’s nonsense.
“When I was in the service, my main concern was whether you could complete the task. Now they (the Pentagon) are wasting time and resources making warships green. Unfortunately, the truth is that Russia and China are laughing at us when we talk about climate change in the military.”
He said he doesn’t care about his legacy, despite killing the al-Qaeda founder after a decade-long hunt, and is only focused on making sure his children are taken care of.
O’Neill also said politicians like Lindsey Graham shouldn’t talk about killing Vladimir Putin because of TV ratings, but insisted he wouldn’t mind someone in the Kremlin’s inner circle taking Putin out “like Yulia Caesar.”
Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill, who shot Osama bin Laden, criticized the Biden administration for canceling nuclear missile tests when Russian troops began attacking Ukrainian citizens and for the Pentagon being more concerned with its climate change agenda than trying to contain Putin.
“The level of corruption is as high as ever in the United States. These politicians speak from both sides of their mouths. They say one thing and vote for another. They need curators.”
He was a member of the SEAL Team Six that took out the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks in the deadly Abbottabad raid in 2010, and has been featured on the big screen in Zero Dark Thirty, Captain Phillips and Lone Survivor.
Now he has published a book with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer called The Way Forward about the lessons of their lives and military careers.
SEAL was awarded 52 times, leaving the post of Chief Petty Officer. His awards include two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars for valor, the Joint Service Medal of Honor for valor, three Presidential Unit Commendations, and two Navy/Marine Corps valor awards.
O’Neill admitted that he did not initially think that Putin would invade Ukraine because he “made the mistake of trying to understand a madman’s decision.”
He believed the Russian leader would manipulate the West into spending more money on defense by placing hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the border but never going inside. He admits he was wrong.
He fears that as Ukrainian resistance shoots down helicopters and planes, Putin will move to heavy, long-range artillery. Pentagon officials have already indicated that this is happening with Russian strikes in western Ukraine, just 60 miles from the Polish border.
He said the US was “pressing” Russia with devastating economic sanctions, but they still needed a “position of strength.”
“That’s when it gets really bloody. That’s when shit gets real,” he said of Russian missiles flying over the horizon and landing in Ukrainian cities full of civilians.
“We haven’t seen anything worse than this since 1939. We used to joke about movies that said a virus would cause a lockdown. We thought it was crazy. I’m a firm believer in the normality bias, that nothing bad can happen because it never happened.”
When the United States starts talking about climate change being “the number one national security issue,” he says, the rest of the world starts to scoff at us.
“They’re worried about making their warships green first and then theirs, and I’ve had people who are still in the military and turn to special ops because instead of going to the firing range or the gym and prepare for war, they take classes in white rage gender studies.
He called the climate initiatives “ridiculous,” especially given growing fears that Putin might resort to nuclear weapons during a conflict.
“The United States has decided that we will be the ‘good guys’ by ‘saving the snapping turtles’ and the planet will get ‘much hotter and faster’ with nuclear war.
O’Neill also said that politicians like Lindsey Graham shouldn’t talk about killing Vladimir Putin because of TV ratings, but insisted he wouldn’t mind someone in the Kremlin’s inner circle taking Putin out.” like Julius Caesar.”
He said he hoped the invasion would get to the point where the Russians would “get their ass kicked so hard” that the West and Ukraine would make a deal with Moscow to get them out.
“I am an optimist and this is my hope. But my prediction was so bad at first, I am. I’m just going by what I hope will happen.
“Most people in the world can agree. There is one person who can stop this. All he has to do is stop it.
Now he has published a book with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer called The Way Forward about the lessons of their lives and military careers.
He says he gets upset when videos of downed Russian helicopters go viral on social media.
“These planes are flown by Russians and I have had friends die in plane crashes and there is nothing cool about that.
“Most soldiers don’t want to be there. It’s all because one guy in the Kremlin went crazy.”
O’Neill said there was no way the US could do to Putin what he did to bin Laden by killing him in a SEAL raid, and most Americans get their idea of the war from television and social media.
“We need to know where he is and launch an airstrike on him. You must find out how we get to Russia, how we are not seen and what we do when we land.
“Leave your video game tactics at home because they don’t work.”
“You can’t fix the past. You can definitely learn from the past and if it didn’t work, you can change it. The only thing we have in common is that the clock keeps ticking. So you can live in the past, or you can move forward and you can try to make the best of it now and look forward to tomorrow.
“We all had our first day somewhere. We were all scared, but eventually you get used to it, and now it’s something you can do. What’s the way forward? We are all made from the same fabric.
He asks why we are constantly “at war with each other” in foreign conflicts, and says that most soldiers from the opposing sides will get along if they “sit down for a cup of coffee in a Parisian cafe.”
“And how did a fat Montana man who couldn’t swim become a Navy SEAL in Osama’s bedroom?” If I can do it, anyone can.”
Rob O’Neill and Dakota Meyer’s The Way Forward is available here.
O’Neill said there was no way the US could do to Putin what he did to bin Laden by killing him in a SEAL raid, and most Americans get their idea of the war from TV and social media.
O’Neal is pictured with his wife Jessica at the shooting range. The couple got married in 2017