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[geestack]

The Crimes of SEAL Team 6

i think glenn greenwald is a belligerent ninny, but this is some very good reporting done by matthew cole. he outlines unreported atrocities and war crimes committed by navy SEALs including mutilations, killings of civilians and noncombatants (some that i would consider extrajudicial), a goddamn beheading, and a routine practice called "canoeing":

Some of those photographs, especially those taken of casualties from 2005 through 2008, show deceased enemy combatants with their skulls split open by a rifle or pistol round at the upper forehead, exposing their brain matter. The foreign fighters who suffered these V-shaped wounds were either killed in battle and later shot at close range. Among members of SEAL Team 6, this practice of desecrating enemy casualties was called “canoeing.”

this was also done to bin laden despite being neutralized as a threat:

Red watched bin Laden fall. He later told his teammates that it was possible one arm was twitching reflexively as he died, but otherwise he was effectively dead and not a threat. The distinction was crucial.
...

O’Neill and two or three more assaulters moved past Red into the bedroom as bin Laden lay on the ground. O’Neill then fired two rounds. According to his own description, the first two rounds hit bin Laden’s forehead. Then O’Neill canoed bin Laden with a final shot.
...

The SEALs had been specifically asked to avoid shooting bin Laden in the face. O’Neill’s decision to canoe the al Qaeda leader made him unrecognizable. A SEAL who spoke Arabic interviewed bin Laden’s wives and daughters until he was able to get two positive identifications. O’Neill later implied in the Esquire profile that he shot bin Laden because he wasn’t sure Red’s shots had hit the target. He also claimed that bin Laden had been standing when he fired and that a weapon was visible nearby. Yet immediately after the mission, O’Neill described shooting bin Laden while he was on the floor. The two weapons found on the third floor were not discovered until the rooms were searched. Neither was loaded.

apparently a culture of silence and distrust of authority outside the SEALs, along with an unwillingness to hold people accountable and an air of superiority is what kept any SEALs from being punished:

“You can’t win an investigation on us,” one former SEAL Team 6 leader told me. “You don’t whistleblow on the teams … and when you win on the battlefield, you don’t lose investigations.”

After leaving the compound and returning to their base in Kandahar province, Vasely reported to Moore, his superior officer, that he believed he had witnessed a war crime, a mutilation. Vasely told Moore he wanted an investigation into the incident. Moore, sitting in his office in Virginia Beach, pressed Vasely: What had he actually seen? Was there another explanation?

Szymanski, according to these sources, was directed by Moore to make the episode disappear. “Tim took a dive,” said a former noncommissioned SEAL officer, and it was “at Moore’s direction.” Szymanski had known Slabinski for at least 15 years. They had bonded over Roberts’s death.

Although Blue Squadron had avoided criminal charges, their battlefield conduct continued to set off alarms within the command. Some SEAL Team 6 leaders were appalled by how easily Vasely and Szymanski had folded under Moore’s pressure.

i think the article does a good job of showing how a culture of silence combined with an aura of invincibility and the ability to operate at their own discretion with no oversight and punishment has created the perfect environment for war crimes. chillingly, it reminds me of american police forces with the same rhetoric and environment: create an exclusive culture (us vs them), paint people as "savages", and assume you have the ultimate moral authority to do whatever you want as long as you justify it.

it's a long read, but I hope you take the time. it's worth it.

 

[geestack]

one thing i also wanted to point out, apparently Linda Norgrove, a scottish aid worker who was captured along with other colleagues, was actually working with MI-6; she was killed during the SEAL rescue raid by one SEAL who threw a grenade next to her and lied about it, along with covering it up in the follow up investigation:

Then, in October 2010, SEAL Team 6 set out to rescue a British aid worker named Linda Norgrove, who had been taken captive in Afghanistan. The operation, code-named ANSTRUTHER, an homage to Norgrove’s Scottish heritage, was authorized by British Prime Minister David Cameron. The operation commanded high-level interest because Norgrove, though in Afghanistan as an aid worker for DAI, an American NGO, secretly worked with Britain’s MI-6, according to four U.S. military and intelligence sources. Two of these sources told me that the British government informed SEAL Team 6 mission planners that Norgrove worked for the spy agency, and that they had been tracking her movements since the abduction. Asked for comment, the British government told The Intercept that it does not comment on security matters and would “neither confirm nor deny” that Norgrove worked for the intelligence agency.

During a late-night raid at a northern Kunar compound, Silver Squadron operators killed several captors but accidentally killed Norgrove when an inexperienced SEAL threw a fragment grenade at one of the captors.

The operation’s team leader believed that a suicide vest had been detonated by one of the captors, and two Silver Squadron operators initially withheld the fact that a grenade had been thrown. Consequently, the SEALs initially reported to JSOC senior leaders that Norgrove had been killed by her captors.

Later, a JSOC officer watching drone footage of the operation noticed one of the SEALs throw an object that landed and exploded near where Norgrove’s body was found. One of the two SEALs who knew about the grenade eventually told his team leader, who then failed to inform his commanders until he was confronted the next day.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

"belligerent ninny"

 

[HammerOfThor]

Has this been known about Bin Laden's head? I wonder if thats why we where so bent on not showing him at all afterwards.

 

[geestack]

Has this been known about Bin Laden's head? I wonder if thats why we where so bent on not showing him at all afterwards.

the person who did it, o'neill, talks about it in his esquire interview:

His forehead was gruesome. It was split open in the shape of a V. I could see his brains spilling out over his face. The American public doesn't want to know what that looks like.

of course, this dude o'neill is a liar and didn't actually kill bin laden. he merely walked in and shot him when he was already practically dead, according to the reporting done by the intercept.

 

[Dr.Acula]

Looking forward to reading this. The whole "we got Osama, but there are no photos, also we dumped his body in the sea" thing made me go "hmm."

 

[Breads]

A hatchet job of the US anything by The Intercept?

Color me shocked.

I'll give it a read later but I gotta say that I'm surprised that site is still allowed here considering the ones that aren't.

 

[Back-In-Black]

A hatchet job of the US anything by The Intercept?

Color me shocked.

I'll give it a read later but I gotta say that I'm surprised that site is still allowed here considering the ones that aren't.

.

 

[Dopus]

A hatchet job of the US anything by The Intercept?

Color me shocked.

Speaking of hatchets.

For some of Howard’s men, however, the hatchets soon became more than symbolic as they were used at times to hack dead fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others used them to break doorknobs on raids or kill militants in hand-to-hand combat.

During the first deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was common practice to take fingers, scalp, or skin from slain enemy combatants for identification purposes. One former SEAL Team 6 leader told me that he feared the practice would lead to members of the unit using the DNA samples as an excuse to mutilate and desecrate the dead. By 2007, when Howard and Red Squadron showed up with their hatchets in Iraq, internal reports of operators using the weapons to hack dead and dying militants were provided to both the commanding officer of SEAL Team 6 at that time, Capt. Scott Moore, and his deputy, Capt. Tim Szymanski.

Howard, who declined to answer questions from The Intercept, rallied his SEALs and others before missions and deployments by telling them to “bloody the hatchet.” One SEAL I spoke with said that Howard’s words were meant to be inspirational, like those of a coach, and were not an order to use the hatchets to commit war crimes. Others were much more critical. Howard was often heard asking his operators whether they’d gotten “blood on your hatchet” when they returned from a deployment. Howard’s distribution of the hatchets worried several senior SEAL Team 6 members and some CIA paramilitary officers who worked with his squadron.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Looking forward to reading this. The whole "we got Osama, but there are no photos, also we dumped his body in the sea" thing made me go "hmm."

They were always going to do that. Leave a body around and it can become a symbol or site of veneration. That's why Hitler and co. didn't get marked graves either.

 

[Dopus]

I'll give it a read later but I gotta say that I'm surprised that site is still allowed here considering the ones that aren't.

 

[faisal233]

Navy Seals are usually full of themselves. Not surprised that they think they can get away with anything. Probably the reason Army Delta went into Raqqa to get Abu Sayyaf after the Seals fucked up the OBL raid. They are the real deal quite professionals.

 

[Palette Swap]

The SEALs had been specifically asked to avoid shooting bin Laden in the face. O’Neill’s decision to canoe the al Qaeda leader made him unrecognizable.

If true, this guy is really a dumb asshole.

 

[Breads]

http://i.imgur.com/pU0mqG5.jpg[img][/QUOTE]

Some people are fine with editorializing, a lack of citations, and a clearly anti-us agenda.

Confirmation bias makes it all easier to swallow.

 

[geestack]

If true, this guy is really a dumb asshole.

he's certainly not above profiteering off his time in the SEALs:

Less than a week before the assault, Bissonnette and O’Neill got into a shouting match at the Dam Neck base over who would sell the inside story of the raid. Several of their teammates on the mission had to intervene, according to a former SEAL Team 6 operator. A former SEAL Team 6 leader told me that O’Neill and Bissonnette originally agreed to cooperate on a book or movie project after the raid was over, but later had a falling out. The former SEAL leader said the extensive amount of training for the mission, combined with Bissonnette’s planning role, gave both men ample opportunity to find ways to put themselves on the third floor, in a good position to kill bin Laden.

In 2014, O’Neill unveiled himself as the man who killed bin Laden in an hourlong Fox News special, just as Bissonnette published a second book. The former teammates both hit the press circuit, each telling reporters off the record that the other was a liar. Already a popular motivational speaker, O’Neill now charges up to $35,000 per speech. Today, he is a paid on-air commentator for Fox News and is reportedly eyeing a run for the Senate in his native Montana. He even has his own line of clothing.

the other dude, bissonnette, apparently wrote the book no easy day and had a setup to profit off bin laden's killing when he knew he was going to be on the mission:

Bissonnette left Red Squadron soon after the raid and retired from the Navy almost one year later. He had already set himself up for a profitable future. While on active duty, he’d formed a consulting company with four other SEALs and secured a contract with one of the command’s biggest equipment suppliers.

Bissonnette’s bestselling book, “No Easy Day,” was published in September 2012, four months after he retired and less than two weeks after O’Neill got out of the Navy. The publication came as a surprise to the Pentagon because Bissonnette had failed to clear it as required.

In the book, Bissonnette implies that he was directly behind Red just below the third floor when bin Laden was shot, and was one of the next two SEALs who entered bin Laden’s bedroom. His account credits Red with the shot that felled bin Laden and holds that he and a third SEAL — presumably O’Neill — fired several rounds into bin Laden as he was lying on the floor.

 

[KodaRuss]

Interesting timing with the show about to start on the history channel. I think we all know stuff like this happens.

I read both of Marcus Luttrell's books but I have not read American Sniper yet. Navy Seals and any top secret/high level military have always interested me.

Ill have to read more of this later.

 

[HStallion]

Is anyone surprised? We don't even hear about most of the missions the SEALs take part in. I'm sure there is all kinds of fucked ship going on and since its never really seen by the public its even easier to hide doing horrible things.

 

[Ventrue]

Some people are fine editorializing, a lack of citations, and a clearly anti-us agenda.

Confirmation bias makes it all easier to swallow.

So you reject out of hand an article from a source you don't like for no specific reason, because 'confirmation bias.'

 

[JZA]

Something tells me that elite military units have probably been like this since the beginning of civilization. It's kind of hard to question an organization that specializes in lethality on your behalf. I think it's possible to respect but not worship these people. It kind of reminds me of the conversation between the Wayne Enterprises accountant and Lucious Fox in the Dark Knight movie.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Without saying anything about the veracity of this particular set of claims and stories, I don't think the idea that the US military has engaged in high-level coverups, has an unwillingness to hold people accountable and has an air of superiority over civilians is particularly shocking. It's not even something relegated to units as mythical as DEVGRU, we know the Rangers and the regular Army did it with Pat Tillman (among others). Jessica Lynch was a pawn in a gigantic web of propaganda. It sucks that this stuff exists, but it seems to be an issue in a lot of special forces/military circles.

 

[TTOOLL]

Who cares about what they did to Bin Laden?

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Who cares about what they did to Bin Laden?

Whether or not you think defacing corpses is fine or not, there is at least a reason to not deface high value targets so you can positively ID and prove that you got the person.

 

[Madness]

Has this been known about Bin Laden's head? I wonder if thats why we where so bent on not showing him at all afterwards.

Which is surprising. I never bought their excuse or the burial at sea. We can see the photos of Saddams dead sons, Saddam be hung live on CNN, Gadhafi be excuted on a car hood before and after footage but somehow Bin Laden with a bullet in his head was too much. And his body being actually shown was too much ao they quickly buried him at sea so as to not create a place for pilgrimage, which is something that really doesn't happen. But it is what it is. I don't doubt he died, but everything surrounding how it all went down was always off for me.

 

[geestack]

Who cares about what they did to Bin Laden?

how about when they murder a wedding party of innocent men, women, and children:

The SEALs from the other helicopter immediately headed up a steep hill after landing to locate an armed man who had been shot from the helicopter. When they reached the hilltop, the operators looked down in disbelief at women and children, along with the man — all were dead or mortally wounded from the spray of gunfire from the Chinook's gunners, who had unloaded after the free fire zone had been declared. They realized the man had been trying to protect the women and children.
...
According to Hyder, the encounter ended there. But the retired SEAL who was on the mission tells a different story. According to this source, after shooting the man, who turned out to be unarmed, Hyder proceeded to mutilate his body by stomping in his already damaged skull. When Heath, who witnessed Hyder's actions, reported them to his team leader in the presence of other members of the team, ”several of the guys turned and walked away," said the retired SEAL. ”They were disgusted." He quoted Heath as saying, ”I'm morally flexible but I can't handle that." Heath refused to comment for this article.

 

[fastford58]

Something tells me that elite military units have probably been like this since the beginning of civilization. It's kind of hard to question an organization that specializes in lethality on your behalf. I think it's possible to respect but not worship these people. It kind of reminds me of the conversation between the Wayne Enterprises accountant and Lucious Fox in the Dark Knight movie.

Hard men doing bad things so you can wake up and play on your iPhone.

 

[Jackpot]

Who cares about what they did to Bin Laden?

People against war crimes.

 

[Breads]

So you reject out of hand an article from a source you don't like for no specific reason, because 'confirmation bias.'

This question reductive and dumb.

Not only did I not say this but you quoted specific reasons I have to why I reject sites like daily stormer, the intercept, reddit, 4chan, and etc.

 

[randome]

I'm sorry but can someone explain canoeing to me? It doesn't make any sense. They're shooting targets in the forehead and that makes a V (??) and what's that have to do with a canoe.

 

[LiquidSword]

I'm sorry but can someone explain canoeing to me? It doesn't make any sense. They're shooting targets in the forehead and that makes a V (??) and what's that have to do with a canoe.

"Canoeing" is easier to say than "Mutilating a corpse so their brains are spilled out into the ground."

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

I'm sorry but can someone explain canoeing to me? It doesn't make any sense. They're shooting targets in the forehead and that makes a V (??) and what's that have to do with a canoe.

One way to make canoes is to bore out the center of logs.

 

[Raven117]

I am for holding our armed forces accountable. However, I am also not going to pretend that this is a simple question and inquiry from the comfort of my computer chair.

There is a degree of deference I'm willing to give (barring significant facts the other direction), to account for the fact that we have trained these operators to do dark things to bad people in the name of our security.

While by no means am I saying that I support war crimes, I'm merely stating that this is a very difficult and complex issue.

 

[Luschient]

Hard men doing bad things so you can wake up and play on your iPhone.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

 

[geestack]

I'm sorry but can someone explain canoeing to me? It doesn't make any sense. They're shooting targets in the forehead and that makes a V (??) and what's that have to do with a canoe.

from the author of the article's twitter:

 

[SiteSeer]

I'm sorry but can someone explain canoeing to me? It doesn't make any sense. They're shooting targets in the forehead and that makes a V (??) and what's that have to do with a canoe.

sounds like native american scalping, but with a bullet.

 

[Angel_DvA]

that's disgusting but not surprising.

 

[Timedog]

If true, this guy is really a dumb asshole.

So he was a Navy Seal?

 

[geestack]

sounds like native american scalping, but with a bullet.

the native american imagery is not a coincidence:

Since the 1980s, when Red Team was first created, there were many operators in the unit who had experienced a ”metamorphosis of identity and persona" into Native American warriors. ”Guys are going out every night killing everything. The hatchet was too intimate, too closely aligned with a tomahawk, to have been a good idea." The former SEAL, who himself had served in Red during his career, said that by giving operators the weapon of their battlefield persona, Howard sent an unmistakable message to his men: Use it. ”That's when you take away a hatchet," the retired SEAL said. ”Not provide them."

 

[Nodnol]

I wonder if this kind of subculture exists in other elite units around the world?

You very rarely hear about their operations, unless it goes wrong, or in this case, a very high profile mission. Take the SAS....Joe Bloggs didn't really know who they were until the Iranian Embassy siege.

It's quite grotesque really, to have such a flippant disregard to someone's corpses, irrespective of the training and circumstances involved.

 

[NandoGip]

Suppert da troops, Thank you for your service, "MERICA

 

[jakonovski]

I suspect that elite troops that see lots of a action generally aren't quite right the head. War is not something that leaves even the hardiest person completely sane, and these are people who actively seek the experience.

 

[ant_]

I wonder if this kind of subculture exists in other elite units around the world?

You very rarely hear about their operations, unless it goes wrong, or in this case, a very high profile mission. Take the SAS....Joe Bloggs didn't really know who they were until the Iranian Embassy siege.

It's quite grotesque really, to have such a flippant disregard to someone's corpses, irrespective of the training and circumstances involved.

Of course they do. They're trained killers. They aren't superhuman individuals, they are prone to the same mental deficiencies as you and I.

I think the OP and article make it seem like this brutality was common in the SEALs, which I doubt. Even the source of the article says so -

Most SEALs did not commit atrocities, the sources said, but the problem was persistent and recurrent, like a stubborn virus.

 

[geestack]

I am for holding our armed forces accountable. However, I am also not going to pretend that this is a simple question and inquiry from the comfort of my computer chair.

There is a degree of deference I'm willing to give (barring significant facts the other direction), to account for the fact that we have trained these operators to do dark things to bad people in the name of our security.

While by no means am I saying that I support war crimes, I'm merely stating that this is a very difficult and complex issue.

my problem with the belief system of "we need bad men to do bad things to other bad men" is that now, the culture is such that bad is normal. from the article:

“Several of us confronted the officers,” said one former noncommissioned officer who tried to stop the criminal behavior. “We knew what needed to be done to police the kids.” The former senior enlisted leader said he pressed several commanding officers to address what he believed were war crimes. “We failed to fix the problem,” he said. “It wasn’t complex, and had it been several one-off events, a guy chopping a head off — it wouldn’t be such a failure. But this started in 2002 and continued through the wars. Our leadership punted and I’m not sure it will ever be corrected.”

The failure of SEAL Team 6 to hold itself accountable for battlefield atrocities has resulted in lasting consequences for operators at the command. “No one prepared our guys for the collateral damage and the second- and third-order effects of this war,” the former SEAL leader said. “Night after night of kill or be killed. [There was] so much savagery. I’m not condoning the behavior — there’s no justification to hacking a body — but we didn’t prepare them either. If I told you I cut off a head after an operation, explaining that I got caught up in the moment, went over the line one time — you’d have sympathy for me. War is awful and it’s human to go too far, but this isn’t one time. This is multiple times on each deployment.”

you have a former SEAL leader saying that this should have and could have been corrected, but now the thinking has infected the unit.

 

[JohnsonUT]

i think glenn greenwald is a belligerent ninny, but this is some very good reporting done by matthew cole.

What is the purpose of this drive-by?

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Of course they do. They're trained killers. They aren't superhuman individuals, they are prone to the same mental deficiencies as you and I.

I think the OP and article make it seem like this brutality was common in the SEALs, which I doubt. Even the source of the article says so -

Not to be a defeatist, but given the grueling and harsh things these people are asked to do, it does seem like some people going off is going to be inevitable. Maybe that's not true, but I'm not sure what you do as preventative measures and how you even really go about dealing with accountability issues. Especially when it's become so persistent. I guess you could do a full tear down of some of these units, but I don't know how helpful that would ultimately be.

 

[archangelmorph]

Something tells me that elite military units have probably been like this since the beginning of civilization. It's kind of hard to question an organization that specializes in lethality on your behalf. I think it's possible to respect but not worship these people. It kind of reminds me of the conversation between the Wayne Enterprises accountant and Lucious Fox in the Dark Knight movie.

So it's ok when white men act like savages and engage in heinous barbarism, so long as it's for "your protection"...?

But when middle-eastern religious militants do this stuff, they're all neanderthals, medieval primitives and animals?

Gotcha...

 

[Vixdean]

If the worst thing these dudes do is mutilate dead bodies of armed militants killed in actual combat then that makes them basically the most ethical fighting force in human history. Wouldn't even make the appendices of a book about war crimes.

 

[ant_]

So it's ok when white men act like savages and engage in heinous barbarism, so long as it's for "your protection"...?

But when middle-eastern religious militants do this stuff, they're all neanderthals, medieval primitives and animals?

Gotcha...

This post turned my brain to mush. You honestly can't see a difference between these two?

 

[Phased]

Not really that surprising. I hope people don't think this is exclusively an American military problem though. These guys do nothing but live in combat zones and train 24/7. War changes people for the worse and I don't think there's been a war yet by any country in the history of the world where women and children aren't killed at some point.

I'm not excusing it and I'm glad these things get reported. It's important that there is accountability. With that said it shouldn't shock anybody that some of the people we send to kill monsters are probably monsters themselves.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

So it's ok when white men act like savages and engage in heinous barbarism, so long as it's for "your protection"...?

But when middle-eastern religious militants do this stuff, they're all neanderthals, medieval primitives and animals?

Gotcha...

I think there's at least a pretty obvious theoretical difference between elite military units who are supposed to be taking out high-value, high-risk military targets and Islamic extremists blowing up a church or hijacking public transportation methods and taking out civilians to spread terror.

 

[jakonovski]

This post turned my brain to mush. You honestly can't see a difference between these two?

The western sort is far more lethal?