MATTHEW COLE: He was effectively forced to leave SEAL Team 6. For the wannabes, there will be guys in your class that make it through and you will wonder how and why, but somehow they are there. Author: Eric Sof. MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, you know, a lot of silence. See more ideas about seal team 6, navy seals, special forces. We knew wed been called in to give them the result they wanted that everyone was clean, the former Navy officer said. A previous version of this article stated that John Chapmans Medal of Honor was announced by the White House on May 7 along with Britt Slabinskis. Navy Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Jesse D. Pittman Died August 6, 2011 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 27, of Willits, Calif.; assigned to a West Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit; died Aug. 6 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter in which he was riding was shot down. Furthermore, the op tempo at the time was ridiculous and some DG dudes have killed more people than the electric chair. After three or four deployments in, you need more to get that stimulation. It's a war crime to use certain kinds of bullets, but if you're going to drill a man's brains out onto the ground, who gives a fuck if it's an FMJ round doing it. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. The command had opportunities. And so they brought it to the commands attention. The guys they are killing are also the same ones who have killed their friends, their brothers, or who could kill them one day. Slabinski later told author Malcolm MacPherson, in a taped interview obtained by The Intercept, that a few days after the battle, his team ambushed and killed nearly two dozen Al Qaeda fighters headed toward the Pakistan border. Theres always some kind of solace sought in decorating someone with the award, said one of Slabinskis former leaders at SEAL Team 6, who spent more than 30 years in Special Operations. We were told multiple times, in the range of four or five times. After I shot this dude in the head, there was a guy who had his feet, just his feet, sticking out of some little rut or something over here. The Elite of the Elite: Understanding the Distinctions Between SEAL Team 6 and Other SEAL Teams. And so, after their accounts came out, in addition to the Obama administrations account, everything sort of got muddled in terms of what happened. I mean, he was dead, but people have got nerves. The blood thirsty guys exist in every unit in the military. Sometimes these emotions are hard to contain. And Captain Pete Vasely, Peter Vasely, who iswho may in fact behave already made promotion to admiral, who isalso has a senior position inside JSOC. And so, its swept under the rug. Well, they did. sobtactical@xcbassx exactly, mighty43@sobtactical did other sof units in country know what devgru was doing? And they were inquiries because theres no paper record of this. Despite explicit orders there not to shoot Bin Laden in the face, in order to aid identification of the body, The Intercept reports that Bin Ladens body was canoed as well, and his face was obliterated.. Its called the Presidents Own, the group best known for killing Osama bin Laden, as well as other high-profile rescue missions, including that of Captain Richard Phillips from the Maersk Alabama. Required fields are marked *, January 13, 2017 9 comments. Its minutiae. According to two former SEAL Team 6 leaders, the practice was often documented in post-operation photos stored at the units Virginia Beach headquarters. They do the needed dirty work to protect the rights of much lesser men that write articles to virtue signal. This account of the crimes of SEAL Team 6 results from a two-year investigation drawing on interviews with 18 current and former members of the unit, including four former senior leaders of the command. And one of the things that was so interesting was that SEAL Team 6 has essentially awhat we call a rock of shame. One, the last episode of last season, was about China putting in defensive bases on islands in the South China Sea. MATTHEW COLE: Howard wasHoward is a very interesting individual. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? They do important things. Dam Neck should have rules, and those guys should be violating those rules sometimes, when it's called for, because the moral thing and the right thing and the legal thing are not always the same thing. He was just trying to take gear off of the mans body, and nothingnothing was untoward. But the officer doesnt believe it. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. The younger ones didnt. Imperialism on the hoof. Other military and intelligence officials who have served with or investigated the unit were also interviewed. Meaning hero worship because I was told who were Heroes and who were Villains. Shit gets messy, and it tends to stick with guys. After Slabinskis admission, the most senior enlisted member of SEAL Team 6 told him, Thats not what were about. I will say, generally speaking, I've had more nights than I'd like where I had to sit, silently nodding and consoling a guy who had too much to drink and wanted to get some shit off his chest; lighting up a kid in a car, turning a mini-gun on civilians, taking a shot on someone running away. Normally, the presentation of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism. In fact, he had severed a good portion of this mans head off before he was stopped by Slabinski. Im not vilifying them in any way. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tumblr Pinterest Reddit VKontakte Share via Email Print. We do not need investigations and outsiders meddling in our activities. And what I know, and is not in the story, but what I know is that his face was so disfigured, when they brought his body back to Jalalabad and they took him out of the body bag, they had him nude with only his genitals and his face covered, becausegenitals, out of respect, and face, because it was so disfigured, they put a small towel or tissue over his face. This is a rush transcript. The purpose of the TAT was to develop a plan to free the American hostages held in Iran. And heduring the war in Bosnia, in which SEAL Team 6 was assigned, he frequently came home to the United States after a deployment and, instead of coming back to Virginia Beach, would fly to Montana, where hes from, Whitefish, and work on a house that he had there, that he was hoping to live in when he retired. In reality, its bullshit. And that became a big deal, because thats something youeven within their code, thats something you dont do. In 2007, Slabinski was sent back to Afghanistan as a squadron master chief, which made him the senior noncommissioned officer of Blue Squadron. credit union 1 arena seating view; mickey blue eyes restaurant name. MATTHEW COLE: So, essentially, ONeill, who is the second to fire shots in bin Laden, puts two rounds in his face or his forehead. AMY GOODMAN: And, Matthew Cole, the difference between your piece for The Intercept, your piece called The Crimes of SEAL Team 6, and The New York Times in the summer of 2015, SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines? We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. He was not officially forced to leave the Navy. /u/nowyourdoingit care to weigh in on this? And heby all accounts, what he did on the battleon the top of Takur Ghar during Roberts Ridge to try to retrieve his teammate was heroic. They were mad because he spoke to the New York Times and lied., One of the regulations governing military awards, including the Medal of Honor, states that no medal, cross, or bar, or associated emblem or insignia may be awarded or presented to any person or to his representative if his service after he distinguished himself has not been honorable.. The memo obtained by The Intercept advised military personnel to avoid commenting on or acknowledging The Crimes of SEAL Team 6, even among yourselves or with others via personal electronic devices, in order to maintain the highest OPSEC posture and limit the spread of the article.. I'm a complete military outsider so my opinion is irrelevant, but from reading the entire article I was reminded of the Stanford Prison Experiment; which basically found that good people will do really bad things if they are given unchecked authority within a group and placed in a stressful situation. This will be the one and only warning. By 2007, the commands leadership was aware that some Blue Squadron operators were using specialized knives to conduct skinnings. Using the excuse of collecting DNA, which required a small piece of skin containing hair follicles, operators were taking large strips of skin from dead enemy fighters. And SEAL Team 6 said very quickly he needed to be quiet. And so, on December 17th, 2007, they conduct a raid into a compound in Helmand province, killing three or four Taliban fighters. And in the case of both ONeill and Bissonnette, and in SEAL Team 6 at large, thats what we have here. It was just too gruesome to show. Top photo: A view of SEALTeam 6 headquarters at Dam Neck Naval Annex, Virginia Beach, Va. Matthew Cole[emailprotected]theintercept.com@matthewacole. AMY GOODMAN: And what is your sense of why the Obama administration wanted him dead, not alive? And every time youd kick him or shoot him, he would kick up, and you could see his body twitch and all that. to your inbox each morning. These are people who haveand, by the way, we spent months, in some cases years, trying to get these people to answer questions, to talk to us. They are on the ground making the tough decisions because the others didn't sign up to do it or rang the bell when things got tough, so you have to trust them to make the right call. Didn't see question above. No it's because they were doing their job and trying to protect the boys to get back home. Slabinskis military career did not end on March 4, 2002. And after some internal inquiries at the command, what became clear was that he believed that he was following an order. My sources, who were both contemporaries of his at the time at SEAL Team 6, as well as senior to him, said that that was not an honest portrayal, that he in fact did it several more times than that and for higher amounts, and that there was nothing close to a justifiable reason for his travel. And so, theres an enormous amount of animosity inside the unit at these two guys. He sticks by it and is still in. John Chapman, who died at the battle of Roberts Ridge, March 3, 2002, in Afghanistan. And hes their congressman, so its a political issue. Democracy Now! It looks like a blatant conflict of interest to me. And those guidelines were, in a lot of ways, done to protect SEALs. What good is our version of civilization if we behave like barbarians when the rubber meets the road. And he stepped in and conducted a mast and punished, threw out, three members of SEAL Team 6. Zinkes team never responded. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. And SEAL Team 6 said, How do you know where she is with such precision, in a place where weve been operating for years, and you just dont get that kind of fidelity in such short time? And the British government disclosed, according to my sources, to four sources, that she was working for MI6 and had been essentially working undercover for British intelligence, and so they had asome form of tracking on her and knew her exact location. And, you know, theyits a party. But what theyve left out is that the only reason why he made that decision to do that was because he had already determined that bin Laden was either dead or was going to die in a matter of moments. Itll hurt the administration. The awards have exposed a rift in the special operations community, a long-running argument pitting the Air Force against the Navy SEALs. They understood that he had deep psychological scars from what happened on Roberts Ridge. And thats one of the thingsyou know, their training istheir brilliance is at the tactical level. Mutilating the dead is considered a war crime, and in at least one reported instance the desire to mutilate the dead ran overrode explicit orders: Late that year, the CIA joined operators from Gold Squadron for an operation near Jalalabad. One of my commanders told me point-blank: The bigger the fuck-up, the bigger the award., The retired SEAL leader, who studied the battle at Roberts Ridge extensively for the military and discussed the events with Slabinski, said the issue was not whether Chapman or Slabinski were deserving of a medal upgrade, but why the military was motivated to extend that honor so many years later. A gullible Anti American fool who has ever been anywhere close to a team. So, the British government requested that SEAL Team 6 go save her. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. Another is rear admiral, two-star, Tim Szymanski, who is the commander of WARCOM, which is the overall SEAL command out in California, is effectively the highest-ranking SEAL or thein charge of all Navy SEALs in the Navy. AMY GOODMAN: But he is awarded a Navy Cross. success and motivation icons - classic line series - seal team stock illustrations. And I want to start where we left off on Democracy Now!, talking about the killing of Osama bin Laden. The canoeing photos are dramatic documentary evidence of the extreme and unnecessary violence that began to occur during multiple high-risk, exhausting, and traumatizing tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we all see what we want to see. Slabinski and the Blue Squadron SEALs deployed to Afghanistan were frustrated, and that book gave them the answers they wanted to see: Terrorize the Taliban and theyd surrender. What Car Should You Buy: Fun, Funky i3 Replacement, The 2024 F-Type 75 Will House Jaguars Final V8. Like, hey look at this dude, and the guy would just twitch again. And he was warned verbally not to do it, and then he got caught doing it again. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. There were multiple reported instances of what the SEALs called canoeing, in which dead enemy combatants had their skulls split open by a rifle or pistol round at the upper forehead, exposing their brain matter.. Another insight revealed by the Intercept: The British aid captive Linda Norgrove, who was killed during a botched rescue attempt, wasnt killed by her captors, but by a grenade thrown at her by a Seal Team operators, perhaps because the goal of reaching Norgrove was not rescue but exposure control. And what it did was it raised a lot of questions, I think. My feelings are best summed up with this quote from the article: Its important that you put this stuff in context, the CIA officer said. In each of Slabinskis 2007 investigations, both NCIS and JSOC found no evidence of violations of the laws of armed conflict, as they describe war crimes. The book purported to be a true account of an S.S. officer who with dozens of other soldiers escaped Germany after World War II, joined the French Foreign Legion, and spent years in Vietnam brutalizing the insurgency. I think so. The 41-page online article goes into great detail on various operations naming specific people and operations dating back to 2002 up to 2011., While this article appears damning on many members of our team and most likely evokes strong emotions, the commander wrote, we must be mindful about what a journalist can do who latches on to unfounded claims and is willing to print based on limited evidence.. No one was upset that he ordered a beheading or all the men shot even if they were unarmed. Slabinkski and others in the squadron had fallen under the influence of an obscure war novel, Devils Guard, published in 1971 by George Robert Elford. And that was the only case and it was the only time there was someone who had whistleblown on SEAL Team 6, where there was some threat, and they were worried about being exposed for what they were doing on the battlefield. Sub humans that take young girls and women as sex slaves and torture and murder without a single thought. but now we have a little time, so take us through what happened in May of 2011. The teams just get a better opportunity at it or more chances. And I was talking to my source, who had told me about it, and he washe was disgusted, but he saidand I think we quoted him in the storyhe said, Thats the problem with SEAL Team 6. They responded after the story published. Good, I hope this country gets destroyed. And they knew he was troubled. He died in the dark in his pajamas, listening to the sounds of people moving through the house. Leaked Seal Team 6 Helmet Cam Footage Cia Operative . A Team 6 member at the time, Britt Slabinksi, describing the aftermath of an operation to take down a convoy that they believed was filled with al-Qaeda fighters trying to escape to AfghanistanSlabinski and a team of snipers, who killed nearly 20 al-Qaeda fighters. The trauma from Roberts Ridge was clear and Slabinski has saidthat he still sees fighters moving in slow motion from that day. Title 50 authority is the so-called license which US Special Ops have to partner with allied commandos to form death squads. Only the discussion of facts. What kind of response did you get to your piece? The truth is that such stuff only galvanizes the enemy.. Beyond body mutilation, the report also details disturbing accounts of war profiteering and theft, including on high-profile missions. East Coast Team on range training. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. And what happened shortly after that is, Admiral Bill McRaven, who was then the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, had come in, and the complaints from the Afghan government about night raids and civilians, unarmed civilians, being killed had grownthe complaints about them had grown loud inside Afghanistan. One of their teammates killed the other two targets in another. Like [inaudible]. In addition, SEAL Team 6 operators were canoeing dead or dying enemy targets firing bullets at close range to the top of the skull, splitting it open at the forehead and exposing the brain matter. Related Articles. 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Share via Email Print you rely on it, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden our...!, talking about the killing of Osama bin Laden sof units in country know what devgru was?... And they were doing their job and trying to take gear off of the things that so! Shit gets messy, and in SEAL Team 6, Navy SEALs or investigated the unit at two. Distinctions Between SEAL Team 6 we behave like barbarians when the rubber meets the.! What is your sense of why the Obama administration wanted him dead, not alive we have a little,! Kind of response did you get to your piece and thats one of the TAT was to develop plan! Cia Operative to two former SEAL Team 6 told him, thats something youeven within their code, thats we. Humans that take young girls and women as sex slaves and torture and murder without a single thought 75... Journalism you rely on quickly he needed to be quiet punished, threw out three. And thats one of the thingsyou know, their training istheir brilliance is at tactical! 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