We continue our conversation with reporter Matthew Cole about his stunning new expos published this week in The Intercept about the elite military unit SEAL Team 6 that reveals a darker side. MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, you know, a lot of silence. Guy D. McCardle Numerous hours of research in prep of a story I'm writing about Team members. Please do your part today. Talk about exactly what you found, the crimes as youve been telling us, and what you think should happen now. Seems like DevGru did take actions to address those somewhat by putting the guys' names on that rock of shame blacklist. A gullible Anti American fool who has ever been anywhere close to a team. I mean, it was a curious thing to do, given thewhat you knew would be conspiracy theories and questions about whether he had even been killed. It is effectivelyits tantamount to ordering murder or an execution, precisely as the SEALs were ordered in the bin Laden raid to do. The former and current SEALs also described other serious misconduct that occurred more recently. We continue our conversation with reporter Matthew Cole about his stunning new expos published this week in The Intercept about the elite military unit SEAL Team 6 that reveals a darker side of the group best known for killing Osama bin Laden. But no one else is told, going forward, in any other assignment that you get, that thats what happened to you. The real significance here is, is a lot of this is history, but when no one gets punished and people get promoted, youre bringing that history forward. According to two senior SEAL Team 6 sources, however, the leadership dynamic in Blue Squadron was a failure. And that V shape is the canoe. The SEAL officer later promoted the analyst to a senior position in SEAL Team 6s intelligence squadron, despite what several SEAL Team 6 leaders said was a lack of qualification. Joining is simple and doesnt need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. Collect, curate and comment on your files. Imperialism on the hoof. According to two former SEAL Team 6 leaders, the practice was often documented in post-operation photos stored at the unit's Virginia Beach headquarters. Meaning hero worship because I was told who were Heroes and who were Villains. I feel terrible for you when you have to answer for what youve done. And thats a key point, because he falls down on the floor, and then the man who says that he ended bin Ladens life, Robert ONeilland no one disputes that he put the bullets into bin Laden and effectively ended his life, but the way ONeill tells the story is that bin Laden was standing, had his wife in front of him, holding his wifes shoulders as a sort of shield, and has a weapon nearby, and so that hes scanning the scene and making the determination thatbased on his training, that this man is a threat, and he can be killed. The command thus demonstrated that it was perfectly capable of determining the truth for internal purposes and once again proved it was unwilling to expose even its pariahs to external scrutiny or justice. His career should have been over, yet he was given a promotion. It hurts you. Richard Diviney, claimed weekend trips to spend time with NFL quarterback Drew Brees, a college classmate, as work and training trips. Whatever operators do is more than acceptable when dealing with the radicalized human pollution team 6 deals with. And here was someone who made some serious mistakes and. 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. See more ideas about seal team 6, navy seals, special forces. Their justice was to throw him out of the unit. 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. I shot him about 20 times in the legs. Say its any difference and Ill keep pointing out that you and your comrades are liars. Audio from an unpublished interview with Britt Slabinksi conducted by Malcolm MacPherson, author of a 2005 book on the battle of Roberts Ridge. The Trump team, the transition team, called me to say thatthey didnt dispute any facts in the story. Meet Navy SEAL 6: The team that killed Osama. One is current Rear Admiral Hugh Wyman Howard, who is a one-star admiral at JSOC. And then they find additionally that there was another operation in which he orderedSlabinski ordered all the men on the operation shot, regardless of whether they were armed. MATTHEW COLE: There are three in particular that my story goes into. AMY GOODMAN: And so, what kind of responseyou wrote this in December, after, of course, Donald Trump chose him to be his nominee for secretary of interior. AMY GOODMAN: So explain how, as you put it, Osama bin Laden was canoed. 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. Weather anomalies, flocks of birds. Would you rather shoot a dead guy in the head (where you know he won't get back up) or maybe let him get back up because he is all hopped up on opium and shoot your buddy. seal team 6 canoeing photos. Interesting. 2023 Getty Images. Some inside SEAL Team 6 were stunned. To be honest with you, I dont think it stopped. We had canoeing, as we described, which is this particular type of firing a bullet into someones head after theyve been killed or are mortally wounded; skinnings, which were done under the excuse of needing DNA and became sort of a cover to pull large sections of skin off of someone with a knife, using these specialized hatchets that were given to some members of theof SEAL Team 6 to hack bodies after they were killed or, again, dying. And my story pieces together what really happened. We have a set of myths. This is the madness of the Medal of Honor, he said. That legacy involves Szymanski as well. And so, he was put forward by a small group of CIA officers at a base in Northeast Afghanistan to complain and to blow the whistle, effectively, on SEAL Team 6. And thats one of the thingsyou know, their training istheir brilliance is at the tactical level. After The New York Times article was published, Britt Slabinskis name was added to that list. 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I think we need to have more stories about SEAL Team 6 that are not putting them on a pedestal. r/todayilearned 23 hr. And part of that was getting rid of Britt Slabinski.. And it makes a big difference in terms of understanding what really happened. Even worse, hed done so while speaking to the press. Senior officers of SEAL Team 6 bear the ultimate responsibility, both for tactical failures, such as the decisions that placed Slabinskis team at the top of Takur Ghar, and for leadership failures, for turning a blind eye to a broad pattern of war crimes and other military misconduct. But there wasthis was not an isolated incident, is the sense that I have from talking to folks who were in the Navy with him. There was a natural change both with him and with the SEAL unit that was in at the time. Coups that involve a lot of murders, robbery, and nothing at all about making Americans free. The first investigation resulted from allegations that a SEAL had attempted to behead a Taliban fighter in southern Afghanistan after Slabinski told his men he wanted a head on a platter. As I reported in 2017, Slabinski told his superiors and later investigators that there had been no beheading, saying there was no foul play. A former investigator with direct knowledge of the case told me that it was clear from the beginning of the beheading investigation that SEAL Team 6 had brought in NCIS to conclude that no war crime had occurred. Actually, a lot of people from Montana responded to our story, on both sides, saying that he was honorable, other side saying that, you know, he was terrible. AMY GOODMAN: Lets go back to that clip, which we played in Part 1 of the conversation. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. Matthew Cole[emailprotected]theintercept.com@matthewacole. 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. E: info@bridgelight.com. That all being said, allegedly ordering a team to kill all men (armed or otherwise) encountered on a mission, allegedly lying about the OBL raid for personal gain, those are just objectively bad internal dynamics that one would think need to be addressed by DevGru's leadership in order to keep the unit as effective as possible. And SEAL Team 6 told the CIA, If this guy goes public, we will end his career. They kept it in the unit. He certainly was fully aware of what occurred in that room, and walked away from it. Now go do your nightly Sieg Heils to a painting of Trump. Uncompromising integrity is my standard. Whatever thise parasites get pails in comparison to the atrocities they commit while alive. When asked why he would bring in Slabinski after he was thrown out of SEAL Team 6 for alleged war crimes, a SEAL Team 6 leader told me that Szymanski told his fellow SEALs that their community could not shun a war hero. NOT BANK GUARANTEED. AMY GOODMAN: And explain further what he did and how many times he did it. READ ABOUT IT AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. And, you know, I feltwe felt we had to put that in there to explain sort of the full narrative of what the values are, sort of how the values are off at SEAL Team 6. Chapman and Slabinski both received service crosses, the militarys second-highest award. The analyst was later dismissed and lost her security clearances after revealing classified information to government employees not authorized to receive it. And as a result, theyve made a lot of money. The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. War is an adrenaline rush. The command had opportunities. 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? The NCIS investigation was part of the cover-up. And they slowly get to the door. The internal SEAL Team 6 letter included a message from Gen. Scotty Miller, the commanding officer of the Joint Special Operations Command, to which SEAL Team 6 is assigned. Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski led the push for Britt Slabinskis Medal of Honor and promoted him afterhe wasbarred fromSEAL Team 6 for suspected war crimes. By awarding Slabinski the Medal of Honor, the military essentially ignores the Chapman narrative and supports the notion that Slabinskis actions that day were heroic. He had made a poor decision. Shortly after the beheading incident, Slabinskis team was accused of killing unarmed men in an operation. (Remember SEAL TEAM VI, CHINOOK 17, they were cremated without their Family's consent). And the initial story that the SEALs presented to their superiors and to the British government was that she had been killed by one of her captors, who had detonated a suicide vest that he was wearing, and it blew up, and she was nearby, and it killed her. Normally, the presentation of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism. Log in. These three act as the feet of a stool, and when one is missing, it cannot stand when it is shaken. Leaked Seal Team 6 Helmet Cam Footage Cia Operative . And after some internal inquiries at the command, what became clear was that he believed that he was following an order. What I don't understand is if O'neill and Bissonette had an actual shouting match about who would profit on the raid and people had to get involved, why would they let them continue on with the raid? And so, it required one of the SEALs who was there, who was doingwho spoke Arabic, to go around and get confirmation, double confirmation, that this was Osama bin Laden. They didnt put his name on after they blacklisted him for suspicion of war crimes. Ultimately, however, the military concluded all the men killed during that operation were armed. The purpose of the TAT was to develop a plan to free the American hostages held in Iran. So, you are putting this out at the end of the Obama administration. AMY GOODMAN: What did Matt Bissonnette say? And he stepped in and conducted a mast and punished, threw out, three members of SEAL Team 6. MATTHEW COLE: Yeah, we had calledwe had sought comment before the story ran. For 15 years, as SEAL Team 6 senior officers and leaders received reports that their operators were skinning, scalping, canoeing, and otherwise mutilating enemy corpses with custom-made hatchets in Afghanistan and Iraq, they either ignored the warnings or helped cover them up. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Other SEALS were reportedly reprimanded and had their careers ended when they revealed sensitive information while doing promotional work for Medal of Honor: Warfighter. And the inquiry finds that, you know, hewas no question that this was a result of Slabinskis leadership. So, if there was something that we hoped could happen out of this, it would be that some of these peoples careers would effectively end. 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