The command confirmed that Slabinski had in fact covered up the attempted beheading. Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron Howard was convicted of indecent conduct on . One is current Rear Admiral Hugh Wyman Howard, who is a one-star admiral at JSOC. Its a reprimand. (Remember SEAL TEAM VI, CHINOOK 17, they were cremated without their Family's consent). How to change oil on inboard boat motor? And so, in 2010, Britt Slabinski was told that he could never come back to SEAL Team 6. He was on the ground bleeding out from histhe shot to his chest. 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. Around the world, around the clock is their motto. 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. But I think one of the things I say in the article is, is that this was very dramatic in the world of SEAL Team 6, but even within their own mores, two of the three later returned to the unit. But what they didnt do was turn him in. And that wasto me, that was so telling. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. That legacy involves Szymanski as well. /u/nowyourdoingit care to weigh in on this? Ultimately, however, the military concluded all the men killed during that operation were armed. He requests that he be promoted and come in as his senior enlisted leader at his command. The real question became: Why had he done it? Normally, the presentation of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism. AMY GOODMAN: Matthew, talk about how Linda Norgrove fits into this picture and who she was. The author addresses some of the basic violent realities of warfare, even the parts that are straight-forward combat versus an armed enemy, with an asinine amount of pearl-clutching. 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. AMY GOODMAN: But he is awarded a Navy Cross. 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. And after he shifted positions inside SEAL Team 6, the people who followed him discovered his paperwork and realized he had beenhe had a long pattern of it. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. It was really good therapy for everybody that was there. AMY GOODMAN: So explain how, as you put it, Osama bin Laden was canoed. And here was someone who made some serious mistakes and. And they knew he was troubled. And then he wouldhe would tell some of his men and others that he wanted them to go out and bloody their hatchet. And SEAL Team 6 told the CIA, If this guy goes public, we will end his career. 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Szymanski and his superior officers effectively limited Slabinskis options, forcing him to land on what they later discovered was a well-established enemy position, rather than allowing the team to land lower on the mountain and clandestinely patrol the top. Talk about the story of this man, who was a Navy Cross winner, telling his men he wanted a head on a platter. The awards have exposed a rift in the special operations community, a long-running argument pitting the Air Force against the Navy SEALs. 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. He also implied that it was his leadership and discipline that prevented the near-beheading in 2007. I always thought war was the crime. 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. Yes, we they committed war crimes. In 2007, Slabinski was sent back to Afghanistan as a squadron master chief, which made him the senior noncommissioned officer of Blue Squadron. 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. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. In the memo, the commander claimed the article was full of grievous, accusatory claims and allegations that had been previously investigated and determined to be not substantiated., The article alleges involvement of ST-6 personnel in law of armed conflict violations, including accusations of cover up by senior officials, the memo continued. Matthew Cole[emailprotected]theintercept.com@matthewacole. According to a CIA officer with direct knowledge of the incident, the CIA requested that the SEALs capture, rather than kill, their militant targets. Although Chapmans medal had been approved, it has not yet been formally announced. I know the call I'm making every time, if it just so happens to split his head in half then oh well. 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 the senior who saw it decided after he lefthe was disgusted with what he saw, and decided he was never going tohe has not gone back to the command for a reunion since, because of how upset he was with the lack of morality and the sort of, you know, bloodlust and glee, you know, the gleefulness around essentially what is their professional work. He was spending government time and resources for his own personal efforts on a home, essentially. We feared it, but we couldnt prove anything.. Part of Seal Team 6thrown under the bus by the Obama administration along with the rest of the Seal Team members when the administration decided to "spike the ball" after Bin Laden. And one of their teammates said to me that quote that you just read, which is, there was a cleverness to what ONeill and Bissonnette did to make it so that its justyou know, theyre not going to have people contradicting them in public. According to a former SEAL Team 6 leader and a SEAL Team 6 consultant, the unit caught a senior officer at the command committing travel fraud. 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. So, the two SEALs who have come out from that raid and given first-hand accounts, one in the form of a book, the other in a magazine article and then in a Fox News special identifying himself as the shooter, were involved in an argument prior to the raid, before they had even gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan, over how they were going to work together to sell the story afterwards, and then had to be separated by their teammates, because they wereit wasnt a physical fight. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. And that was a bona fides that SEAL Team 6 needed to feel comfortable with sending their men out to find her at this location. And the inquiry finds that, you know, hewas no question that this was a result of Slabinskis leadership. I mean, in a world where silence is part of theis supposed to be part of the norm. The commander of SEAL Team 6 has circulated a memo, obtained by The Intercept, to members of the command in response to The Intercepts two-year investigation into the units war crimes and subsequent cover-ups. No one was upset that he ordered a beheading or all the men shot even if they were unarmed. AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Cole, as you talk about, really, in some of these cases, for the first time, what this unit has done, TeamSEAL Team 6, and you talk about canoeing, in general, there are those who wanted to expose this, like a CIA paramilitary officers attempt to blow the whistle on this. 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. Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments and BridgeLight Capital are not affiliated companies. And one of my sources, who was a former senior member of the command, said to me somethingIm paraphrasing roughly, but he said, You know, to this day, Slabinski thinks that the guys turned on him. He was unarmed. So, thats thethat really gets at the heart of what is at this story, which is that they knew what was going on. Slabinskis military career did not end on March 4, 2002. As a result of these inquiries, a group of 10 SEAL Team 6 leaders later voted unanimously to ban Slabinski from ever serving at the command again. As Historic Storms & Flooding Kill 19 in California, Why Is Media Ignoring Role of Climate Change. They didn't pick the targets or the place they were sent to, they are just willing to do the job others won't. We cant have you here., As I reported in 2017, one of Slabinskis former superiors said: To this day, he thinks the guys turned on him. Talk about what he did as a Navy SEAL and why, ultimately, he was forced out. Age Press J to jump to the feed. From practically the moment Slabinski and his team returned to Bagram Air Base, others in the special operations community questioned whether he had erred in his assessment that Chapman was dead and retreated with a member of his team still alive. And he says to histo the debrief and to the team later, he wasnt a threat, so he then wraps his arms around two of the women who are in the room, who are becoming hysterical. Describe where that his and what happened. He was standing with two female relatives to the sideon each side of him. Syzmanski and Slabinski did not respond to requests for comment. I think I doI do knowand it wasnt in this piece, but there is more toyou know, he had some subsequent positions in the Navy SEALs that werehad somethere were some ethical flags raised in those positions, as well, towards the end of his career. And he fires two shots into bin Laden. READ ABOUT IT AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. The cover-up wins. navy seal team delta force fight war on terror 613 Seal Team 6 Premium High Res Photos Browse 613 seal team 6 stock photos and images available, or search for navy seals or special forces to find more great stock photos and pictures. They do important things. It was good therapy. Access the best of Getty Images and iStock with our simple subscription plan. AMY GOODMAN: And President Obamas knowledge of all of this? Not fired. In 2015, after he retired, Slabinski gave an on-the-record interview to the New York Times in which he denied giving the illegal order to shoot any man. 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. 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. What everyone learns from this is that cover-ups work dont say anything bad about your teammates, keep quiet and well get through it. Guy D. McCardle Numerous hours of research in prep of a story I'm writing about Team members. Didn't see question above. Interesting. He was not officially forced to leave the Navy. And what we know is that despite the fact that. They refused. And they did. The elite units are simply hit men for the Corporate shadow government, puppets and slaves just like the Puppet Slaves governing Iraq and Afghanistan, installed as presidents not by the people of those nations, but by Pentagon-backed coups. We do not need investigations and outsiders meddling in our activities. AMY GOODMAN: So, that is, at the time, SEAL Team 6 member Britt Slabinskiactually, not at the time, because this is recounted afterwards. He had made a poor decision. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. 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. credit union 1 arena seating view; mickey blue eyes restaurant name. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. Whatever operators do is more than acceptable when dealing with the radicalized human pollution team 6 deals with. Devils Guard is an obscure war novel that glamorizes Nazi attrocities including fictional methods of inflicting state terror. Presentations of the Medal of Honor are almost always fraught with questions about whether the awards are handed out to make those involved in operations feel better about a loss of life. And what he realized, and I subsequently was able to confirm, was that this collection was not the private collection of some member of SEAL Team 6. A member of the Navy's SEAL Team 6 has been found guilty of catfishing three women and soliciting nude photos of them. All these authorities have refused to conduct any meaningful or robust oversight of a group of elite commandos who have committed war crimes abroad and gone to great lengths to cover them up. We all have morals, some more than others, and can tell when things have gone too far. With additional teammates severely wounded, and believing Chapman was dead, Slabinski ordered his SEAL team to retreat down the mountain. He was young for SEAL Team 6. Itll hurt the administration. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. I shot him about 20 times in the legs, and every time youd kick him, er, shoot him, he would kick up, you could see his body twitching and all that. 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. Itll hurt the war. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. In fact, he was much further back down the line, comes in later. You areyour time is up, and you are quietly told that you just wont be able to come back here. There were, frankly, a whole host of criminal activity, excessive violence, brutality, unjustified killings, some of which were not criminal in nature or intent, but were certainly problematic and poor judgment. And youre saying to people who made decisions when they were, you know, young officers, who are nowhave stars on their lapels, who are making serious decisions for the United States and making recommendations to the president about what theyre going to do on a mission or in general in a war zone, they are now in positions of great responsibility and authority, and there has been no accounting. NO,NO, and NO!! Run along and keep subscribing to the conspiracy of the month club. AMY GOODMAN: And why wont he contradict them? And that, to me, was one ofI mean, you know, in a large sense, this has been going on since the beginning of time, in terms of warfare. MATTHEW COLE: Right. This occurs all the way up. Just as important as mental toughness and physical fitness are to being a complete operator, spiritual resiliency is an often overlooked aspect of a healthy and effective warrior. He was wearing, effectively, his pajamas. Yesterday,The Intercept published the results of a two-year investigation on alleged war crimes and war profiteering of SEAL Team Six in its rapid expansion of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Muckraking Awards, Books, Films, and Organizations, joint special operations commander general stanley mccrystal, naval criminal investigative service (ncis), naval special warfare development group (seal team 6), the wedding party massacre (in afghanistan on 6 march 2002), Trump administration/Republican House and Senate/Supreme Court. And so, there was ain a very subtle way, he made sure that there were no charges. 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. Related searches: navy seals special forces military soldier war of 11 NEXT By awarding both Chapman and Slabinski the Medal of Honor, the Pentagon presents an impossible version of what happened on Roberts Ridge. The SEAL Team 6 (ST6) or DEVGRU is an elite special operations team in the US Navy under the direct command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). On March 3, 2002, a small SEAL Team 6 reconnaissance team led by Slabinski landed atop Takur Ghar, a 10,000-foot peak above the Shah-i-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. But ityou know, the command had opportunities, specifically with Britt Slabinski. He was not allowed to be back. And so, on December 17th, 2007, they conduct a raid into a compound in Helmand province, killing three or four Taliban fighters. but now we have a little time, so take us through what happened in May of 2011. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? Their justice was to throw him out of the unit. And hethere was pressure applied to him from above to make the charges go away, and he did his duty. The younger ones didnt. Theresyou know, theres very little chance that anyone will look back into and reopen these investigations. And whats funny is, is they give him credit for doing something very heroic, that had they been wearing suicide vests, he put himself on top of them and would have absorbed the blast. And I think the lesson you can learn from that is, is that they go to great lengths to make sure that it goes away. But it gets at the issue of integrity and leadership in SEAL Team 6, the officer corps. MATTHEW COLE: The Times did a very good job of introducing the public to some of the darker side of SEAL Team 6, whichyou know, that article was very well reported. He retired at retirement age. As it attempted to land, the helicopter took fire from Al Qaeda fighters, and SEAL Neil Roberts fell from the back of the helicopter. For almost four years after Roberts Ridge, SEAL Team 6 intentionallylimited Slabinskis battlefield exposure. I shot him about 20 times in the legs. Head on over to the Intercept to read the full report. Old Media Ninnies Alert: German Newscast Displays Star Trek Logo as Seal Team 6 Patch - Publius Forum, WAS THIS MAN MURDERED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION? Of Honor is a one-star Admiral at JSOC a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and.... Relatives to the conspiracy of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism get. Confirmed that Slabinski had in fact covered up the attempted beheading where silence is part of theis to... The radicalized human pollution Team 6 VI, CHINOOK seal team 6 canoeing photos, they were cremated without their Family 's consent.. The sideon each side of him and BridgeLight Capital are not affiliated companies and BridgeLight Capital are affiliated. 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