How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart: The 2019 operation, greenlit by President Trump, sought a strategic edge. It left unarmed North Koreans dead.
nytimes.com
Archived at https://archive.is/70z3s
I feel like many of the commenters below are missing the point, or didn't even read the article. It's not about incompetence by the SEALs (they weren't), it's Trump's incompetence. He basically ignored the restrictions his predecessors had put in place because they knew that using special operations for extremely high-risk operations (because they're likely to fail or be disastrous in the first place) was not something to be done lightly, but Trump, being Trump, just approved crazy operations without any clear thought.
And then failed to report it to Congress. That's the big story here. Biden was the one that briefed Congress on the matter.
SEALs are not trump own special forces, they work for the US government
I know. But unfortunately, the president is also the commander in chief of the executive branch, so he has the power to approve their operations.
From what I understand, the military will suggest potential courses of action, but not all of them are good, which is where the president is supposed to use his wise judgment, if only he had it.
A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.
"Best military in the world"
They've been taught to shoot first check later for many decades. They know that anyone they kill will be marked as a combatant later - we're only hearing about this story at all because some Navy / intelligence staff involved want people to hear the story so they don't, "underestimate the extreme risks that American forces undertake."
Now to me - a humble nobody - it sure seems that while the Seals did take risks of course (lives on the line) - they signed up and worked hard at the chance to take those risks. The far wider and more serious risk was igniting nuclear war or similar huge conflict with South Korea though no fault of the South Koreans. Fuck the "we need people to hear this so they know we're risking our lives" shit. People need to hear this because it's illegal and dangerous and shouldn't happen at all.
It's like this for ages and has increased a lot since 9/11.
After a failed operation (afaik intelligence wise) German KSK specops and US SpecOps(Seals if I remember correctly) almost got into a fist fight.
The reason? The Germans were spotted by a shepherd who was unrelated to the Taliban but could in theory reveal the operation. The Germans were unable to capture him in time due to terrain so they retreated.
The US SpecOps were extremely angry and a brawl almost broke out as they basically told the German they should have simply killed the unarmed shepherd.
Which would have meant a potential murder trial for any German soldier back home.
Considering the ongoing incompetence of Seal Team 6, I have wondered if they were supposed to bring back Osama Bin Laden alive, but completely botched the operation.
Its just the reality of a modern standing military. The people who are going to sign up are a mixture of:
And "real" special forces (so not Rangers which are mostly just a badge they give anyone dumb enough to volunteer for an infantry combat role) kinda inherently have to be long term contracts/lifers. So not even the "I am gonna shoot a brown kid to get my college paid for" crowd.
One of my guilty pleasures are the Insider "military expert rates BLAH" videos. And most are complete and utter bullshit from what is obviously a larper who had a desk job. But the more legit people consistently say insane shit like "Full Metal Jacket made me want to join the marines" or "The moment I watched that shower scene in The Rock, I knew I had to be a Navy Seal".
Pilots were one of the last holdouts where it genuinely made sense for the best and brightest to do a tour or two to get the hours they need to get licensed. But even that is long gone as people realize the good jobs are still going to go to nepotism and the best they can hope for is to haul cargo to places nobody wants to actually go.
But the military still insists on doing these high risk super low night flights with pilots who are inadequate and maintenance crews who "learn by doing" and so forth. Like, you know that mechanic who forgot to put the cap back on your buddy's oil filter? These are the people who didn't even think they could get a job doing that.
Well yeah, didn't they wreck their helicopter and have to blow it up?
I see no reason not to believe the official story in this case. Bringing him back alive would have served no useful purpose, and would have led to him getting a ton of publicity that would have only inspired his followers. Most Americans were likely happy to see him die the way he did given the 9/11 attacks.
The U.S. government estimates that North Korea now has roughly 50 nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach the West Coast.
If Trump could get an erection, he'd probably jerk it to the idea of North Korea nuking the West Coast. If they hit the West Coast, they could decimate blue strongholds that Trump hates and that hate Trump. Plus, he'd have an excuse to use a nuke on them. He's been dreaming of nuking something since his first term.
The lack of notification may have violated the law.
Why do people keep saying this? Trump never cared about upholding any law, it's all inconsequential to him.
Trump broke the law! Yeah, sure, and? He does that all day every day, that's not news anymore
So we normalise it? Ok, nice. Break enough laws and it becomes meaningless. Noted.
Apparently.
And just before (probably the shit.justworks crowd...) come in to say this was an important thing to do and the reward outweighs the risk and blah blah blah:
What actionable intel would have come out of this? North Korea is already a nuclear power. Any attempt to "remove that capability" is going to trigger China and Russia and World War 3. Seoul is only 15 miles from the DMZ, so about 17 or 18 miles from where North Korea can do whatever the hell they want. Finding out about a dirty bomb or even plans to rush the DMZ and lob a proper nuke isn't going to change anything.
Which is a recurring theme in recorded history when it comes to Intelligence. I forget the phrase experts use, but it is the idea that, consistently, the highest risk and most "daring" efforts tend to provide the least actionable intel. Whereas just slipping someone a couple thousand bucks to tell you what they know is consistently the most effective method.
And just before (probably the shit.justworks crowd...)
Huh? What's your issue with my instance? How is shitjustworks pro-north-korea???
This was a very fucking stupid idea, which is probably why Trump OK'd it.
They are mad that SJW has the meanwhileOnGrad com.
It's the opposite; they're saying SJW users are more likely to blindly take the anti-NK position and support the operation.
I also have no idea what this person is talking about.
Your politics mod is batshit insane "pro military" and I've increasingly noticed political topics on dot world and the like getting shared around your /c/conservative and so forth mostly lining up with swarms of pro military rightwing jackasses.
Very much seeming like it is a right wing dot ml. Not everyone is part of that crowd but... yeah.
Everyone wants to be 007 but the real world is more like a Le Carré novel. The work is tedious and often boring, if you find yourself in a ‘daring’ raid then something has gone real fuckin sideways in your intel gathering network.
Besides, it’s not like the SK frogmen don’t already know every inch of that coastline with their eyes closed but keep their safeties on because of the Chinese response, so yeah why the fuck were our SEALs even there?
Because Trump can't think beyond his next McDonald's. He's incredibly lucky that the US didn't get caught in this.
North Korea doesn't need nukes to level Seoul. They have artillery pointed at the city so in case a war starts they can just start firing. Some analysts think they could fire up to 10000 shells in just a minute. Even if the artillery will eventually get hit by air strikes they could cause a lot of damage.
Exactly. NK has shit guns, but even a shit gun can't fail to hit an entire city. They might lose the war hard, but not before killing a LOT of people.
Yeah... people tend to forget that modern artillery is actually in the 10-20 mile range to begin with. But that is really no different than "begin the invasion". It isn't like South Korea (and North Korea) aren't watching the other side 24/7.
It is just that people usually use nukes as the exigent circumstances in a time like this. And I am going to specifically not speculate as to whether a nuclear bomb could be launched from behind the DMZ.
Imagine if russia or china did the same thing...
They don't need to, trump just tells them directly
Never heard about this, would explain why the Trump - Kim love letters failed and their relationship soured
Rocket man!
Maybe if the seals spent less time trafficking and doing drugs they would fuck up less
The archive version is actually readable since it isn't a 'web experience'
NYT has just been jerking off over the presidency, fuck them, they’re loving this
These were trained monsters, one day they will retire and do something at home.