The History of SEAL Team 6

I think it's worth refining that statement. It's not really the overuse and weariness, it's the lack of boundaries and limitations that causes abuses and maladjusted behaviors. Just like any spoiled brat with too much money and too few boundaries, the military has always acted out. It is why we are constantly at war and there has never really been a time in American history when we have not been in one stage or anther of instigating, agitating, or engaging in war.

What do we do when, e.g., China starts applying our own principles and logic and they start sending in elite troops to assassinate, sabotage, and undermine our society and interests abroad? Anyone ever think past step A? The problem is we get stuck on step A because we think A stands for America.

While I respect the point your trying to make (reduce foreign intervention), in this situation your analogy isn't applicable. What happens with the Special Operations units is that they are given more funding, more independence, high fitness and personnel standards with the ability to release someone for failure to meet standards. This kind of unit attracts high caliber individuals, which the selection process picks and chooses from.

I'm gonna guess the implication is that they're being commodified and there's something more elite in the background. The military will market themselves based on the images drawn by Kathryn Bigelow and others, including the military themselves, while using it to deflect attention away from operators under other guises.

This is just speculation, but to me it seems more like we have grown to expect/demand nothing but the best performance. We don't want any operation to have even the slightest error. How do we do that? Use the crack troops every time.

After all, if ordinary troops are almost certain to get it right... doesn't that mean the crack troops are even more likely to get it right?

> We need to cut back on our engagements overseas, and stop fighting other peoples' wars.

People that think that the US overseas engagements are a charity are funny.

This is almost entirely because of the Iraq war. America had quite a sufficient military, even when Afghanistan started getting bad. But it was Iraq that over-stretched every aspect of the American military apparatus. Which became very obvious by their totally dependency on PMFs like Blackwater and Halliburton to provide security.

The blow-back from Iraq also pushed America to depend on covert wars because Iraq made overt warfare totally unpopular with the public. Now everything is done via special forces during classified operations, as the book "Dirty Wars" covered so well, as not to put politicians in a place where every military operation is potentially political suicide.

I doubt we'll see many large-scale wars in the future. It will almost entirely be drone bombings + intelligence-driven covert special forces raids.

Which is good / bad. Bad because the public will never be fully informed on the number or breadth of intervention the US is engaged in. But good because less soldiers will die via conventional warfare.

While interesting for sure, those are facts included in the article too. Worth reading.

All civilized people that look down on 'warriors' can thank the 'warriors' for the privilege of acting civilized.

Most likely it's just outdated

In my (rural, midwestern) hometown, Google Earth credits the USDA for imagery in most places. Some places may not offer much value for commercial satellite overflights.

> I can't help but come to the conclusion that any 'marginally legal if that' activity that it administered by the government will suffer from a kind of Peter Principle, where it continues being expanded until a major mistake goes public.

No institutional activity, "marginally legal" or otherwise, is at a stable equilibrium. That's why checks and balances should exist within most systems, that's why we have freedom of the press, and that's why whistleblowing is an important (albeit last-resort) activity.

That being said, it's hard to be upset about anything in the article -- it was reasonably balanced. Moreover, you can bet that the fact this is being published will spur some degree of internal review. Seems like the system, as a whole, is working as intended.

From the story sound like some on the naval brass are more concerned about high dust, gear adrift, and fresh paint jobs

Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/04/admiral-cleanliness-check/...

Whilst Marcinko is no doubt a legend, reading Rogue Warrior should be mitigated by following it up by Gormly's "Combat Swimmer". Gormly inherited the unit after Marcinko had some issues with his chain of command (whether justified or not, is up to you to decide - we all know Marcinkos) and has his own (or the Navy's?) opinions about the man. Like Kurosawa (Rashomon), it is often better to know more than one point of view...

A more balanced account of what it is like to run these kind of units can be found in Beckwith's own "Delta Force" (also consider "The Mission, The Men and Me" by Blaber and "Inside Delta Force" by Haney).

The ultimate such unit may have been the Rhodesian Selous Scouts, and whilst Pamwe Chete is out of most people's price range, there are numerous excellent books on the subject. Whether or not you agree with Rhodesian politics, the tiny unit who pulled off Operation Eland and allegedly caused the majority of enemy casualties in the Rhodesian Bush Wars is worth reading about.

In the same spirit as Rogue Warrior, check out "The Phantom Major" which chronicles Sir David Stirling's efforts to create what became the SAS. "Mad Mike" Calvert's various books pick up where Stirling allegedly left (some, such as Stiff in "See you in November", claim that Watchman International amongst others was a front for the MI6's black ops, so Stirling never really "retired") and also has some nice stuff about Orde Wingate, another interesting leader (both in results, and as a person) who unfortunately did not survive Burma.

On a separate note, in "19 with a bullet", Korff claims that the South African 1 Recce's selection procedure was 8 weeks of walking through the bush with no food except a weekly tin of beans and two slices of toast to share between two, and no weapons or kit. The unit generally sounded very interesting and I'd be grateful if anybody knows of any good books or writings, I personally have not found much.

I disagree as they provided details about how the Seal 6 Team Management was purged at least once ..

> TLDR : Seal team 6 rescued many hostages, lost members, has the coolest toys in town.

A great example of a poor use of TLDR. That was not even remotely the point of the article. And instead of implying that only uninformed idiots have never heard of the "OMEAGA program" and how it's been around for years, why don't you point to mainstream sources that have previously made the point about Omega that the NYT does?

> The missions, part of the Omega Program, allowed the SEALs to conduct “deniable operations” against the Taliban and other militants in Pakistan. Omega was modeled after the Vietnam-era Phoenix Program, when C.I.A. officers and Special Operations troops conducted interrogations and assassinations to try to dismantle the Vietcong’s guerrilla networks in South Vietnam.

> Another former Team 6 member, an officer, was even more dismissive of some of the operations. “By 2010, guys were going after street thugs,” he said. “The most highly trained force in the world, chasing after street thugs.”

I'd heard of a sluice in the context of gold mining (during the Gold Rush). Fun word.

Example usage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cozw088w44Q

> This is propaganda and some of it is quite false (for example the bin Laden stuff). They are killers, enforcers, doing dirty-work for the most deadly, brutal and dominant empire the world has ever seen.

I have no love lost for imperialism, wherever it comes from, but it sounds like you never heard of Rome or the way Genghis Khan solved problems.