The New York Times and
SEAL Team Six
By Chuck Pfarrer
Breitbart.com
Over the weekend, the normally
stolid New York Times published an almost
hysterical screed targeting the operators of the
Navy’s SEAL Team Six.
The article accused them of a variety of war
crimes, including the unprovoked murder of
civilians, the summary execution of enemy
combatants, the mutilation of corpses and the use of
snipers to kill little girls.
In sensationalist prose, Mark Mazzetti, Nicholas
Kulish, Christopher Drew, Serge F. Kovaleski, Sean
D. Naylor, and John Ismay enumerated a litany of
despicable acts supposedly carried out by SEAL Team
Six— an outfit they depicted as out of control and
running amok in the shadows of America’s secret war
against terror.
I was disgusted to read these allegations, though
I did try not to take them personally. I am a former
Assault Element Commander who served at SEAL Team
Six. I have commanded SEALs in combat, and my
experience in the unit and my knowledge of the men
and women who serve there makes it impossible for me
to believe what I have read. Let me share my doubts.
In SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet
Killings and Blurred Lines, murder, mutilation
and beatings are described in lurid detail—the
authors even allege that SEAL operators used
“primeval” tomahawks to kill Afghan civilians. Could
this be true? The article is certainly gripping and
tries to make a case marshaling allegations and very
few facts. Missing are the names of the alleged
perpetrators, the dates and locations of their
crimes, and something, or anything, resembling
motive. Unfortunately, the motives of Misters
Mazzetti, Kulish, Drew, Kovaleski, Naylor and Ismay
might be easier to guess at. Their article has been
splashed in headlines around the world.
While the most serious allegations in the article
are made by anonymous parties, the credibility of
their accusations is uniformly marginal. Drawing on
second- and sometimes third-hand information,
apparently from the ‘war stories’ of unnamed
persons, the authors do not once offer hard
evidence. They do, however, shovel a great deal of
blood curdling hearsay. Though a handful of former
operators did speak on the record about injuries
SEALs themselves receive, most of the article’s
scabrous innuendo was gleaned from non-SEALs,
officers from other units and civilian academics.
After making allegations about summary executions
in an unnamed Afghan village, the authors solicited
comment from United States Special Operations
Command (USSOCOM), who, perhaps understandably,
“Would not comment on SEAL Team Six”.
Ominous? Perhaps, until one is informed that
despite a grand and omniscient sounding name, the
United States Special Operations Command has nothing
to do with the manning, training, organization or
operational control of SEAL Team Six.
Nothing.
Where an organizational fire-wall was an
insufficient clue to the authors (and their
editors), a geographical one might suffice. SOCOM is
located on an Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida– more
than 900 miles from the SEAL’s base in Virginia.
SEAL Team Six’s parent organization, the Joint
Special Operations Command (JSOC), is located in
North Carolina and shares nothing with SOCOM except
the words “Special” and “Operations.” Though JSOC is
mentioned in the article, and accused of exonerating
SEALs after numerous investigations, the authors
apparently did not choose to print statements from
the Public Affairs Officers of either SEAL Team Six
or JSOC.
Because it was cobbled together by so many
different people, the article is studded with
contradictions. The authors decry the needless
violence of SEAL missions carried out “in dark rooms
with few witnesses” and in the next paragraph state
“Team 6 members often operate under the watchful
eyes of their commanders — officers at overseas
operations centers… can routinely view live
surveillance feeds of raids provided by drones high
above.” Which is it? Few witnesses, or control
centers full of direct video feeds?
In plain fact, SEAL missions are very frequently
streamed live via satellite. Yet the article
laments, “Even the military’s civilian overseers do
not regularly examine the unit’s operations.” That
allegation, too, is flat wrong.
Within hours of the Bin Laden
raid, the White House press office foisted on the
world
the now-famous ‘situation room photograph’—
showing the President, the Secretaries of Defense
and State, along with ten other civilians who
watched the SEAL’s Abbottabad operation live as it
unfolded. Twenty-first century technology makes it
possible for the Commander in Chief of the US
military to view missions as they unfold, not only
by circling drones, but also with footage beamed
from individual operator’s helmet cameras.
Closer civilian supervision can hardly be
imagined.
Presuming for a moment that this
same technology makes it possible to witness any
SEAL Team mission, carried out anywhere on
the planet, one might ask what command centers full
of Admirals, Generals, Secretaries and Deputy
Secretaries have come to think of the ‘war crimes’
the New York Times believes the SEALs carry
out on a weekly, if not nightly, basis.
Are the SEALs operating outside Command and
Control? Hardly.
In a further contradiction, the authors admit
that on most SEAL missions “no shots are fired.”
SEALs prefer to operate at night, and to use stealth
as their principal weapon, striking and withdrawing
before the enemy is even aware of their presence.
The most successful intelligence gathering missions
are those accomplished without arousing the
attention of either the enemy or the civilian
population that harbors them. In the parlance of
Special Operations, this is called “economy of
force.”
Yet even when SEALs accomplished these missions,
the authors complained “a number of detainees had
broken noses after SEALs punched them in struggles
to subdue them.” As though that were not
sufficiently absurd, the authors go on to question
why SEAL Team Six found it necessary to kill the
captors of an unnamed American hostage during a
rescue operation.
Perhaps it was because the captors were holding
an American hostage.
The nadir of this tripe comes when an unnamed
SEAL operator alleges that a Team Six sniper shot
and killed three unarmed people, including a little
girl. In what country this occurred is not clear,
though it might possibly be Afghanistan. Like the
location and the shooter, the date can only be
guessed at. Did this happen? It is extremely
unlikely. In the first place, the wanton shooting of
unarmed non-combatants makes no sense, moral or
tactical. Shooting into a crowded square would not
only reveal the hidden location of the team, but
also serve to enrage the surrounding populace. In
the second place, presuming this “sniper” was not
operating alone (and SEALs do not operate solo),
directing a person in the US military to shoot, or
deliberately wound, an unarmed person or prisoner is
an unlawful order. The mere act of ordering such an
action is, in itself, a crime. Witnessing this
action, and concealing it is conspiracy. Also a
crime.
Of all of the accusations, this is the one I find
so appalling, because I have operated as a
counter-sniper and I have witnessed with my own eyes
the wretchedness and evil of random shooters. I
encourage the authors and the accuser to come
forward, name the guilty party, and specify charges.
Should this story prove to be false, grossly
exaggerated, or apocryphal, I would expect any
responsible journalist to retract it and issue
apology.
In this case, with these writers, that is
probably too much to hope for.
In my career I have never seen nor would I
tolerate the harming of any innocent person, or
prisoner or noncombatant. No officer, Chief Petty
Officer, Petty officer or operator I have ever known
would stand by and watch a corpse be desecrated.
Frankly, we don’t care enough to do it. We are
trained from the first day to subtract emotion and
hatred from operations. We are technicians. We hit
them, and then we forget them.
Unfortunately, no action will be
taken against the six scribblers who produced this
libelous sludge. The Times itself is
unlikely to issue a retraction or clarification, and
will, instead, attempt to ride out the controversy
in self-satisfied silence.
While this happens, the men and women who serve
at SEAL Team Six will continue to serve their
country by putting themselves in harm’s way and
between us and our enemies. Their service will be
carried out without fanfare or clamor or desire for
fame– because the men and women who serve us in this
fight are the true “Silent Professionals.”
Chuck Pfarrer is a former Assault Element
Commander at SEAL Team Six. He is the New York Times
bestselling author of SEAL Target Geronimo: Inside
the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden, and Warrior
Soul: The memoir of a Navy SEAL. Pfarrer serves
presently as an Associate Editor of The
Counterterrorist Journal and is a distinguished
fellow of the US Naval Special Warfare Institute.