141–150 of 278 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe Putin's 2007 Munich speech and 2008 Russian war with Georgia had something to do with that.
How dare you suggest Putin is not doing things because he’s just crazy and wants to take over Europe??
I am not sure why none of the big three have put this into practice yet
If you can stomach the bravado and unclear factual accuracy, the 2007 book Lone Survivor gives an account of a similar failure, in Afghanistan, where a SEAL team was discovered early in their mission. But, it devolved into a running battle and a disaster for the US special forces where most of the team and many rescuers also died. As a result of those prior events, I can imagine they have different rules of engagemen…
The Lone Survivor story is pure propaganda and mostly inaccurate. You can easily look this up. That entire operation was a F up from the beginning, and had nothing to do with being discovered early. It created proper propaganda fuel though, so mission partially accomplished I suppose.
"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." Seeing as how this was right where this entire mission turned into a lethal clusterfuck, you'd think rigorously trained, carefully coordinated and disciplined SEALs would just try the incredibly sophisticat…
(Assuming you also weren’t in the armed forces, so correct me if I’m wrong.) I don’t think it’s worthwhile for laypeople to armchair quarterback the decisions of possibly the most elite soldiers in the US armed forces. By the time the mission was given to them, the collateral risk had already been accepted by JSOC, national security advisors, and likely Trump. I could feel more comfortable questioning their judgment,…
This botched operation shows how representative government has been subverted in America. Power should flow bottom-up, rather than top-down. Would putting this operation to a democratic vote ever result in approval? Highly doubtful. This suggests our current form of democracy is deeply broken and urgently needs fixing. IMO the issue is how we think about power itself. The assumption underneath it all is that once we…
If you can stomach the bravado and unclear factual accuracy, the 2007 book Lone Survivor gives an account of a similar failure, in Afghanistan, where a SEAL team was discovered early in their mission. But, it devolved into a running battle and a disaster for the US special forces where most of the team and many rescuers also died. As a result of those prior events, I can imagine they have different rules of engagemen…
The SEALs talk in open media constantly. There's a reason you have no idea what the Green Berets do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe Putin's 2007 Munich speech and 2008 Russian war with Georgia had something to do with that.
Which were also tit-for-tat responses to the US & NATO (US involvement & funding in 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution, 2006 Georgia bid for NATO, 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And their success rate should be and is, pretty high. Is it? We obviously don't get most reporting, but of the publicly known missions, the success rate is abysmal, and even the "successes" are disasters. Take the death of bin Laden, "Operation Neptune Spear", a nominal success in that bin Laden may have been killed, it was operationally questionable _and_ it was 9 years after another spectacularly failed mission i…
You wrote: "Take the death of bin Laden, "Operation Neptune Spear", a nominal success in that bin Laden may have been killed" Emphasis added. Is the death of Osama bin laden under any serious dispute? It's been 14 years.
Died peacefully in his sleep was not a suitable ending for the mastermind of 9/11, so it would never have been allowed to happen, even if the truth had to be bent to achieve it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which were also tit-for-tat responses to the US & NATO (US involvement & funding in 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution, 2006 Georgia bid for NATO, 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit).
Oh no they donated to a political campaign. Better start shelling villages and displacing a quarter million people. Tit for tat.
I was reading about special operations in WWII and these kinds of missions always seem to be on a knife's edge. This mission seems more akin to a WWII operation with the team and their immediate support being entirely on their own. >But the episode worried some experienced military officials with knowledge of the mission, because the SEALs have an uneven track record that for decades has largely been concealed by sec…
Nothing heroic “type a” about killing random unarmed civilians. These people are disgusting psychopathic thugs and so are the people behind them. And it is tragic that we are so deeply buried in arrogance and propaganda that we cannot see this.
Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/navy-seal-north-korea-...