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Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

nytimes.com

201–210 of 278 posts

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#201
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people bash the Marvel content for essentially having the depth of an arcade beat-em-up, but the character arcs of Cap and Iron Man alone through the movies is something to behold IMHO

yeah, it's great writing -- it's a total coincidence that the Iron Man origin was conveniently re-written to implicate the middle east with arms trade, energy smuggling, and human trafficking for the movie. It's also great writing that it gets to show off the F-35 , a project that was hugely failed at the time economically, to the public as something with on-par agility to a super hero. it's also a total coincidence…

Hooo boy. I barely have time for this but...

1) First of all, you're talking about an imaginary universe with a character literally named "Captain America". Just to put this in the right perspective.

2) A single Google would show you that the Middle East often engages (AND has historically engaged) in all of that, and lots of other bad-actordom (please do not tu-quoque me here about the sins of the United States, I know about its meddling consequences). Do you know why? It's because the Quran endorses it. Do you want the quotes they use to justify it to this day? It's the same quotes that the Barbary Pirates quoted at Thomas Jefferson and John Adams when they traveled to Morocco to ask why their peaceful trade ships kept getting attacked... which shocked them... and which ended up in them forming the US Navy. So yes, the US military was literally created to fight the Islamic terrorism of its day. That is not propaganda, that is historical fact. (Source- This is wild, btw, if you weren't aware of it: https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php... Find the paragraph that begins with "We took the Liberty...") Just to give you an idea how deep the rabbit hole goes here, and that it's not all just "durr hurr brown people bad" (I mean... that might be some of it, but it's absolutely not ALL of it). In short, the "Middle East trope" was largely earned, not applied... and the US was founded on good principles by good people (who, uh, owned slaves sometimes. Yes, it's complicated. I know.). (Related side note - the Crusades were largely a response to Islamic jihadic conquests. But I digress.)

3) F-35 criticism- No contest. I didn't realize that, actually. And I'm a 4 year USAF vet, so... I should have.

4) Regarding "choice of enemy"... funny story I read about this lately related to that is that the lead designer of the Call of Duty games is having trouble traveling overseas without a security attache because of the enemies he picked in his past games, lol. If you're curious, I can find the link. But the unfortunate truth is that the dramas set up in these media have to have SOME plausible semblance to reality. (I will return to this in a moment.)

5) "Any kind of semblance of "Oh the superhero now mistrusts authority" is there simply to make the actual propgadandized bullshit more palatable and believable" This is not a falsifiable claim, and I'll demonstrate why: A) If the movie depicts the US as flawless, you will see it as propaganda. B) If the movie depicts the US as flawed, you... Also see it as propaganda? See the problem yet? If there are no conditions under which a Marvel movie is not "United States propaganda" to you, then it is not falsifiable, end of story. It also completely misses any satirical elements, which were surely present.

Now, to my last point...

Ich sprech fliessend Deutsch. My mom is from Heidelberg and my dad is from Bremen and they emigrated to the US and I am a firstborn American with some particular German sensitivities that we likely share (couldn't help noticing your gmx.com email address). And so we get to the problem of Every Single US-Produced Historical Videogame using Nazis As The Enemy. Contributes to negative German stereotypes. I feel that. As a US citizen who is also German (100% German ancestry, actually), I want to apologize for that. There's gotta be some part of you that this pains, because it does me. Germans should be known for waaaaay better things they've contributed to the world, than that (Ordnung über alles! lol). So, I'm sorry. Perhaps that fed into some of your rage here. If so, I'd understand... possibly more than most. (I've also been called a Nazi more than once.)

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#202
post #151

When incidents like this happen, it gives credence to North Korean propaganda portraying the US as an imperialist aggressor.

Yeah, it's always been like that, South Korea today is absolutely full of US military personnel. The sight of US tanks on streets is considered normal. War is like the main industry of the US, it's very profitable to have military bases in 55 countries, with a $1 trillion annual pot to draw from. It pays well to force regime change and install friendly client states that allow labor and resource extraction by US comp…

"Yeah, it's always been like that, South Korea today is absolutely full of US military personnel. "

In 1952 there were 326,863 US troops in South Korea. Last count there is 28,500 US troops. I struggle to fathom any definition of full of US military personnel that could possibly be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Korea#Num...

"The sight of US tanks on streets is considered normal."

I've been in Seoul over three months, I've never seen a military tank on the street. In fact, I've never witnessed a tank on a street in my entire life in any country anywhere.

"War is like the main industry of the US, ..." Nope, not even close. https://axiomalpha.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Screenshot...

"... it's very profitable to have military bases in 55 countries, with a $1 trillion annual pot to draw from. " US Spends over 150 billion annually on overseas base. https://www.mintpressnews.com/214492-2/214492/

Can you provide any source that verifies any of your post? I can't seem to find anything I can point to and say, yes this is true.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#203
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A football field is close to 100m, independently of whether people manage the balls with their feet or with their hands.

100 yds :)

1 yard is ~0.9 m

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one way to assess it. Can you take the cost if your presence is detected? Maybe nothing happens. How likely is nothing? And if your presence finds it ways to the authorities, what's the cost? Likely, NK will patch what might be your best chance at advance warning. As fishing is dangerous and many never return, their plausibly 'accidental' deaths provide cover to keep the secrecy and your future access intact.…

It doesn't matter if you can take the cost. It's forbidden to kill civilians. You can only kill non-civilians, and there's nothing allowing you to hide the bodies of civilians or interfere with their burial rites.

The article states that it was NOT forbidden to kill civilians. Or at least, the US considered it justified.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#205
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, it's great writing -- it's a total coincidence that the Iron Man origin was conveniently re-written to implicate the middle east with arms trade, energy smuggling, and human trafficking for the movie. It's also great writing that it gets to show off the F-35 , a project that was hugely failed at the time economically, to the public as something with on-par agility to a super hero. it's also a total coincidence…

Hooo boy. I barely have time for this but... 1) First of all, you're talking about an imaginary universe with a character literally named "Captain America". Just to put this in the right perspective. 2) A single Google would show you that the Middle East often engages (AND has historically engaged) in all of that, and lots of other bad-actordom (please do not tu-quoque me here about the sins of the United States, I k…

>So yes, the US military was literally created to fight the Islamic terrorism of its day. That is not propaganda, that is historical fact.

I mean, you're bending the truth a little. The US Navy was created to fight thieves and murderers on ships, who happened to be Muslim. There was no ideological component to the conflict. That someone can cite a passage from a book to justify robbing you doesn't mean that his robbing you is inspired by the book.

>funny story I read about this lately related to that is that the lead designer of the Call of Duty games is having trouble traveling overseas without a security attache because of the enemies he picked in his past games, lol.

Sounds extremely dubious. For one, there's not a designer. It's always been at least two different companies working on alternating titles; right now it's three or four. Second, who would even recognize him, by either face or name?

>B) If the movie depicts the US as flawed, you... Also see it as propaganda? See the problem yet? If there are no conditions under which a Marvel movie is not "United States propaganda" to you, then it is not falsifiable, end of story.

For example, if the US government wasn't a player at all (it's not aware of the conflict, it's totally powerless to do anything about it [for or against], etc.), it would not be propaganda. Or it could depict a realistic US government, as not a monolithic entity, but a massive swath of people with different motivations, principles, and knowledge. Hell, imagine this: two different branches of the government want to help with the problem but they refuse to cooperate out of mistrust and their solutions work against each other, cancelling each other out, and a third, smaller branch makes a small but key contribution to the heroes' effort.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#206
post #118

It's funny how people are so surprised? This story was already fictionalized in 2004's "Team America - World Police". SEALs, North Korea, it's all there. Special Forces are secretive, and almost as a law of nature that leads to them being inept. There is a long list of these special operations in the book "Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs" by Noam Chomsky.

Sorry to be pedantic but SEALS are not Special Forces by US military definition. That's the US Army.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neptune Spear was a culmination of intelligence failures that spanned decades, so while certainly possible, absent other evidence I don't think a press release is sufficient to say that bin Laden was successfully killed in Abbottabad, as opposed to say dying of kidney failure in the years before. Died peacefully in his sleep was not a suitable ending for the mastermind of 9/11, so it would never have been allowed to…

There is a wide consensus that the US succeeded in killing Bin Laden 14 years ago. Here is why: - On-scene & eyewitness identification by the SEALs (including identification by a wife). [1] - CIA facial-recognition match to known images. [2] - Rapid DNA testing matching bin Laden to family members. [3] - Existence of classified post-mortem photos/videos acknowledged in court. [4] - Official U.S. account of Islamic-ri…

[deleted]

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#208
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Marcus Luttrell's original after-action report, he stated that he and his teammates were attacked by 20–35 insurgents, while his book places the number at over 200....military journalist Ed Darack cites a military intelligence report stating the strength of the Taliban force to be 8–10. > Luttrell's book and the film both suggest that the SEALs decision to release the goat herders led to their subsequent ambush…

Honestly, I’m not inclined to believe the NYT reporting here either. Those leaking the “facts” necessarily must obscure and change details to avoid being caught as the leaker. But after a few paragraphs, it becomes clear someone leaked this to harm the current administration. Their motive can also mean they left out detail. For example, Obama may have done a similar successful operation but that will not be leaked he…

> it becomes clear someone leaked this to harm the current administration

Did you think that about Watergate too? Unless the entire story was manufactured I don't see how you could possibly reach that conclusion.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#209
post #136
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An X country's covert operations team landed on country Y's shores, opened fire on a boat in which an innocent fisherman lost lives and left" If X is Iran/Russia/North Korea/ and Y is US/UK/Canada etc, the whole *mainstream* media would be calling for war. But in this case, its just called a failed operation. Even if it was an allied country and the SEAL was caught, US would threaten the country with war to get the…

If X is Iran/Russia/North Korea/ and Y is US/UK/Canada etc, the whole mainstream media would be calling for war Russia had killed UK nationals on the British soil in covert ops and exactly the opposite had happened. The establishment and the media categorically did not want this to go anywhere let alone to a war.

The Russian/UK situation is a-typical, because they wanted to be found; Russia explicitly left a trail of Novichock as a threat/intimidation.

Re: Navy SEALs reportedly killed North Korean fishermen to hide a failed mission

#210
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s important to clarify that yes, they’re more comfortable with risk taking but they’re highly-trained for high-risk missions and taking calculated risks with massive amounts of intelligence work and contingency planning beforehand. It’s not just “lol, let’s try it. If we die, we die!” And their success rate should be and is, pretty high. That said, this was a National Command Authority (came down from the White Ho…

This is my best understanding as well. I have watched a lot of ex-special forces guys on YT. Needless to say, I take it all with massive grains of salt, including the claim that they were even SF in the first place. However, they all describe the selection processes similarly. And, my educated assumption is that this part is probably too dull for them to lie about, much less lie about in unison across many accounts a…

> I have watched a lot of ex-special forces guys on YT.

What specific channels would you recommend?

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