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

nytimes.com

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

#211

Post by hnu0847 »

csa wrote: post #189
scotty79 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have watched a lot of ex-special forces guys on YT. > Needless to say, I take it all with massive grains of salt I think it needs to be said that people who choose those careers are probably one of the worst kinds of people. They choose to use their unique, advantageous talents to murder people on command. And then you select out of those the ones that think being interviewed on YouTube about that is a good idea.…

> I think it needs to be said that people who choose those careers are probably one of the worst kinds of people. I’m guessing you’ve never met any special operations people, much less folks from the SMUs. I have met many. 100% A+ people. I’m sure there are bad apples, but I’ve never met one. > They choose to use their unique, advantageous talents to murder people on command. Rules of engagement are a thing — a very…

> For those who are interested, here is an interview with a very active former Delta Force operator.

Do you have any other similar podcasts, videos, etc. to recommend that feature interviews with former operators?

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

#212

Post by scarecrowbob »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #113

The Japanese bombed civilian boats that happened to be out on the water near pearl harbour before their surprise attack. Their reasoning was that these boats could have alerted the Americans about the impending attack. It's interesting to see the US more or less committing the same crime, even if it was just a bug planting mission.

If you're interested in "crimes committed by the US war machine which mirror similar crimes by the Japanese", there is a lot written about the US use of biological weapons on the peninsula in late 1951.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_biological_warf...

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

#213

Post by impossiblefork »

arcatech wrote: post #204
impossiblefork wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US has signed treaties according to which it is forbidden and these treaties are additionally so special that they're treated as applying to even non-signatories, the so-called customary international law.

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

#214

Post by yepitwas »

okdood64 wrote: post #206
317070 wrote: 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.

They are by common use of the term, however. Just not in US military jargon.

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

#215

Post by scarecrowbob »

richardfeynman wrote: post #143
Esophagus4 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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,…

+1. This does seem like an operation gone wrong, and I certanly condemn the killing of innocent civilians, but it's shocking how quick HN commenters are to throw America under the bus based on reporting from a leak. There's so much information about this operation that we simply don't have, including the risk/benefit analysis, the other operations that were successes that we don't know about, etc. I'm not saying Amer…

Threads like this -make me- more anti-American.

"I certainly condemn the killing of innocent civilians". No you don't. That's BS you're telling yourself so you can feel unconflicted about what should be a simple moral calculus.

I am not sure what certifies your moral; God or logic or whatever that tells you that how you live your life is justified.

I do know that I have morals, though.

"Don't murder people" is pretty easy for me to justify categorically.

If you have to put a big [*] next to that which says "if my boss tells me to kill someone, it's okay", then you really don't have any morals.

That math is easy for most folks to do.

The thing that probably keeps you from being able to do that math is some relative certainty that you personally will never have to be on the "risk/benefit analysis" board for these kinds of murderers.

But that's an error.

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

#216

Post by chubot »

arcatech wrote: post #204
impossiblefork wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the US considered it justified

s/ the US / "some bureaucratic process within the military"

which is almost certainly politically influenced, as many decisions at this level are

In this case, I don't think the bureaucracy reflects the will of the people

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

#217

Post by fnordpiglet »

marcosdumay wrote: post #53
nython wrote: post #40

> The plan called for the Navy to sneak a nuclear-powered submarine, nearly two football fields long, into the waters off North Korea and then deploy a small team of SEALs in two mini-subs, each about the size of a killer whale The lengths some people willing to go just not to use the metric system

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

And killer whales are about the size of mini subs whether people steer them with their feet or hands too!

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

#218

Post by js2 »

mrtnmrtn wrote: post #150
js2 wrote: post #110

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/navy-seal-north-korea-...

Afaik links to offered articles cannot be opened more than once

I don't think that's true? Here's what the NYT has to say about it:

Subscribers can gift 10 gift News articles per month:

- On the 1st of every month, Subscribers’ gift articles reset to 10.

- When an article is gifted, recipients can read it with or without a subscription.

- Recipients have 30 days to read the article before access is revoked.

https://help.nytimes.com/360060848652-Gift-Articles-for-New-...

The gift link I shared above opens for me in a private browser window w/o any prompting.

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

#219

Post by jki275 »

saltcured wrote: post #9

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…

Lone Survivor is simply a work of fiction.

http://www.darack.com/sawtalosar/

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

#220

Post by jki275 »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #169
verisimi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you were there, there is no reason to think any of the stories (good or bad) are anything other than propaganda.

The US navy literally wrote the book, and gave it to Luttrell. This has recently come to light. Now if that’s not propaganda then I don’t know what is.

Luttrell didn't have anything to do with it. The writer is a British fiction writer. He did a one hour interview with Lutrell, that's the entire involvement Luttrell had with it.
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