Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

41–50 of 278 posts

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

#41
post #30

>you woke up before dawn with your companions to go diving in the freezing cold ocean, in hopes of putting some mussels on your family's table. But suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you. Man, fuck these…

What is the alternative, ask them not to tell?

If you had to make the decision in the moment how would you weigh compromising the chance to prevent thousands or millions of deaths for advanced warning of nuclear or other attack using your ability to install that monitoring equipment now or in future, versus the lives of potentially hostile people who show up in your mission area?

You have to live with the moral cost, and human conflict means these choices have to be made.

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

#42

[deleting this -- now that the source for the article has been changed, my comment is not as relevant]

Not sure why the source for the article was changed (never seen - or at least never noticed - that on HN before).

For anyone interested, the original source was: https://reason.com/2025/09/05/navy-seals-reportedly-killed-n...

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

#43
post #28

Yesterday's HN post on the story, with some discussion, but was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45143759 [flagged] US special forces killed North Korean civilians in botched 2019 mission (reuters.com) 68 points by hnlurker22 1 day ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 28 comments

Why was this flagged? Absolute worst feature of HN, I don’t know why it continues.

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

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you relating NSA with the Navy?

The Navy isn't in the wiretap business.

I don't know, sometimes we sail the submarine around for a while and then they have us stop in some random place, not sure what's up with that.

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

#45
post #42

[deleting this -- now that the source for the article has been changed, my comment is not as relevant]

Not sure why the source for the article was changed (never seen - or at least never noticed - that on HN before). For anyone interested, the original source was: https://reason.com/2025/09/05/navy-seals-reportedly-killed-n...

It happens sometimes on HN. Times I’ve seen it happen is when another article covers the events better, or are just the original article instead.

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

#46

This post has a title that differs from the article it cites?

Not only that but it’s highly editorialized in a way that makes it effectively misinformation.

The killing of the fishermen (which appeared to be potentially NK soldiers) was the cause of the failure and not the covering up of a failure.

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

#47
post #30

>you woke up before dawn with your companions to go diving in the freezing cold ocean, in hopes of putting some mussels on your family's table. But suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you. Man, fuck these…

Amazon is showing Homelander do exactly this though haha.

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

#48
post #28

Yesterday's HN post on the story, with some discussion, but was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45143759 [flagged] US special forces killed North Korean civilians in botched 2019 mission (reuters.com) 68 points by hnlurker22 1 day ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 28 comments

Why was this flagged? Absolute worst feature of HN, I don’t know why it continues.

I don't mind it. Looking at the comments, it seems like a number of people got facts wrong (based on the articles that have been written) and emotions were high. It's just hard to have these conversations and HN isn't necessarily the place to have them.

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

#49
post #24

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

This is much better. Some of the other sources made it seem like the seals were killing witnesses, rather than confusing civilians for patrols and panicking.

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

#50
post #30

>you woke up before dawn with your companions to go diving in the freezing cold ocean, in hopes of putting some mussels on your family's table. But suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you. Man, fuck these…

What is the alternative, ask them not to tell? If you had to make the decision in the moment how would you weigh compromising the chance to prevent thousands or millions of deaths for advanced warning of nuclear or other attack using your ability to install that monitoring equipment now or in future, versus the lives of potentially hostile people who show up in your mission area? You have to live with the moral cost,…

False dichotomy. There were many other options available.
Post reply on HN