SEAL Team 6: Secretive Agency That Even The Pentagon Does Not Acknowledge

The SEAL Team 6 is apparently a highly mythologised, admired but hardly ever scrutinised military organisation in the United States. These highly trained special operations unit has transformed in to a global man-hunting machine and works to systematically eliminate adversaries. But many insiders feel that the combat unit tactics are highly questionable and works against human life.

SEAL Team 6, a classified special operations unit, has been responsible for a large number of high-profile operations like the Osama Bin Laden hunt. Its activities are shrouded in secrecy that even the Pentagon does not acknowledge its existence. The Team 6 has been given great amount of latitude while conducting clandestine operations, which has resulted in excessive civilian killings, reports New York Times.

In 2009, the SEAL Team was accused of indiscriminate killings in an Afghan village in a bid to rescue an American hostage. Even the hostage questioned the SEAL Team tactics of killing all his captors. This had caused unwanted tensions and resentment within the local population. Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat and a member of the SEALs during the Vietnam War, has said that the SEALs were more like a “1-800 number any time somebody wants something done.”

The lack of accountability stems from the fact that Joint Special Operations Command, which actually monitors SEAL Team missions, conducts the enquiries in to the excesses. So the top brass of the SEAL Team actually conducts enquiries, which defeats the purpose of impartiality. Many of the team's activities are classified and not available for justice makers. Apart from the deaths, the physical and mental cost of being a SEAL is immense, the paper claims. Severe training leave many men battered and killing deadens all emotions.

According to Britt Slabinski, a retired senior enlisted member of Team 6, “It’s emotional, one human being killing another human being for extended periods of time. It’s going to bring out the worst in you,” quotes The New York Times. SEALS continue to be the highly trained man-hunting and special combat operations unit. For many, it is important not to convert soldiers into international assassins who have no conscience.

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