Tuesday, May 22, 2018

With Medal of Honor, SEAL Team 6 Rewards a Culture of War Crimes



On May 7, the White House announced that President Donald Trump would award a retired SEAL Team 6 sniper and a deceased Air Force combat controller the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor.

Normally, the presentation of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism. But the announcement of the award for Britt Slabinski and John Chapman came after a yearslong campaign to recognize disputed events 16 years ago on a remote mountain in Afghanistan. The awards have exposed a rift in the special operations community, a long-running argument pitting the Air Force against the Navy SEALs. More significantly, the decision to award a Medal of Honor to Slabinski represents the enduring failure of the SEALs, the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House to reckon with the dark history of SEAL Team 6 in the post-9/11 wars. All these authorities have refused to conduct any meaningful or robust oversight of a group of elite commandos who have committed war crimes abroad and gone to great lengths to cover them up.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_

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