By Matthew Cole
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_
No comments:
Post a Comment