Betrayal of SEAL Team 6

Jeffrey Kuhner:

Did the Obama administration put a target on the backs of members of Navy SEAL Team 6? This is the question that parents of slain SEALs are now asking — and rightly so. Forget Benghazi, the IRS, Eric H. Holder Jr. and the National Security Agency spying on U.S. citizens. Important as these scandals are, what happened to SEAL Team 6 could very well dwarf them. Our government betrayed America’s finest warriors.

Navy SEAL Team 6 became a household name for their role in killing Osama bin Laden. On May 1, 2011, the country rightly celebrated the death of bin Laden. The Obama administration, however, wanted to do more. It sought to claim full credit for the assassination, deciding to spike the football. On May 3, at an event in Washington, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did the unthinkable: He publicly revealed the identity of the special-operations unit responsible for bin Laden’s killing. His reckless action put at risk the lives of every member of SEAL Team 6. The Taliban and other jihadists eager to avenge bin Laden now knew which unit to target. Stunned and shocked, SEAL members immediately realized they were going to be hunted by al Qaeda sympathizers.

Karen Vaughn, the mother of slain SEALAaron Vaughn, says that within hours after Mr. Biden’s comments, her son called to tell her to wipe away every piece of information regarding the family on social media, Facebook and Twitter. “I never heard Aaron that afraid in his life,” Mrs. Vaughn said in an interview. “He told me: ‘Mom, we’re picking up chatter. We’re not safe. You’re not safe. Delete everything.’”

According to Mrs. Vaughn, Mr. Biden essentially placed a bull’s-eye on her son’s back — and that of all the other SEALs. He leaked classified information. SEAL Team 6 is a covert unit, which is supposed to operate in the shadows. This is how they are able to conduct deadly raids on terrorist groups. Their reward, however, for killing the world’s foremost terrorist mastermind was to be outed by their own government.

Yet, the betrayal did not stop there. On Aug. 6, 2011, a Chinook helicopter carrying 30 U.S. service members — including 15 SEAL Team 6 members — was shot down in Afghanistan. Everyone on board was killed. The rescue team was sent to aid an Army Ranger unit battling the Taliban and desperately in need of backup. The Chinook was shot down by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade in Wardak province. Taliban fighters were waiting on three sides for the aircraft as it approached. The Chinook was a sitting duck as it hovered in the sky. The evidence is overwhelming and disturbing: SEAL Team 6 members were ambushed. It was America’s single greatest loss of life in Afghanistan and the largest number of SEALs ever killed in one incident in history.

Recently, parents of the slain SEAL members held a news conference at the National Press Club. They are rightly demanding a congressional investigation. They have numerous troubling questions. Why was the Chinook not provided a military escort plane, as is standard military procedure when a special-operations unit conducts a raid? Why were the SEALs placed on an outdated aircraft built in the 1960s? Why were they not flying in a special-operations aircraft that is designed to take enemy fire and go deep behind enemy lines? Why were they ordered not to return fire against the tower from where insurgents were firing? Did the strict rules of engagement cause the deaths of our service members?
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The scandal only gets worse. Mrs. Vaughn said that her family received a DVD from the U.S. military that recorded the funeral services in Afghanistan for her dead son, as well as the other slain SEALs. To the parents’ horror, a Muslim cleric presided over the services. In Arabic, he damned the “infidel” SEALs, condemning their souls “to hell.”

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The Imam should be banned from any contact with US forces.  I have posted about this incident before and find it very troubling.  These families deserve answers to the  questions they have raised.