Xfinity News: AP sources: Navy SEALs punished for secrets breach

[Renegade7]

I guess the brass got tired of the SEALs ego-stroking.

It feels that way to me, too. Ever since they killed Bin Laden, you've seen one SEAL after the other on cloud 9 talking about the presidential race, how the operation actually happened, a lot of things I've never heard them come out and talk about before. Doesn't matter how I feel about it, if they release classified info for any reason, they have to be punished. That's just standard procedure.

[AsburySkinsFan]

My problem with this is that I seriously doubt these guys provided anything that would remotely compromise the safety of one of their brothers in arms. The White House bent over backwards to accommodate filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow in the upcoming Bin Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty. She was given what I consider to be unprecedented access to the CIA and US Special Operations. I get that that if rules were broken then punishment should be applied notion, but said punishment should also be fair in nature and at a level commensurate with the charge being levied against them.

Bottom line for me: these guys careers should not be ruined by this.

So, dead is the saying "loose lips sink ships"?

[Bang]

You've got to be kidding me. Noone outside of the SEALs and their obviously inept leadership knows what they divulged. Now, that game can be scrutinized by terrorist cells for actual intel or whatever was in it. Somethings hide better in plain sight if noone knows what they are looking at. Also, it must not have been that much of a secret as they were given the lowest level of punishment required by UCMJ - an article 15. They probably had to cut the Admiral's lawn for 45 days also.

Stupid stupid stupid upper military management.

Yeah, those guys who command SEAL teams are just idiot middle managers.. dumb morons without the knowledge you have of how to manage a covert team.

Your arrogance is funny.

Bottom line, if command felt that they should not be divulging info, than none of us, and i mean NONE of us have the knowledge of the situation that would allow us to second guess them at all.

But hey,, take time from your morning coffee to tell us why they're so stupid again.

~Bang

[Forehead]

(Sorry. Had to. Actually, prior to your post, I was reflecting on how many posters in this thread seemed to know so much about these people.)

I'll go the other way, I know zero Navy Seals; my knowledge of them is limited to the recent killing of Bin Laden and G.I. Jane or Jesse Ventura. Closest I ever came to knowing one of them was a kid I went to high school with who wanted to be a Navy Seal, that was his end goal. I would guess he was something like 5'6" and 140 pounds...in shape, but I always assumed there were size requirements for these sorts of jobs, as in, you couldn't be picked up and military pressed by someone of average size. Probably all the not-to-scale GI Joe's I played with as a kid made me think that way.

[DaGoonie55]

Part of the warrior ethos is looking out for your own. They threw these guys to the wolves over what? Proper fire commands? How to breach and clear a room? 9 line medevac commands? You can google all of that. I've played the game in question and have observed nothing of importance with relation to national security. Obviously, I know more about our tactics than some converted sheep farmer now terrorist cell leader, but I am by no means an expert. Rather than ruin the careers of these accomplished warriors, who are obviously better soldiers than any of us on here could ever hope to be, they should have handled it differently. (I will concede they are human and are capable of judgement errors - potentially in this case) Why call attention to this "breach", and I use that term loosely. If there is something in that game, I doubt very seriously that the Department of the Navy or SOCOM would have allowed it to be disseminated. Every time the media was present, in my case, we were grilled on what to and what not to say. All we did was ride around and interdict enemy freedom of movement. Nothing compared to what these guys do. I'm not condoning the SEALs actions, just the way in which punishment was handed out. The SEALs are more than an elite unit, they inspire our youth to enlist. They keep bad guys in hiding all over the world. Keep the punishment in house and out of the publics eyes.

I respect your opinion Bang, more than most on here. I just disagree with you on this point Sir.

Edited: I re-read the article and I completely missed the fact that they didn't get clearance first. I will place myself on the no new post list for a few days so that I don't overreact to subject matter I missed. Thank you Dan for pointing that out.

[Dan T.]

"The two main complaints against the SEALs were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official."

Why are these Seals even talking to video game makers? Especially without clearing it from command first. Sorry, but that seems to be a serious lack of judgement.

[Stadium-Armory]

I've read a few of Richard Marcinko's books:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Marcinko

http://www.dickmarcinko.com/

He's the guy who named seal team 6 and was it first commander. He comments in the preface of each book how he skirts the powers that be with his books because of how close he gets to describing actual events. He's been doing this for a while.

[DC9]

You've got to be kidding me. Noone outside of the SEALs and their obviously inept leadership knows what they divulged. Now, that game can be scrutinized by terrorist cells for actual intel or whatever was in it. Somethings hide better in plain sight if noone knows what they are looking at. Also, it must not have been that much of a secret as they were given the lowest level of punishment required by UCMJ - an article 15. They probably had to cut the Admiral's lawn for 45 days also.

Stupid stupid stupid upper military management.

Well... it's the Navy... so it's not an Article 15, it's Captain's Mast.

But, you have to nip this thing in the butt. The point of doing something like this is to remind these guys that they are a clandestine group. They've gotten a lot of press the last year plus because of what they've accomplished, but at the end of the day, they need to realize that they hinder their ability to be great by doing what they've been doing.

You are right, this is a pee pee slap and not a harsh punishment, but it's also a wake up call to the rest of the members of the unit to quite ****ing around or it will get worse.

[Mad Mike]

My problem with this is that I seriously doubt these guys provided anything that would remotely compromise the safety of one of their brothers in arms. The White House bent over backwards to accommodate filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow in the upcoming Bin Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty. She was given what I consider to be unprecedented access to the CIA and US Special Operations. I get that that if rules were broken then punishment should be applied notion, but said punishment should also be fair in nature and at a level commensurate with the charge being levied against them.

Bottom line for me: these guys careers should not be ruined by this.

Bottom line for me is that judging from the punishment, this is probably about not getting permission before consulting on a subject. That's an important standard to maintain if you want to keep ANY secrets. At some point you have to draw the line before real damage is done. This is the line and I have no problem with it.

---------- Post added November-9th-2012 at 03:40 PM ----------

Yeah, those guys who command SEAL teams are just idiot middle managers.. dumb morons without the knowledge you have of how to manage a covert team.

Your arrogance is funny.

Bottom line, if command felt that they should not be divulging info, than none of us, and i mean NONE of us have the knowledge of the situation that would allow us to second guess them at all.

But hey,, take time from your morning coffee to tell us why they're so stupid again.

~Bang

Yeah, That post got to me as well. He probably thinks we should let Bradly Manning off the hook too. After all, every 18 year old punk with a clearance should be able to decide what information should be public and what should be classified. Hell, let's just let everyone in the military do what they want! We don't need no stinkin rules!

[Alvin_Walton40]

Part of the this punishment is public humiliation. Seals can't like getting clowned by every news outlet on the planet.

[wantarace17]

People with TS-SCI's, which i'm assuming these guys have (had) are not suppose to talk about ANYTHING job related, it's my understanding these types of clearances are stripped for much lesser reasons.

More then likely it is much higher to FSP level...

[GoSkins561]

People with TS-SCI's, which i'm assuming these guys have (had) are not suppose to talk about ANYTHING job related, it's my understanding these types of clearances are stripped for much lesser reasons.

[PeterMP]

I suspect this is essentially a warning.

The powers that be don't like what direction this sort of thing is going and are telling those down the rank to knock it off before somebody goest to far.

[wantarace17]

People with TS-SCI's, which i'm assuming these guys have (had) are not suppose to talk about ANYTHING job related, it's my understanding these types of clearances are stripped for much lesser reasons.

More then likely it is much higher to FSP level...

[GoSkins561]

More then likely it is much higher to FSP level...

Regardless, I would be surprised if they still had any type of clearance. I looked it up, according to the NAVY SEAL website, the minimal requirement for a SEAL is only a Secret..