I hate to be captain obvious again, but maybe people have not noticed this story. Something isn’t right and just doesn’t add up. The events took place last Thursday, the comments by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby are today.
Look at the contrast between what U.S. Central Command put out -vs- the first AP report on the same incident.
Now look at the AP FIRST NOTICE reporting:
Two U.S. Navy SEALs are missing after conducting a nighttime boarding mission Thursday off the coast of Somalia, according to three U.S. officials.
The SEALs were on an interdiction mission, climbing up a vessel when one got knocked off by high waves. Under their protocol, when one SEAL is overtaken the next jumps in after them.
Both SEALs are still missing. A search and rescue mission is underway and the waters in the Gulf of Aden, where they were operating, are warm, two of the U.S. officials said. (read more)
We are supposed to believe that two naval special force operators, Navy SEALS, doing a ship-to-ship transfer, fully kitted, fell into the water, suddenly disappeared and could not be located in the two days between the CentCom announcement (Jan 11) and the AP report (Jan 13).
Eh… nope. Sketchy!
So, here’s National Security Council spokesman John Kirby today. WATCH:
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Notice the emphasis on…. “The mission was not related to Operation Prosperity Guardian, the ongoing U.S. and international mission to provide protection to commercial vessels in the Red Sea, or the retaliatory strikes that the United States and the United Kingdom have conducted in Yemen over the past two days.”…
Sorry, but when you spend so much time telling me what it is not, I suspect it is exactly what you say it isn’t.
So, my non-pretending Occam’s razor takeaway:
Two Navy SEAL combat “KIA’s”, killed in action directly as a result of U.S. operations in/around Yemen, have been turned into two innocuous Navy SEAL “MIA’s” because their death would be politically problematic for the administration.
Whatever the illegitimate government says, believe the exact opposite and you will invariably be proven right.
Yeah, right…my husband was a SEAL team 5 Commander & quit cause of bad Intel that could get his men killed. They set SEALs up on purpose in order to make a narrative fit their agenda. 😡
just as was done with the helicopter full of seal team six in Afghanistan. they had to die because they got Osama bin Laden.
Not to be nit picky Jim, but did you mean because “they got Osama Bin Laden?” 😉
You know what was meant.
According to Rob O’Neill, the man credited with putting Osama Bin Laden down, all those on SEAL Team 6 involved in that mission are still alive. He would know.
I don’t believe O’Neill. I believe the guys that claim they shot someone and dumped a body in the ocean and it wasn’t UBL. Rob O’Neill sells a narrative. Reality is Bin Laden was probably dead of renal failure before Bush left office.
“The Houthi’s have a choice to make here, Margaret.”
Yes, boys and girls, it’s all about the choices you make.
So, are you going to be a good Houthi, or are you going to be a bad Houthi?
What a waste of valuable men. … If factual.
Maybe they weren’t valued men. Maybe they didn’t even identify as men.
Maybe they were the standard incompetent, unteachable diversity recruits whom the SEALS were forced to accept into their ranks.
Maybe they were removed from the equation. Or their own incompetence removed them.
This!!! It is definitely something that must be considered today. The military is not what it was even a few years ago. The DIE rot has spread to all units. Even the SEAL teams.
There has been ongoing investigation of BUD/S training due to deaths and reports that most are taking performance enhancing drugs to get through the training.
Very interesting question. Ignored by all.
What is our interest in yemen
The houthis live there…
I thought it was American (commercial) ships attacked — the kind of thing that PDT would take quick and efficient action over — and then it would be finished. But the info coming out of there is sketchy, so I don’t know if I’m correct.
Bibi Netanyahu hates Iran, and Houthis are Iranian backed, so America must fight all of Israel’s enemies. It’s literally that simple. Same for Russia just swap NATO with Israel.
Aren’t Navy Seals trained to survive in high seas? They are water survivalists, doesn’t make sense they couldn’t survive a fall into the sea, gear or no gear.
fully kitted? can’t you read?
Part of full kit for MAROPs includes both hard cell (foam insert) and inflatable (manually actuated CO2) flotation devices. Also standard load out includes high visibility strobes, both IR and Vis. However, things happen and depending on sea state and speed, once you go over a wave peak, the strobe is basically useless. Could take a long time to get air on station for search and rescue. Even though the water is warm, you can die of hypothermia in 80 degree water.
I’m skeptical of anything they say, however having been there, it’s not totally unbelievable that they lost two at sea.
One thing that sticks out suspiciously though, is that it’s protocol for another to jump in after. 10 years in the teams and Never heard that before. Weird. We would just move the boat so you don’t crush the dude and circle back to get him with the boat. Then continue the hook and climb.
The sad part of this is that their families will not get the same benefits and commendations they would have if they were considered combat deaths. This happened in Nam. People sent to Laos and Cambodia to fight were not acknowledged as combat losses. Sometime they were not even acknowledged at all.
It seemed odd to me that such seemingly classified information about operations would be stressed in a corporate piece….
Eight foot swells are not “High Seas” The Air temp was warm, the water was warm. Maybe they were night surfing.
On a paddleboard, like Tafari.
Now if only we knew where that notorious moslem sodomite and his husband, that big, ugly male transvestite “Michelle” were really at right then…
“The water was warm” here, too:
Wow, just compare the shoulder-widths of these two…
My son was recon , I find it highly unlikely they drowned.
He told they’d drop them off in the ocean at night, on the west coast ,close to ten miles off shore , and they’d have to swim to shore .
Your assuming they were at sea and not covert in Yemen.
Why would we believe Kirby? He recently insisted that in Afghanistan we didn’t abandon any military military equipment.
Lying mouthpiece for Joe Biden. If he lies enough we will believe him?
I just watched Colonel Douglas Mac Gregor’s most recent YouTube interview. It’s 1.5hrs long but worth it. Excellent assessment of where our country is right now. 😞 I don’t know how to post the link as I’m not very tech savvy.
This one?
‘admiral’ John Kirby, how far can one man fall?
‘admiral’ Rachel Levine, that’s how far.
This admin deserves what we do to feces (normal people not homeless in California) they need to be flushed. They have done so much to harm this country and its citizens. What they have sown may they themselves reap a hundred fold.
Anyone remember what happened to Seal Team 6?
Stories like this make you really want to send your sons and daughters into the military to protect and defend this administration’s lies!
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-sees-sharp-decline-white-recruits.html
Too easy to get tagged as a “white supremacist.”
Notice how “white” is the only color in lower case.
🙏🏻
Kirby is putting together a cruise ship scenario for an example of what can happen on a naval ship
Or perhaps the incapable, untrainable and non-team-player diversity recruits forcibly placed into the SEALS were cleansed from the equation.
Kirby will put together a cruise ship example of what can happen on a naval vessel in war zones
I was a Navy wife for 3 yrs during the Vietnam War, with my jr line officer husband going on deployment for 6 mos in 1970. We lived on the base at Pearl Harbor, in housing that was built before December 7, 1941. I got a job as a sales clerk at the Navy Exchange Uniform Shop, right across from the destroyer (type of ship) pier. Never did I meet up with a jerk like Adm Kirby. CINCPAC Adm. McCain was right there on the base, consumed with worry about son John Jr, who was a prisoner of the N Vietnamese (we all know how his later behavior was a net-negative!), but still the senior McCain and Mrs. McCain tried to keep morale high. Then we had CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) Admiral & Mrs. Elmo Zumwalt come for a visit to the troops/Navy dependents at Pearl. Long reception line to meet them. There is no way that Kirby would fit into that class of officer back then. His promotions would have stopped at Commander, if he made it that high!
I was son of Navy family living in Pearl City (peninsula) housing (june’65-june’70) but spent 4mths in one of those pre-WWII units…which was better than Fort De Rousey on Waikiki. Got to meet CINCPAC Adm. McCain and his wife at a housewarming. After watching their son over these past decades, I found that sr. was much like in behavior then as was his son much later. The decline in competency of recruits/draftees was noticeable as early as 1972.
U.S. sending Targeting Officers to Israel to pick out targets for bombing/killing.
US Secretly Sent ‘Targeting Officers’ To Aid Israel’s War In Gaza | ZeroHedge
More proof that Israel is loosing. Desperation is setting in. Israel is running out of Hospitals, Churches, and Schools to bomb.
I think they are running new systems. The pounding Hamas is taking leads one to think there is a new way of doing things.
Hamas and Hezbollah have learned well from the Russians. Dig in, Stay dug in, Let your enemy come to you.
Fight a long war of attrition.
Israel does not know how to fight this type of warfare. If Ukraine is an example The US does not understand it either.
… said the rabbit to the hare…
I agree that this stinks to high heaven but the two SEALs may not have been killed, maybe they were captured by Hamas or maybe even Iranian soldiers or some other terrorists group.
They have to deny the real mission as it is another military attack on a country without Congressional approval. In a terrorism world, Congress should give blanket approval to killing terrorists anytime, anywhere, but make it Constitutionally legal.
NO. Biden has already declared who the ‘real’ terrorist are. I don’t want him ‘legally’ going after MAGA any more than he already does,
This wouldn’t have happened if Demi Moore was one of the Navy SEALs.
Jordan O’Neil would have survived.
Maybe they were trying to sink a cargo ship so they could blame it on Yemen and something went wrong?
Not as easy to blow up like the Nordstream Pipeline?
Very Strange Indeed! Navy Seals are not trained to lose their lives.
I am prior US Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team member. I have conducted nighttime boarding ops in the Red Sea during Desert Storm, in addition to hundreds of tactical boardings for drug enforcement. The biggest red flag in this narrative is that the sea state was so heavy that operators climbing up a ship’s ladder were knocked into the water. If the swells were that heavy it would have made a ship-to-ship boarding impossible. The story just doesn’t make sense. Also, I’ve never heard of any SEAL policy that you have to jump in after a man is overboard. The SAR assets from the Navy ship would respond to a man-overboard. The SEALs would continue the mission.
Agree.
I was on a BG staff that assumed operational control for drug ops in the Caribbean for a month. Every mission has go/no go criteria.
No info at all on CSAR ops?
What was the mission objective? Interdiction of what?
U.S. Navy SEALs lost during ‘rough sea’ operation to thwart Iranian arms shipment
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/iran-eastern-states/1705302731-u-s-navy-seals-lost-during-rough-sea-operation-to-thwart-iranian-arms-shipment
Fwiw…
When Special Operators are killed on a mission their deaths are hidden by claiming them to be “accidental” at a later time. But why would the Navy try to hide their deaths by claiming a massive SAR op? Normally, they would just wait for a helicopter crash and add the names to the list of people killed.
I am so sick of being lied to by these assholes. What are they hiding?
And the media would not print/publish policy for the world to see? (well, wait a minute….)
Yes…a career PAO speaking to National Security.
All you need to know!
I love “Suspicious Cat”.
I also translated the Helicopter crash in Australia two months ago as a cover for their deaths in Ukraine.
Maybe they got shot by the people on the boat.
Just despicable, low-life scum of the earth this man is.
So sad and utterly reprehensible.
WTH are our forces over there for? This is not our war nor should we be hanging around trying to start something up to fuel the MIC and Congressional Warhawks.
12% of world trade passes through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. That’s worth protecting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/01/14/navy-seals-lost-at-sea-iran-weapons-yemen/&hl=en&gl=us
“Navy SEALs lost at sea were searching for Yemen-bound weapons shipmentThe dangerous ship-boarding mission was ordered after U.S. officials suspected a vessel transiting the Gulf of Aden was transporting Iranian arms”
Given the location and nature of apparently clandestine boarding, I suspect a combat related loss rather than a “…fall from a boarding ladder”. Direct firefight with Iranian assets and the Administration fear of acknowledging such a thing seems a possible explanation.
Chadd Wright is a Navy SEAL who has legit “been there done that” credibility, and here is his take on this terrible tragedy. Navy SEAL’s Missing Off Coast Of Somalia | What Might Have Happened (youtube.com)
There are other VBSS videos on youtube.
Amplifying info/additional thoughts: this mission, per one of the videos, is for anti-piracy.
Two personnel obviously do not constitute an entire team.
The teams obviously train for events like falling into the ocean…so Chad’s comments need to be placed into probability context.
A mishap may very well have happened. Nevertheless, the American people have not been told why United States armed forces (not Law Enforcement) were tasked; why the ship was being boarded; why happened after the mishap – no mission completion? No follow-on VBSS especially in view of risk taken that resulted in loss of life? Or, was the mission completed with the two casualties?
Sundance is correct: given what happened in Benghazi how can we know this is not another cover-up?
I’ve read some follow-on stories that they were interdicting weapons or weapons parts bound for Yemen.
Plenty of airchair admirals offering absurd opinions. I’m offering an experienced opinion from someone who has been there and done that.
Thanks!
P-Sq’d – not questioning your thought process or Chad’s detailed description of VBSS risks. I hold nothing but profound respect for the SEAL community. Worked with a team (way) back in the day in a very limited (liaison) role during workups and a deployment.
I’m piecing together/questioning the other threads of the narrative – not the mishap. Interdiction of weapons bound for Yemen clearly has implications beyond what we have been told.
May the families of the fallen servicemen achieve closure.
Face(paint) the Nation.
What a clown show.
The way it’s going, we’re headed for Face (plant) the Nation.
Not only the time spent in denial, but as well, the tone of the response indicates fraud.
A calm, short statement without the heavy weight on each sylable would have possibly been believable.
Sometimes it’s not always a conspiracy…I’m a former Operator still connected to this very small community and the “new guy” fell off the boarding web, old guy tried to catch him and they both went in.
So NOW we are being told it was a dhow the SEALs were boarding! A dhow, a small sailing vessel. No boarding ladder would be used for that. The narrative changes daily…
Please research dhows before making statements like that. Some dhows are 120+ feet long and have freeboard that would require a ladder.
Maybe. I’ve never boarded one that required a ladder. Just a step from boat-to-boat.
Hmm, I actually thought I read somewhere that they were shot at, from above, as they were climbing up the side of the vessel….. NOT knocked down by a “WAVE”.
It’s always 180 degrees from the bow…
Yes! I know that I am late to comment about this, okay.
Nullius in Verba
( On the Word of No Man)
I have been reading the article and through the Comment Section. In the Comment Section there were several confusing statements made. Obviously no one commenting seemed to current Navy SEAL training. There were numerous people who made comments using acronyms (and some used the wrong letters for the acronym) as if everyone reading their Reply was a Navy SEAL, which is extremely frustrating for me. Acronyms (without the words in parentheses that explain what the acronym stands for) like;
EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacons)
PFDs (Personal Flotation Devices)
PLBs (Personal Locator Beacons)
MAROPs (either; Marine Operations or Maritime Operations, not sure what the person commenting was using it to stand for)
In researching that last one I came across;
Business Insider Shows;
US Special-Operations Units Have a Daring Way to Storm Enemy Ships
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-special-operations-vbss-daring-way-to-storm-enemy-ships-2021-1
Task and Purpose Shows;
Navy SEALs Describe How Boarding A Ship Is A Team’s ‘Sketchiest’ Mission
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-seals-sketchy-vbss/
Hopefully this information, even though it is probably way too late to be of any use to anyone, might help to enlighten us on SEALs training for boarding a vessel.