Navy SEAL survives Hell Week, ventilates bin Laden’s skull
A bullet in Bin Laden’s head is a victory for free people everywhere, today and throughout history.
Congratulations and well done to everybody involved in gathering the intel, putting it together, tracking him down, and putting him on ice. Way to go, SEAL Team 6!
And it is the most delicious of ironies, knowing that a Navy SEAL popped bin Laden. Navy SEALs, you see, just like all other elite Special Forces, must endure special “Hell Week” training meant to test their will to endure punishment. It includes things many of us would consider torture. Things like this:
They look pretty uncomfortable, don’t they? Swallowing some water, maybe even breathing it in. Another event that SEALs must complete is swimming 50-100 yards underwater, fully clothed. Some of them pass out underwater and have to be hauled out and revived, or they would drown. This is part of their training.
Our own military subjects our own citizens - and sometimes, non-citizens! - to treatment that is just as bad as anything suffered by the thugs and scumbags at Guantanamo. Worse, really.
And guess what? We used intel gained from these same thugs and scumbags at Guantanamo to start this investigation way back in the days after 9-11.
In the process, maybe a few of those Guantanamo thugs and scumbags were a little uncomfortable for a while, since they were subject to enhanced interrogation techniques like being forced to listen to loud Christina Aguilera music, to stay awake, and also to enjoy - and gain weight from - the McDonald’s Happy Meals they requested from our interrogators. The evil bastards!
Even worse, maybe some of them were forced to breathe in some water during waterboarding and cry out to their mommies a few times.
Or even a thousand times.
You know what? Who gives a shit?
Hey, that might resonate with me if we didn’t already subject our own military Special Forces to similar treatment to see how tough they are, and to weed out the ones who - like me, no doubt - wouldn’t survive the cut.
The thugs and scumbags survived and didn’t get their heads sawed off, like Daniel Pearl who was murdered in cold blood by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, on tape. Funny how we don’t focus on that much, eh?
Take a look at the picture above, one more time. Those are Navy SEALS - like the one who ended up air-conditioning bin Laden’s head - going through Hell Week. Is that torture too? If not, why not?
So … where is the argument here? That we should provide nicer treatment to enemy combatants - caught when not wearing a uniform or fighting under a sovereign flag - than to our own military? Really?
Newsflash: throughout history, enemy combatants caught wearing civilian clothes have been shot in the head and left for dead, on the battlefield. For centuries, this was accepted international protocol in the laws of war, and everybody did it, including the United States. Suddenly, we’re supposed to round up these scumbags - and they are scumbags, nearly every single one of them, because they do stuff like this - and put them though our criminal justice system? That’s not smart, and there is no justification for it, and it rewards the disregard of the laws of war and the Geneva Convention, and makes us less safe, and emboldens the enemy. On top of all that, it sends an unmistakable message that we are fundamentally unserious about protecting ourselves. Do we need to go into more reasons?
So, in light of all that, plus a lot more I won’t even go into here, I just don’t see any reason to feel bad about our treatment of Guantanamo detainees, or to fear for our liberties, or to see America’s unique role in the world diminished by our conduct in pursuit of protecting ourselves, our nation, and our interests.
Like this comment I saw earlier today: “Apparently, sometimes war is the answer.”
Well done, SEALs. Well-fucking-done!
