Well, maybe not so explosive to those who know what SEAL Team VI’s mission is.

The NYT’s story is an accurate report of what Seal Tm VI does with a healthy dose of false righteous indignation at not knowing all the details of every mission.  The writers put their bias on display with an insidious writing technique.  Early on they create a huge shadow of doubt citing questionable events in a highly negative manner, some of which happened decades earlier to only slowly address them later in the article where they resulted in appropriate consequences for the guilty or proved to be unfounded.

The most blatant is early in the article relating a rescued American doctor’s doubt about the necessity of killing “all” his captors painting a subliminal message of bloodthirsty SEALs.  You have to go through thousands of words to get to the end of the article with that shadow of wrongdoing hanging over you.  In the close the writers lay out the details of an extremely close quarters battle where the lead SEAL is killed by a shot to the head, the doctor’s fuzzy version of events conflicts with the SEALs and the doctor even admits “It took me weeks to come to terms with the efficiency of the rescue,” Dr. Joseph said. “It was so surgical.”

SEAL Tm VI has had some members engage in questionable behavior but in every case the sailor reacted to what he perceived as a personal mortal threat.  Those cases where there was appropriate doubt in the clear spotlight of hindsight the sailor was separated from the unit.

The article is well worth reading.  Just be prepared to hear the subliminal message that most of the writers don’t like the way a select group does a difficult job, one they would/could never do.