Last week, Central Command said that two sailors went missing at sea while conducting operations off the coast of Somalia. The two sailors, US Navy SEALs, were conducting a nighttime boarding mission off the coast of Somalia. The pair were climbing aboard a vessel when high waves knocked one into the sea. The second SEAL jumped in after the other as part of Navy SEAL protocol to help a partner in distress and both vanished.
Two days later the public is treated to this by AP.
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
Note that by this time the missing individuals were not just sailors, they were specialized operators. On Sunday, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson went on Face The Nation. Kirby was asked about the missing SEALs who have not been located at this time. Kirby took pains to emphasize that this operation was not connected to Operation Prosperity Guardian.
“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.”
Now, our government would never lie to the public, would it?
US Special Operators like SEALs have waterproof, ruggedized Emergency Personal Locator Beacons that they can activate if they get hurt or in distress. Navy CSAR can home in on them. They also have IR strobes, radios, and other methods of being found and rescued. It might be possible one beacon failed but two SEALs together with no way to find them? Not very likely.
This smells to high heaven. The non-pretending story probably goes like this:
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. What the operation was the public will probably never know.
