Is Seal Team 6 really just another gang of thugs? A deep dive by The Intercept, one of our favourite muckraking outlets, looks at how America’s most celebrated elite fighting group is being investigated for allegedly fostering a culture of battlefield abuse and cover-up. Relying on interviews of former and current Seal Team 6 members, the article catalogs the strings of incidents and the authorities’ inability to rein the unit in. It all started during the Afghanistan war in 2001, when of their own was felled at the peak in the Shah-i-Kot valley in Afghanistan. Before he could be saved, he was killed and beheaded by insurgents. According to accounts, this one act hit at their belief of invincibility and infected the 300-man unit, helping change their own internal rules of how to conduct themselves in war both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Revenge came 48 hours later when a wedding party was massacred by Chinook helicopters and the dead allegedly desecrated by the Seal Team 6 operators. The Navy reportedly turned a blind eye, setting in motion a culture that the unit could police itself and its own members so long as they got results when on-mission. Subsequent atrocities reportedly include the act of “canoeing” (we won’t go into it). If you know Hollywood’s portrayal of the Seals, The Intercept’s is the polar opposite.