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Plague of US preachers falsely claim to be Navy SEALs

'They don't understand the internet' says fake-frogman outer

Shipley the ex-SEAL doesn't think the Act is necessary anyway, at any rate not in this case.

"Just having his ass spanked is enough for him that he won’t do it again any longer. He needs highlighted,” Shipley says.

You can read reports on the Moats case from the Pennsylvania Patriot-News here and here. ®

Bootnotes

Osama was killed by operatives from the unit formally known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka NAVSPECWARDEVGRU or simply DevGru etc, or under its former name as SEAL Team Six. Team Six was renamed after some controversies surrounding the unit accounts and the conduct of its colourful inaugural 1980s commander Richard Marcinko.

Though technically the US government has not specified that it was Team Six who killed Osama, one might note that the other SEAL Teams are regarded as "Tier Two" special-ops forces: an ordinary SEAL, already having passed through extremely arduous training, must undergo further selection and evaluation before being judged worthy to move up into the "Tier One" DEVGRU.

A mission targeted on Osama bin Laden himself would surely be a Tier One job, and one can safely assume that Army spec-ops forces would not choose to dub the effort Operation Neptune Spear. Quite apart from the general maritime symbolism, the SEALs' famous "Budweiser" chest badge features an eagle, an anchor, a pistol - and of course a trident as carried by King Neptune, overlord of the briny deeps.

The more well-known UK special forces - the SAS, SBS and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (aka 14 Int/the Dets) are all judged to be Tier One. The UK has a Tier Two combat formation now as well, the Special Forces Support Group created in 2005 by moving the 1st battalion of the Parachute Regiment into the Directorate of Special Forces and adding certain other personnel including some Royal Marine Commandos. The SFSG is intended for the same sort of uses as the US Army Rangers. In a mild turn-up for the books, an ex-SFSG paratroop officer was recently elected as Labour MP for Barnsley Central.

We would like to point out for those who can't get enough of Team Six that we at the Reg exclusively published full details on the secretive unit's home-cinema setup (iPod dock included) back in 2009.

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