Today on the RealClearDefense podcast "Hot Wash," host John Sorensen and RCD contributor John Waters speak with Matthew Cole about his new book, “Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team 6." Cole is an investigative journalist at ‘The Intercept’ and has covered national security since 2005, traveling extensively in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East to cover American conflicts and U.S. intelligence operations. 

In the book Cole details a long history of alleged wrongdoing including war crimes by members of the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and efforts to cover-up that behavior demonstrating a fundamental flaw in the Unit’s culture. 

Officially designated Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU, everyone knows them as SEAL Team 6, and they are far from secret, spawning a whole genre of tell all books by former members, and fictionalized accounts of dramatic missions portrayed in films and television. Has public hero worship and the military’s extensive reliance on these highly skilled operators over the past two decades allowed them to be largely immune to oversight, obeying a different set of rules? Is there a problem with SEAL team culture? 

Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six  at Amazon.com

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