The SEAL Team Raid, the Pentagon, Trump and how the media is trying to play it...

Thanks to Josephine for the link!

via the Guardian.

The US military has launched an investigation into the scale of civilian casualties in a botched special forces raid against a suspected al-Qaida base in Yemen, the first such mission to be approved by Donald Trump, as questions mount over the operation.

After initially denying there had been any civilian casualties in Sunday’s raid, US Central Command (Centcom), which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East and central Asia, acknowledged some of the dead may have included women and children, though claimed some of the women were armed.

Then this.

Both the New York Times and Reuters carried quotes from unnamed military officials that seemed to shift blame for the mission to Trump and his inner team. It would be an extraordinary development for a president, who is commander-in-chief, to be briefed against in such detail.
The briefings suggested that one thing after another went wrong from the start of the mission, with the Yemen villagers seemingly alerted to the impending raid by drones flying lower than usual.
The special forces, apparently lacking full intelligence, were confronted by heavily-fortified positions, including landmines, and faced heavy gunfire from buildings all around during the 50-minute firefight. One of the US planes sent in to help had to be left behind and was deliberately destroyed.

Story here. 

This story is a tempest in a tea pot.

Anyone that's been anywhere near the military know the sad truth.  The planning for these missions happen at SOCOM.  The intel is determined to be "well developed" or not at SOCOM.  When the mission is "ripe" is determined at SOCOM.

The President deciding to sign off on the mission is just that.

The President isn't a defense analyst, mission planner, and he damn sure isn't an operator.

The failure of this mission rests with SOCOM, intel agencies and Murphy.

The news media is trying to play up civilian casualties, poor planning etc...as being the fault of Trump.  Like I said.  ANYONE WITH COMMON SENSE KNOWS BETTER!

What has me spinning is that there are people with the necessary knowledge that are running with this reporting (even though they know better) because they're anti-Trump.

Never mind the fact that we've seen bodies of civilians lined up like firewood when a drone strike from previous administrations eradicated many more people from the face of the earth (I'm reminded of a certain wedding party that left many more people dead but much less outrage).

The anti-Trump hysteria is becoming boring.  The fact that some in the military MIGHT be dabbling in it is infuriating.  If anything, I'd bet SOCOM tried to impress the new boss and fucked up royally...but that's just me.