McCain please shut up.
For crying out loud.
2500 Military died under Obama, McCain never said one word..
Ditto. This isn’t hard to figure out—even for McCain.
Our troops have been in Niger for years. We built a drone base there, for UAV missions across North Africa. SF arrived about the same time, to help train local security forces in Mali and Niger, and to support the French, who have conducted a counter-insurgency campaign in their former colony for years.
The patrol was essentially a training mission, in a supposedly safe area, despite its proximity to the border. Very clear that the local ISIS affiliate did its homework on our training patterns and set up a deadly ambush. BTW, the area was considered “safe enough” that the patrol had no UAV support, and medevac/CAS support (if needed) was entrusted to the French.
Predictability in ops and training (and assuming that safe areas will always remain that way) can have deadly consequences.
John McCain got plenty of ‘splainin’ of his own to do.
Which we shall not be witness to.
I don’t think asking why we are deployed somewhere is an unreasonable question.... If this had been under Obama’s watch folks here would be demanding it.
No fan of McCain, but that question is not unreasonable.