Shades of Operation Red Wing (Seal Team 1) all over again. Not good.
The comments made on the CNN page are disgusting.
Interesting to review that. ROEs and comm equipment failures led to the deaths of a lot of good men. Cell phones work reliably even in Holestan but we can't give the best trained fighters in the world a good satphone to talk to the Ops Commander. Funny, isn't it. I mean if iPhone's don't work Apple stock takes a nosedive and if they don't fix it they are out of business. But a defense contract where lives are at stake just goes on and on and on, an Energizer Bunny laying golden eggs.
I think another question about strategy is in order, which is, does this really work, is it really worth it? I fully understand decapitating the enemy by taking out HVTs, and using active measures of disruption, but when we are talking about SEAL TEAM 6 kinds of guys, this is really really expensive, and really really expensive when you lose 20 of them on a rescue op. There are alternatives using 500lb laser guided bombs or laying down cluster bombs on a bunch of guys pinning down a position (way where is tac air in all of this?). Of course there is more collateral damage, but if you cannot take the collateral damage, and I will concede that we might not be able to, then maybe you just decide you should not fight the damned war in the first place.
We will now change our SOP for rescue missions. We got away with going in pellmell up to now. The enemy, if you give him time to survive, will evolve.
Nuke Iran NOW.