Payback for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
Deliberately set up.
It sure was
My bet is that ValJar and Duh-1 were supposed to run interference for OBL and thwart any surgical strike.
Oops, they failed. Panetta had a loose go-ahead based on an if you get the chance, take him down generalization, but IIRC at least a couple of ops had been scrubbed at the highest level.
I'd wager the WH didn't know until things were going down.
Keeping that in mind, recall the movie Fail Safe?
Setting up those SEALs was like Henry Fonda giving the order to nuke New York.
While AQ might not seem like a threat here, who knows what they have smuggled through our porous borders looking like peons or drug mules? Why else would the FedGov spend so much time and energy maintaining its monopoly on border control--and in some areas doing a frankly lousy job.
With the heavy MB influences at the highest levels in the FedGov, some people had to answer to their handlers.
Exactly!!!