It was worse than that. Was was done with them borders on criminal in MY opinion. SEAL teams are NOT combat infantry assault forces,and should have never been used as such.
Were those seals placed there to be harmed by those who were jealous of their real potential?
No,it was even sillier than that. They were wasted (yes,a correct word for what happened) merely because the Navy brass wanted a "piece of the combat pie" and bragging rights when time came for a new budget. Never mind the fact that what they were ordered to do was rightly a job the USMC were far better qualified and trained to accomplish.
It seemed to me that some of these bad trips for Seals and other Spec Ops would have been better served by Airborne troopers with more fire power and more men trained like airborne troopers.
The Marine version of airborne would have been better than the Seals in these situations as you pointed out.
I can remember hearing stories of Navy Brass refusing to give Army Spec Ops rides on Navy ships for missions. Then, the Army Brass not giving seals and marine raiders rides on their helicopters or airplanes capable of bringing in a small fighting force. Then, the Air Force developing its own Spec Ops so not to deal with Navy, Marine or you guys.
Re the snipers. I never meant that they were the ultimate, just that they like Airborne seem to be discounted for be so effective due to better training of good men, that the brass would hide their accomplishments to get bigger budgets often for expensive and not all that effective war toys.