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[Wolfhunter107]

The Americans had to blow up their own plane that landed badly. I really don't think that was specifically a contingency that actually got planned for. They didn't have enough forces in place to pull this off and deal with all contingencies in other words. Equipment failure is something you plan for, especially expensive equipment such as miltary aircraft.

Yep. Loss and self-destruction of an aircraft or vehicle is not something that is planned for at any stage in American military doctrine. Everyone knows that Ospreys are very reliable and recovery of aircraft in the middle of Yemen is a trivial operation.

When you're forced to blow up your own aircraft when you in fact had complete air superiority until a week ago ... that's not normal expectations for loss of aircraft and vehicles. Sure, you expect that some vehicles will be lost. You don't do a proper planning mission and one small thing goes wrong, then you have to blow up a perfectly good aircraft that you own. If the thing was completely useless, they would have had little reason to expend resource on an airstrike to blow up the downed Osprey. So that shows it was in good enough condition that the rebels could appropriate it and fix it.

Actually, destroying downed aircraft is standard operating procedure. There's no way that they could have safely recovered it, so they denied it to the enemy by destroying it. Same as they did with the Blackhawk in Pakistan when we went after Bin Laden, and I don't see anyone call that an unplanned mission.

[Vilanat]

The distance between a successful operation like Entebbe or Bin Laden's and a disastrous one like the Battle of Mogadishu or operation Red Wings can be as little as an inch.

[Strife26]

I'm sure glad that you're willing to share your assessment of the target and your assessment of the risk assessment of a raid into Yemen with us.

[smjjames]

Yeah, that's sort of what I had in mind. Trump comes along and says "give me a target", and then the Pentagon picks a known target. Then they pull out the dossier they keep on each target with all the various proposals and discussions of possible miltary actions that could be taken. I mean, for any one military target there are existing plans all the way from raids to drone attacks up to literally nuking the whole planet. There are in fact written plans for doing everything up to WWIII (and about 100 variants of how to do WWIII). The vast majority of military planning documents never get off paper.

That's so wrong I don't even know where to start. In fact, I don't feel like emptying the Augean Stables today, so I'll just heartily recommend that you read about what deep penetration raids entail. Long story short, it's completely and totally a normal expectation.

I still think it's very poorly conceived. The military target involved here doesn't seem to be worth the escalation of effort that's gone into it. Sure, risk is a thing, and risking an elite forces team with hundreds of millions worth of gear and training .... that's not worth what they hit.

I agree that it doesn't look great when you lose an Osprey, but there is a saying "every battle plan dies on contact with the enemy", it's the military's version of "expect everything that can possibly go wrong, to go wrong". I'm not sure who is more meticulous in making contingency plans, NASA or the military. The military has a lot more to make contingency plans out of.

[muldrake]

The distance between a successful operation like Entebbe or Bin Laden's and a disastrous one like the Battle of Mogadishu or operation Red Wings can be as little as an inch.

Pretty much this.  While there are definitely times something was obviously stupid and ill-conceived from the very beginning and disaster was inevitable, in many or even most cases, the success of a military operation is pure contingency.

Fucking RNGs.  Even in reality, they're rigged.

[Starver]

Fucking RNGs.  Even in reality, they're rigged.

You need to use the right RNG...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Everyone knows that Ospreys are very reliable and recovery of aircraft in the middle of Yemen is a trivial operation.

Mr. Strife, we of the Senate Committee on American Greatness have called you here today due to a number of concerning statements regarding the equipment of our armed forces, which are the envy of the world. Are you now or have you ever been a member of American People Against Ospreys, the International Comission On VTOL Craft, the aerospace department of any college or business, or any other such slanderous organizations?

You don't do a proper planning mission and one small thing goes wrong, then you have to blow up a perfectly good aircraft that you own. If the thing was completely useless, they would have had little reason to expend resource on an airstrike to blow up the downed Osprey. So that shows it was in good enough condition that the rebels could appropriate it and fix it.

You do realize that the US Military doesn't want its secrets falling into other people's hands, right? It doesn't have to be a usable aircraft anymore. It barely has to have anything left. They'd bomb it in to dust just to get rid of the electronics specs.

[majikero]

Shit has officially hit the fan as Customs and Border Protection officers are detaining people and ignoring federal court orders by refusing people access to lawyers. And turn away Congressmen as well, which I assume are also lawyers.

And they're also detaining US citizens with dual citizenship and now sending people to offsite detention centers.

Edit. This is happening in Dulles Airport outside DC.

[TheBiggerFish]

What?

Where?

Sources?

This is nuts...

[smjjames]

Shit has officially hit the fan as Customs and Border Protection officers are detaining people and ignoring federal court orders by refusing people access to lawyers. And turn away Congressmen as well, which I assume are also lawyers.

And they're also detaining US citizens with dual citizenship and now sending people to offsite detention centers.

Edit. This is happening in Dulles Airport outside DC.

What?

Where?

Sources?

This is nuts...

One word: CHAOS

[Strife26]

Gentlemen of the Senate Committee, fuck you and fuck yo' subpoena.

[majikero]

https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/825797672258961409
"We have a constitutional crisis today. Four Members of Congress asked CBP officials to enforce a federal court order and were turned away."

https://twitter.com/AdamBlickstein/status/825837466213052416
"This is astonishing from same lawyer friend on the ground at Dulles. CBP basically creating travel ban black sites"

[Wolfhunter107]

Can the president be arrested for contempt of court?

[Strife26]

https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/825797672258961409
"We have a constitutional crisis today. Four Members of Congress asked CBP officials to enforce a federal court order and were turned away."

https://twitter.com/AdamBlickstein/status/825837466213052416
"This is astonishing from same lawyer friend on the ground at Dulles. CBP basically creating travel ban black sites"

Welp guys. It's time to see if our checks and balances still check and balance. The US Constitution is nearly undefeated, but she's pretty decrepit these days . . .

[Reelya]

Sure, I know why they did that (blow up the plane). I'm not disputing the need to blow up your own stuff to stop the enemy getting it. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that the plan, the successful parts, seem to have not achieved any tangible objectives:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-raid-in-yemen-authorised-by-trump/news-story/c23666bcee5074a0d36ccdb1f5213b46

"The operation began at dawn when a drone bombed the home of Abdulraoof al-Dhahab and then helicopters flew up and unloaded paratroopers at his house and killed everyone inside," said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Next, the gunmen opened fire at the US soldiers who left the area, and the helicopters bombed the gunmen and a number of homes and led to a large number of casualties."

A Yemeni security officer and a local official corroborated that account. Fahd, a local resident who asked that only his first name be used, said several bodies remained under debris and that houses and the local mosque were damaged in the attack.

Basically they shot people in a house, then the Seals took off out of there. The Pentagon made the standard statement about how this raid netted them information about future terrorist attacks, but considering that they neither seem to have secured any suspects nor been around long enough to collect documents, i can't see how that's possible. The line about this providing information about future terrorist attacks is "boiler plate language" basically.

So what I'm saying is that the plan, the successful part of the plan, didn't seem to secure any objective that would be worth the risks to men and equipment. At the very least, this should be done in conjunction with Yemen ground forces, who can secure and search the site for information and capture prisoners. None of that was part of this operation's parameters.