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.