Subject: Re: Trumpedo: "guns-a-blazing," baby
Okay. So we have a command in Africa and have had Special Forces there in the past:

Yeah- I thought this might be where you were going.

From your linked article:

<> The Times reported that a letter of reprimand given to Perozeni cited the team’s insufficient training and a lack of mission rehearsals. The two senior officers who approved the mission and oversaw the ill-fated operation were not reprimanded, according to the Times, while Hicks was reprimanded for not having appropriate oversight of the officers below him.
A 6,300-page investigation detailed by the Pentagon in May said that the mistakes leading up to the ambush were widespread. An unclassified eight-page summary was released for public viewing.

When something goes wrong, and with special operations, something almost always goes wrong, the Pentagon will inevitably generate reams of mind numbing reports in order to assess blame.

Some of that is a good thing. Looking at the example above, the report identifies “insufficient training and a lack of mission rehearsals”. That’s good information to have in order to prepare for future missions.

It’s a shame that in the military- someone always has to take the fall when something goes wrong. But that’s the nature of the beast and relentless after-action analysis IS (or at least has been) a major strength of our military.

But hierarchical organizations being what they are, those who are identified as being responsible for failure are not always those responsible for the greatest failures.