Niger Ambush Official Report avoids blaming anyone

[mandrill]

The biggest American military fuck-up since Custer and the Little Big Horn and of course, the official US Army reports avoids blaming any individual commander.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/verabergengruen/niger-ambush-pentagon-report?utm_term=.tjm4ZqKwo#.wcnO60bpz

 

[Butler1000]

Some sort of black ops at play here. Coupled with a betrayal somewhere and a bad decision.

I'm betting multiple factors and several human decisions led to to this clusterfuck.

Trying to pinpoint one? I doubt that's possible.

 

[jcpro]

When I was in the military there was an expression for such clusterfucks- shit happens. Sometimes things just go wrong.

 

[onthebottom]

The biggest American military fuck-up since Custer and the Little Big Horn and of course, the official US Army reports avoids blaming any individual commander.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/verabergengruen/niger-ambush-pentagon-report?utm_term=.tjm4ZqKwo#.wcnO60bpz

That’s a bit of hyperbole, it was Blackhawk down all over again.

 

[mandrill]

That’s a bit of hyperbole, it was Blackhawk down all over again.

Yep, hyperbole. OTOH, someone must have been responsible - if not several people.

Unprepared troops muddling around in Indian Country with no intelligence, no real mission, no safety or extraction plan and completely unprepared for a fire fight. This doesn't sound like a "shit happens" scenario. This sounds like a "Why the fuck did some asshole allow this to happen?" scenario.

 

[onthebottom]

Yep, hyperbole. OTOH, someone must have been responsible - if not several people.

Unprepared troops muddling around in Indian Country with no intelligence, no real mission, no safety or extraction plan and completely unprepared for a fire fight. This doesn't sound like a "shit happens" scenario. This sounds like a "Why the fuck did some asshole allow this to happen?" scenario.

It’s dangerous hunting terrorists with local troops, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. If there were 42 SEALS vs 100 ISIS fighters you wouldn’t be reading about this. It’s reasonable to ask if there is anything worth doing in Niger, it’s a hotbed for ISIS so I’m sure they are trying to help the locals hunt bad guys.

The former commander of AfriCOM was interviewed on this and he said it was a resource issue. The US military chose not to roll in a large force but to go this route.

Did you read the book or see the movie Lone Survivor? Shitty coms, stretched air support, bad luck = casualties.

I’ve been saying for years now that we should pull out of the ME and Africa, leave the shit show to Europe and see how that goes.

 

[Butler1000]

It’s dangerous hunting terrorists with local troops, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. If there were 42 SEALS vs 100 ISIS fighters you wouldn’t be reading about this. It’s reasonable to ask if there is anything worth doing in Niger, it’s a hotbed for ISIS so I’m sure they are trying to help the locals hunt bad guys.

The former commander of AfriCOM was interviewed on this and he said it was a resource issue. The US military chose not to roll in a large force but to go this route.

Did you read the book or see the movie Lone Survivor? Shitty coms, stretched air support, bad luck = casualties.

I’ve been saying for years now that we should pull out of the ME and Africa, leave the shit show to Europe and see how that goes.

At this point I think the USA is trying to prevent another Taliban issue in some of these shitholes.

Kind of like the broken window policy that cleaned up New York. They are trying to nip smaller groups in the bud. But it will never end in some of these places.

 

[onthebottom]

At this point I think the USA is trying to prevent another Taliban issue in some of these shitholes.

Kind of like the broken window policy that cleaned up New York. They are trying to nip smaller groups in the bud. But it will never end in some of these places.

Can’t you do that with 10k+ drone strikes and good defense?

 

[Butler1000]

Can’t you do that with 10k+ drone strikes and good defense?

I think they would if they could. But trying to take them out in the jungle? Drones don't work as well there as the desert. And hopefully men on the ground actually prevent civilian casualties.

Killing innocents tends to create more terrorists.

 

[onthebottom]

I think they would if they could. But trying to take them out in the jungle? Drones don't work as well there as the desert. And hopefully men on the ground actually prevent civilian casualties.

Killing innocents tends to create more terrorists.

Then we should send the Germans

 

[mandrill]

It’s dangerous hunting terrorists with local troops, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. If there were 42 SEALS vs 100 ISIS fighters you wouldn’t be reading about this. It’s reasonable to ask if there is anything worth doing in Niger, it’s a hotbed for ISIS so I’m sure they are trying to help the locals hunt bad guys.

The former commander of AfriCOM was interviewed on this and he said it was a resource issue. The US military chose not to roll in a large force but to go this route.

Did you read the book or see the movie Lone Survivor? Shitty coms, stretched air support, bad luck = casualties.

I’ve been saying for years now that we should pull out of the ME and Africa, leave the shit show to Europe and see how that goes.

IIRC, Lone Survivor was about a mission that snafu-ed when the SEAL team ran into a hostile ahead of schedule and the latter alerted his buddies before the SEALS could be extracted. That does sound like a "shit happens" scenario.

With the Niger mission, it's hard to see why the team was in hostile territory at all when there was a risk of being attacked by overwhelming enemy force. No one on the good guys' team seemed to see it coming. So faulty intell.

It wouldn't have mattered if the good guys were SEALS or local militia. If you're surrounded and outnumbered, you're just a guy with a rifle who's about to die - whether you have 6 years training and umpteen specialties back Stateside or you just got conscripted into your village militia 2 weeks ago and barely know how to load your rifle.

 

[onthebottom]

IIRC, Lone Survivor was about a mission that snafu-ed when the SEAL team ran into a hostile ahead of schedule and the latter alerted his buddies before the SEALS could be extracted. That does sound like a "shit happens" scenario.

With the Niger mission, it's hard to see why the team was in hostile territory at all when there was a risk of being attacked by overwhelming enemy force. No one on the good guys' team seemed to see it coming. So faulty intell.

It wouldn't have mattered if the good guys were SEALS or local militia. If you're surrounded and outnumbered, you're just a guy with a rifle who's about to die - whether you have 6 years training and umpteen specialties back Stateside or you just got conscripted into your village militia 2 weeks ago and barely know how to load your rifle.

This last bit is wildy inaccurate, we spend $1m each training these guys how to survive and work as a team. 8/12 survived, if there were 40 of them the other side would have had a worse day.

 

[mandrill]

This last bit is wildy inaccurate, we spend $1m each training these guys how to survive and work as a team. 8/12 survived, if there were 40 of them the other side would have had a worse day.

A "worse day", in that trained elite soldiers would have shot straighter and maneuvered better and inflicted more casualties for a couple of minutes before they were killed.

 

[onthebottom]

A "worse day", in that trained elite soldiers would have shot straighter and maneuvered better and inflicted more casualties for a couple of minutes before they were killed.

No, they would have torn them to pieces.