tRump's Yemen raid disaster hands SoS a house of horrors

[ffr]

Trump has handed Tillerson a house of horrors at the State Department


<snip>

Tillerson’s first full day on the job coincides with a contemptuous retort from Iran to national security adviser Michael Flynn’s finger-wagging admonition that the mullahs were “officially … on notice.” On notice, of what, he did not say. Iran, as one would expect, did not seem impressed.
<snip>

From Flynn so far we have seen personal insecurity and unwillingness to take guidance from more experienced national security professionals. Worse, he has allowed the national security team to be thoroughly overrun by political hacks.
<snip>

...“A Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee is asking for an ‘urgent briefing’ on the SEAL Team Six raid in Yemen this past weekend that resulted in the deaths of a U.S. service member and civilians on the ground, possibly including an 8-year-old girl. Approving the raid was one of the first life-or-death decisions for President Donald Trump — and Democrats are raising questions about what may have gone wrong.” Given how closely the Benghazi debacle was reviewed, Republicans surely should show as much interest in this failed venture.

In sum, Tillerson has entered a house of horrors where leaking, confusion and incompetence are the prevailing qualities. If he can persuade Trump to use a script on the phone and demand Bannon, who is primarily responsible for the travel ban fiasco, out of the NSC, he will earn our gratitude. - WaPo

Amateur hour in the big leagues.

[GP6971]

1. He has no clue how to

deal with this situation. Things are only to get worse.

[Sunny05]

2. Regrettably. nt

[central scrutinizer]

3. Quick call to Vlad

Will clear it all up

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Caught the State Department

greeting,wow,the facial expressions told me,people were having a oh shit moment,do I really need this job.

[frazzled]

5. I just saw Obama's National Security advisor, Susan Monaco, on Charlie Rose

Quickly, because it's late. She was asked about the Yemen situation, and she prefaced her remarks with two things: (a) that even though she was no longer in the government, she was not going to divulge internal discussions, and was certainly not going to discuss classified information; and (b) that, contrary to reports she had seen in the press .... (emphasis on the contrary) ...

They were handed a proposal in the final weeks of the administration that was of a much larger scope regarding potential military operations in Yemen--not a specific operation or attack. Between all of the cryptic and elided talk, what I gleaned was that it was felt that since the scope of this program would extend beyond that administration's tenure, that it should be passed on to the next administration to consider ... and that no decision was ever made on it.

That's, at least, what I understood her to be saying. So ... big big proposal to be considered, and he-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken pulls the trigger after, like, 10 days, apparently with consulting no one.

[ffr]

7. Good info to give pause to the 'it was the same target' meme

To tRump's credit though, I think he had bad fish that night, so he had bigger troubles on his mind than other people's lives.

[gratuitous]

9. That comports with other accounts

In looking over some of the other reports, it appears that a raid in Yemen had indeed been bruited about during the Obama administration. There have been various reasons or conjectures advanced for why any raid wasn't carried out under Obama, but I think there is some validity to some of them. They may have been waiting for the new moon of January 27. There may have been some logistical or strategic problems with the plan. There may have been insufficient evidence that the reward was worth the risk. There may be other reasons as well.

But addressing those last two reasons, who green-lighted the raid? Did the administration approach the Pentagon or did the Pentagon approach the administration with this proposed raid? Did the Trump administration's brain trust (from what I've been able to tell comprised President Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Steve Bannon, none of whom have any military experience in the last 25 years) want the raid to go forward, damn the torpedoes, or were they simply too inexperienced to recognize any problems with the proposed raid?

Somebody clearly didn't care about the troops, the risks, and the eventual deaths of William Owens and more than 40 civilians, to put the brakes on this. In spite of Sean Spicer's insistence that this raid was a ringing success (I'd hate to see what failure looks like), it appears that we bought a lot of ill will, a dead SEAL team member, and the loss of a very expensive piece of equipment for our efforts in Yemen last week.

[Cha]

6. gd right it's a "house of horrors"

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Can Tillerson phone a friend for help?