re: "Do Victory Laps and Spiking the Football outweigh Operational (and Personal) Security?"

Jeff Emanuel at Redstate ("the most widely read right of center blog on Capitol Hill") considers the Tourette's Syndrome approach to OPSEC.

Money quote(s):

"Shut up about the SEALs already, please"

Excellent advice. Here's why:

"While the information being reported by various media outlets and individuals has often missed the accuracy bulls-eye by quite a bit (yet again demonstrating that life imitates the Onion), enough accurate-ish information has apparently been revealed to the public by the usual suspects - the administration and those members of Congress who hold security clearances because of the voters’ actions rather than for any personal character qualities they may actually possess - that some units within, and affiliated with, JSOC are reportedly being forced to consider adapting their Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) — not to mention the fact that some operators are now concerned for the safety of their families (more on this later).

Joint Special Operations Command is the umbrella under which “black SOF” falls. This does not mean that every individual within the command is a secret agent or Chuck Norris-like commando; however, it does mean three things: (1) the organization, its people, and those it aligns itself with for mission and intelligence purposes conduct operations which are of particular importance to the national security of the United States, and therefore are of particular sensitivity; (2) its members utilize specific procedures and equipment which are highly specific to the types of missions they undertake (and which can therefore be outside the norm of conventional military procedures and equipment, or even of those utilized by “white SOF” units); and (3) due to the former two points, the equipment used by JSOC units and those with which they work, the TTPs employed by them, and the identities of the operators themselves are sensitive to excessive sunlight. In other words, of all the military units the United States has, JSOC is perhaps the one most damaged by public attention being paid to its equipment, its TTPs, and its personnel."

Newsflash: CAA is not now nor has he ever been assigned or attached to a JSOC unit. But the principles of operational security (OPSEC) which underly this are the same ones which applied to our MI units operating in OIF1.

"The high-profile nature of the target made it virtually impossible not to acknowledge the success of this particular mission or to provide some details regarding how, and by whom, it was accomplished. However, the Obama administration’s tourette’s-like insistence on telling the press whatever version of the operational story they felt like giving at that time or on that day (before they decided not to say anything any more), in tandem with the president’s own insistence on reinforcing his narrative of the “gutsy call” that resulted in bin Laden’s death at fundraisers and through media surrogates, have demonstrated that OPSEC and the safety of America’s premier special operators and their families are far less important to the Commander in Chief and his administration than taking so many victory laps and spiking the football with such frequency and repetition that it’s a wonder Obama himself hasn’t coughed up a (redacted) lung yet while simultaneously deflating the prop football he’s been handed for this purpose."

&

"(A)dapting to a changing battlefield environment and a changing enemy is one thing; being forced to adapt because members of your own government - particularly those who see one successful mission as a silver bullet to be used in a reelection campaign, and to enact a comprehensive and completely unrelated agenda - couldn’t keep their traps shut about sensitive information."