that being said, the authority that the president was talking about was his pushing down operational authority out to the strategic commanders. in this case, africa command. africa command was coordinating the missions that were going on out there. they didn t know what was going on to a certain extent. when you get down to the individual oda level, that s the special forces team, you know, those teams operate semiautonomously anyway. their job is to help local indigenous forces build up their capacity. they carry out some targeted missions. the president s not going to know about all of them but he should know and be briefed about most of them. at least enough to understand that there s no winning in that particular area. i ve been in the sou. that place is empty terrain with small market villages with human trafficking and weapon trafficking going on everywhere. this is just part of the