When officials suggest that being armed disqualifies someone from being a “peaceful” protester, they quietly redefine constitutional rights as conditional — protected for some, suspect for others.

Nevertheless, what happened should be investigated, and people should be held accountable if necessary. Most importantly, lessons should be learned to ensure operational security remains sacrosanct. Convenience should never outweigh vigilance when we send our military into harm's way.

Ultimately, we can all be thankful that no service members were killed and the mission met its objective.

Had anyone in uniform shared the same information that the Secretary of Defense shared in real time on Signal as the mission was about to commence, they would have lost their security clearance and most likely seen the end of their career.