Posted on 09/30/2014 6:52:32 PM PDT by Kaslin
Normally, when a President orders the military into action, the White House gives the operation a name to reference for the duration. Operation Desert Shield turned into Operation Desert Storm when George H. W. Bush shifted from deterrence to offense when Saddam Hussein refused to pull out of Kuwait. The operational name for the 2003 invasion ordered by George W. Bush was called Operation Iraqi Freedom, paralleling the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan’s Operation Enduring Freedom after the 9/11 attacks. Bill Clinton named the brief 1998 missile attack on Iraq Operation Desert Fox. That operation lasted all of four days, but still got an official operation handle.
What operational name has been selected for the fight against ISIS, which is expected to last for years? So far, it’s Operation Anonymous:
Yet in Syria and Iraq, despite weeks of airstrikes now numbering in the hundreds, the deployment of more than a thousand U.S. troops, a complex multi-national strategy to train local forces, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s declaration that the U.S. is at war against Islamic State group, the ongoing campaign still proceeds unnamed. …
The Pentagon usually selects names for operations, sometimes at random, sometimes to help sway Congress to provide financial or policy support. But ultimately it’s up to the White House to shape the public message of an important foreign campaign.
This latest reticence to delineate the strategy — and offer some colorful terminology to represent it — has left many E-Ring watchers, including some who used to operate inside its walls, scratching their heads.
When asked most recently whether the military operations in Iraq and Syria had a code name, the Pentagon spokesman continued what has become a string of blunt answers.
“No. It has not,” Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said Thursday. He added, “I know of no plans at this time to name it.”
And so, what could be one of the defining battles of the early 21st century remains anonymous.
Former Green Room contributor Libby Sternberg e-mailed me earlier this morning to ask if I’d heard the operation name yet, and then found the above report from US News. At Liberty Unyielding, Libby had a good suggestion for the name — Operation Hey Don’t Blame Me:
Labels don’t fight US wars, of course. The good men and women of the military do. That said, the reluctance of the administration to give this operation a name speaks volumes. The president was elected by a war-weary population and doesn’t seem all that comfortable with military action in general. I personally suspect he’s a pacifist, an honorable position to hold but not a good characteristic for one who aspired to be Commander-in-Chief. …
Being Commander-in-Chief means you might have to send men and women into harm’s way. The very least you can do is lead the cheerleading for them.
Operation names for public consumption are always exercises in self-promotion, as the above references demonstrate amply. If the administration had taken a position to end that practice, that might have been a noteworthy effort in executive modesty. However, the Obama administration has been issuing operation names for everything else, as US News notes; the US effort to fight Ebola has been dubbed Operation United Assistance, when it isn’t even a DoD operation but a USAID mission.
The obvious conclusion in this case is that the White House has little enthusiasm for this fight. That’s a terrible message to communicate, really just another and more petty form of self-promotion. Maybe someone at the Pentagon can muster up the effort to put together an adjective and noun for the President to use — not necessarily for cheerleading, but at least to act as though this is his idea.
Operation Polling Shield
Operation Hole in One.
Try Rolling Blunder... A play on the old Rolling Thunder bombing operation in Vietnam
Libby Sternberg couldn't be more wrong. This president is no pacifist. He's been busy droning people all over the world.
More to the point of military operations, Obama ordered a surge in Afghanistan in 2009. Despite saying at the time that he intended to draw down and leave Afghanistan in a few short years, he nonetheless ordered the deployment of forces to war.
And lest we forget, Obama begged to bomb Assad in Syria.
Obama is a communist. Communists have no problems with war. And since they are liar chameleons, they have no problem pretending to be pacifists, either, when that advances their purpose.
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