Posted on 10/27/2015 2:21:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
They already have engaged them, of course, per the otherwise successful raid to liberate an ISIS prison in Iraq last week that ended with one American soldier being killed. That sounds suspiciously like combat, and if there’s one thing Barack Obama stands for, it’s that the era of combat in Iraq is over.
How can combat not be combat? Easy. Just call it something else. It wouldn’t be the first Orwellian euphemism this White House has used to reassure progressives that they may be at war but they’re not at war-war.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook had been blunter on Thursday: “Our mission in Iraq is the train, advise and assist mission. This was a unique circumstance. … This was a support mission in which they were providing support to the Kurdistan Regional Government. U.S. forces are not in an active combat mission in Iraq.”
But before Carter left the podium on Friday, he offered this explanation for why he couldn’t reveal more details of Wheeler’s actions: “This is combat. Things are complicated.”
Indeed.
The rules of the official advise-and-assist mission meant the Americans were to “stay behind the last covered and concealed position,” but when the fighters they were supporting began taking fire and casualties, they stepped in and acted. As Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren noted from Baghdad, “In the chaos of combat, when you see your friends being hit, I would submit to you that you’re under somewhat of a moral obligation.” Again, combat.
“Combat,” in theory, refers to engagement with the enemy in the course of an indefinite foreign occupation involving many thousands of troops. Barack Obama certainly doesn’t support that, except in Afghanistan, where he only kind of supports it and only because his haste in ending combat in Iraq has turned out to be a catastrophe. What the U.S. did last week in that ISIS prison, as Carter explains below, was a “raid.” A raid is a time-limited pinprick strike involving a few dozen soldiers with a very specific purpose. We won’t engage ISIS in “combat” but we’ll “raid” the sh*t out of them. Just like we wouldn’t “bomb” Libya, we’d participate in “kinetic military action” there. Just like Russia’s invasion of Crimea, which the White House didn’t want to respond to, wasn’t an “invasion” but an “uncontested arrival.” Just like the attack on the consulate in Benghazi wasn’t terrorism, it was a “spontaneous protest” by a mob incensed at a YouTube video critical of Islam.
Carter can put as much perfume on his BS as he likes but what he’s telling Congress, and you, here is to prepare yourselves for more American casualties in Iraq as U.S. special forces wade more deeply into the fight. And of course, the task of announcing this falls to him, not to the commander-in-chief, because Obama doesn’t want to have to symbolically face his base after promising them the Iraq mess is in America’s rearview mirror. The question to ask yourself is: Why now? Why, after umpteen thousand ISIS atrocities, has the White House decided to risk the lives of America’s most elite troops for operations like freeing prisoners in Iraq? The obvious answer, I think, is that it’s a small bit of muscle-flexing in response to Russia’s much more significant incursion across the border in Syria. Our Middle Eastern Sunni “allies” can’t help but notice lately that, when you’re in a pinch, it may be more useful to have Vladimir Putin as a friend than Barack Obama. So here’s Obama making a show of helping the Iraqi government in rescuing prisoners with American boots on the ground in support to demonstrate his own good faith. More of this to come, no doubt.
Hi guy.
“Shades of LBJ!”
I was thinking McNamara.
5.56mm
Is there anything 0 touches that does is not an ephic fail?
Everyone told him to leave some troops in Iraq, that the Iraqis were not ready but he just HAD to “End Bush’s war”
No we get to go re-do everything again. This narcissistic clown is the worst US President since Jame Buchanan.
That is ridiculous
We have been arming these people to overthrow Saddam and tolerating their butchery as their victims became collateral damage in the quest for an islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria
Someone in our CIA.... Errrr.... Government.....sees this as a beautiful thing
Obama will not give this up
Obama will not send out soldiers in to kill US/Saudi arabia’s proxies
Obama will send our troops in to do some token operations, to covertly ( as if) continue to arm ISIS and to mingle American troops with them on the ground as to engage Russian aircraft ( an act of war on Russia) and worse.... As human shields to stop Russia Iran and Iraq from destroying ISIS without killing Americans
Does he think the Iraqis are stupid and don’t see through him?
Typo
Arming these people to overthrow Assad
The FIRST thing Ashton Carter did on his first day in office was APPOINT A HOMOSEXUAL. And THERE you have his qualifications. His wife is his beard, just like 0dungo.
0dunga is on the WRONG side and so is ANY American soldier who goes over there.
No our troops will not have adequate air support
The Russians are showing what kind of air support and targeting it takes to go after these islamist extremist militias and obama will never authorize that .... Especially in a sham war on HIS created proxies!!!
Obama’s advisors are not interested in killing terrorists, ony in gaming against Russia
WTH wants to fight in a war like that?? This is worse than Vietnam on so many levels
Would have been a lot easier leaving 200k troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and as soon as we had the opportunity, move against ISIS and chase them to Syria and move against Iran and set the Kurds up with a country as a buffer.
But noooooooooooo, it was way more important to get elected President than let the world burn.
Obama has placed us on the losing side of history in the Middle East with 2 of the most wretched regimes now In power: Saudi Arabia and Turkey
If the “center” of the region holds during the emerging power shift between Sunni and Shia, it will be because of Russia
So, we must have concluded a “Status of Forces” agreement with Iraq, right? After all, we left because Obama couldn’t negotiate one.
I am selfishly soooo relieved my son is out of the Army now . I don’t know if I could have stood having him be under the ultimate command of this CiC.
The military has been drained of significant brainpower and strength and leadership. I’d advise any young person to wait to enlist until Inauguration Day, 2017.
Oh man...when was that one used again? I recall the idiocy of it, just not the context.
Islamic civil war ... not our fight.
We are stupid to waste one American live on this ISLAMIC civil war. Why do we care which side wins? Either way Islam wins.
Speaking of Afghanistan, the “good war “ Barry campaigned on with promises to get out of Bush’s “ mistake” in Iraq and focus on winning in Afghanistan....
The Russians are already coalition building with the Central Asian republics to stop extremism from migrating out of there ... While obama dithers and froths about going back into Iraq as the Taliban takes back everything Americans died for since obama took charge
Putin has a vision and it seems, a growing mandate
Yup, restrictive rules of engagement will make it so. I hate this administration with a passion. Not as much as God, but a lot.
"We" don't. Obama obviously does. To understand why, we'd have to know exactly what his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood is. This whole "Arab Spring" deal appears to be about using US military power and dollar diplomacy to overthrow secular governments with the Muslim Brotherhood poised to step in and fill the vacuum.
The exact nature of that relationship is carefully guarded, but there is no denying it exists. That is where his allegiance lies, not with us.
And, we know what 0blama thinks about dogs.
These are not Syrians fighting for a secular democracy in Syria
These are ardent islamists fighting for a caliphate with sharia law
There will be no inclusiveness
There will be no tolerance
How could Syrians ever include in their government these men pictured holding aloft the heads of Syrian soldiers, policemen, local tribal authorities, Alawites Yezdis and Christians?
Agree with your advisement.
A-10s are there. Waiting for orders. Boots on the ground, waiting for permission to shoot. Boots on the ground waiting for permission to have air support. All the while being attacked.
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