Posted on 09/12/2014 5:01:30 AM PDT by Hojczyk
As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the best military advice of his top military commander in the Middle East.
Quoting two U.S. military officials, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said that his best military advice was to send a modest contingent of American troops, principally Special Operations forces, to advise and assist Iraqi army units in fighting the militants.
Austins recommendation was taken to the White House by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. The White House rejected CENTCOMs advise and assist contingent due to concerns about placing U.S. ground forces in a frontline role. In a press briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the president had rejected Austins recommendation because he believes it is not in the best interest of American national security to send American combat troops in a combat operation to act on the ground in Iraq.
In a nationally-televised speech on Wednesday evening, President Obama repeatedly emphasized that U.S. forces will not have a combat role in Iraq. We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq, the president said. He specifically underscored that this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will resemble U.S. counterterrorism campaigns in Yemen and Somalia.
Instead, President Obama opted for a more modest course, sending an additional 475 troops to assist Iraqi and ethnic Kurdish forces; 150 of those forces will form more than a dozen teams and embed with Iraqi Security Forces at the brigade level and above, according to the Pentagon. In other words, U.S. advisers are likely to remain inside
As he laid out his strategy to combat the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, President Obama rejected the best military advice of his top military commander in the Middle East.
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AGAIN! Obviously, this has worked out so well for him ALL the times he’s done this before.
God help our military over the next two years, something tells me they are about to be in for an even more difficult time under this phony.
When looking at every situation and subsequent decision that involves Obama, one must first understand his motivation. What will yield him the greatest amount of donations from his billionaire friends? What will secure the votes for a small group that can swing a congressional district? What will motivate a group in a state that will swing enough people to vote for the leftist senatorial candidate.
Those factors will always be his motivation regardless of the outcome for the rest of us. They just wanted to secure votes or the extra dollars, who cares what the military and international implications are.
Of course he did.
BTW I can’t help but note that there was another famous leader who used to ignore his military leaders’ best advise.
Remember - Obama is smarter than all his speech writers. So, it goes without saying that Obama is smarter than all his generals.
I believe that Obama wants a "Little Big Horn" incident to justify surrender.
You hand the General a map and say Geeter Done and shut the F up!
Lets hope this will not be a Benghazi redux!
BS.
We have forces on the ground there now and will have more in the future.
Exactly. And because of this belief is why we are in the mess we are in globally. The guy is an idiot. A clueless, arrogant idiot.
The Jayvee President
The Kenyan anti-Christ doesn’t want to actually do any serious harm to his co-religionists in ISIS.
Islam must be destroyed.
Cause obammy is the smartest son of a bitch in the room on any subject. Just ask him, he’ll tell ya.
What a dumb ass.
Iraqi Security Forces, the Iraqi air force, and a billion adherents of the “religion of peace” should be able to eliminate these 31,000 (current estimate) “hijackers” of the “religion of peace”.
/foreign entanglement
peace out
/sarc
In his mind, he’s obama-wan kenobi and smarter than the WORLD.
Embedding US troops in small numbers with Iraqi forces. Yup. That is comforting. How did that US General die in Afghanistan?
Oh, and make sure we tell everybody what we are doing.
Of course he does he’s one of them.
Obama’s goal and that of best military advice of his top military commander in the Middle East are TWO different things.
He wanted to manage IS, not destroy. Like he’s been ‘community organize’-ing since his adulthood.
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