“I want to be clear: the American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission.” Barack Obama
"There would be no American boots on the ground," Barack Obama
A Navy SEAL has been killed fighting In Iraq. That place where there are no American boots on the ground. He isn't the first American to be killed after Obama's return to Iraq. He won't be the last.
There are thousands of American soldiers in Iraq. They're not boots on the ground though. They don't count. Officially they're there to "advise and assist". They don't have a "combat mission", they just participate in "direct action on the ground".
These euphemisms are dishonest and repulsive. Most Americans support the mission against ISIS. There is no reason for their government to lie to them. And it ought to stop.
American soldiers have carried out raids. They've led operations. They've hit ISIS hard. Their lives and their sacrifices deserve to be celebrated instead of treated like an embarrassment because Obama hates the idea of being associated with the Iraq War. He hated it so much that he fumbled Iraq leading to the rise of ISIS. Now American soldiers are dying because of his lies. And they're being lied about even in death.
Enough already.
Here's what the bizarre lies out of the White House sound like.
“This president, this White House, the officials here at this White House repeatedly, over and over again, made it clear to the American people that there would be no combat role for U.S. troops fighting ISIS,” Sciutto said. “That appears to be changing. Not only is there this announcement that you’re talking about today, which you say they won’t be involved in a combat role but you’re not ruling out the possibility that they may be involved in some sort of combat operation, but on the Iraq side, you have Pentagon officials saying, ‘We’re in combat.’”
Give us “a moment of clarity,” Sciutto asked, and acknowledge the mission has changed.
“To say that, Jim, would only confuse the situation,” Earnest said.
Telling the truth would only confuse the situation. This is the mindset we're dealing with from Obama.
America's heroes deserve better.