Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The President says no troops in Iraq
Which is a position guaranteed to piss off the perfumed princes of the Pentagon. Most of those who would do the actual fighting, on the other hand, are probably relieved to hear this.
President Obama on Wednesday repeated his vow to destroy Islamist terrorists in Syria and Iraq, but he insisted that the United States would not go it alone and promised a military audience that he would not send them back into direct combat.Walked right into the lion's den to tell them, he did. But the real question we should be asking is, why the hell do we have command structures for any place outside the United States?
“Whether in Iraq or in Syria, these terrorists will learn the same thing that the leaders of Al Qaeda already know: We mean what we say,” Mr. Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base. “We’ve always known that the end of the war in Afghanistan didn’t mean the end of threats or challenges to America.”
But Mr. Obama also hailed the official end of America’s combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of the year and said he was not starting another extensive war in the Middle East. He said the American troops currently in Iraq — they will soon number 1,600 — were not there to fight on the ground.
“The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” he said. “I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”
Mr. Obama was at the base to meet with his top military commanders at United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, and his national security team, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. A week ago the president told the nation that he was expanding the American military campaign against the extremists of the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL.
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