I have been venting exasperation with President Obama’s Bush-Lite war on terrorism almost from day one of his presidency – as such commentaries as “Obama Saluting War Dead Will Be Defining Image of His Presidency,” October 30, 2009, and “Demystifying ISIS: Case against Obama’s Bush-Lite War on Terrorism,” September 10, 2014, attest.
I have been particularly exasperated with his semantic games about the role U.S. troops have been playing. Here, in part, is what I wrote six months ago in “Why Isn’t Combat against ISIS Combat? Er, Because Obama Says So…?” November 6, 2015.
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President Obama is channeling President Nixon with his justification for deploying Special Forces to help combat ISIS. Of course, Nixon justified deploying the FBI and other intelligence agencies to illegally wiretap, entrap, and otherwise undermine anti-Vietnam protesters as follows:
Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
(“Nixon-Frost Interview,” New York Times, May 20, 1977)
Clearly, having abandoned similar efforts just weeks ago, deploying U.S. troops now to ‘train, advise, and assist’ local forces defies logic. Therefore, Obama’s explanation can only be a Nixonian pretext for their real mission to engage in the very ‘frontline’ combat he steadfastly denies.
More to the point, his doublespeak about the nature of U.S. involvement in the fight against ISIS is eerily similar to that which Nixon propagated about U.S. involvement in the fight against the Viet Cong. Watergate journalist Bob Woodward documents Nixon’s willful perfidy in this respect in his latest book, The Last of the President’s Men. …
I’m no Woodward, but even I decried Obama’s Vietnamization of America’s involvement in the Middle East in ‘Obama Escalates Afghan War; the ‘Die’ Is Cast on His Presidency,’ December 2, 2009. …
In fact, more U.S. troops died in Afghanistan after Obama promised to end that war than those who died during all of the feckless years Bush spent waging it. …
I feel compelled to confess how much political pain these commentaries cause me. Not least because my ardent support for Obama’s presidency stems back to when other johnnies-come-lately supports were still joining Bill and Hillary Clinton in dismissing his candidacy as a ‘fairytale.” My commentary, ‘It’s Time: Run Obama, Run!’ October 24, 2006, affirms this.
I am still a big fan. Obama has had a remarkably successful, transformative presidency in many respects – especially given the Republicans’ politically/racially motivated efforts, from day one, to ‘make him a failed president.’
All the same, my commentaries chronicle my profound disappointment in his conduct of foreign policy in the Middle East – from the Arab Spring to this creeping combat against ISIS.
Just as ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ combat by any other name would spell defeat. In fact, the other name for Obama’s new mission of ‘train, advise, and assist’ is mission creep … with all of the horrors of Vietnam that entails.
(“Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Barack Obama, Wins Landslide Victory,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 24, 2015)
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This is why I was somewhat heartened yesterday, when his former defense secretary, Robert Gates, echoed my exasperation with Obama.
Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Robert Gates tore into the White House on Thursday for its refusal to describe the ongoing U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Syria as a ‘combat mission’
‘They are in combat,’ said the former defense secretary, who served under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Gates assailed ‘the semantic backflips to avoid using the term combat’ as ‘a disservice to those out there putting their lives on the line.’
(Politico, May 19, 2016)
I just wish Gates had the cojones to publicly condemn this “disservice” while he was still serving. After all, U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Syria clearly amounted to combat throughout his tenure.
If he had done so then, he would not be doing so now; and those soldiers who died in vain on combat missions (masquerading as training missions) would have died more honorably.
Related commentaries:
Combat is combat…
Demystifying ISIS…
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