After President Obama announced on Monday that he would deploy 250 additional special operations troops to Syria, State Department spokesperson John Kirby tried to deny that Obama had ever promised not to send “boots on the ground” there.
“There was never this ‘no boots on the ground,’” said Kirby. “I don’t know where this keeps coming from.”
The problem for Kirby was that Obama has repeated the promise at least 16 times since 2013:
For instance, on August 30, 2013, Obama said: “We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach.”
On September 10, 2013, he said: “Many of you have asked, won’t this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are ‘still recovering from our involvement in Iraq.’ A veteran put it more bluntly: ‘This nation is sick and tired of war.’ My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.”
On September 7, 2014, he said: “In Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian.”
After reporters pointed out the mistake, Kirby tried to walk back his claim by defining the phrase “boots on the ground” to exclude special forces.
“When we talk about boots on the ground, in the context that you have heard people in the administration speak to, we are talking about conventional, large-scale ground troops,” said Kirby. “I’m not disputing the fact that we have troops on the ground, and they’re wearing boots.”
The new deployment will result in a six-fold increase to the 50 U.S. special forces troops already in Syria. There are also 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The White House has insisted that its forces “do not have a combat mission,” and are deployed in an “advise and assist” capacity only, helping to train local militias that engage ISIS directly.
There is, as Kirby indicated, a distinction between a large-scale ground invasion and, say, a small group of advisers hanging back from the front. But the line between “combat” and “assist” missions is not always so clear.
In Iraq, when a U.S. special forces soldier was killed during a raid on an ISIS-held prison, the White House insisted that U.S. forces were only flying helicopters carrying Kurdish commandos, and that it was a “unique circumstance.” They refused to call the exchange “combat,” prompting outrage from veterans groups.
A second American soldier was killed in a rocket attack in northern Iraq last month, while guarding a U.S. base near Mosul. The White House called it “an enemy action,” not “combat.”
“Advise and assist” may also include providing targeting intelligence for U.S. airstrikes, according to Dan Grazier, a former Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq who is now a fellow with the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight. “With a force the size they’re talking about, they’re probably there to help provide fire support,” Grazier said.
Some veterans are outraged by the administration’s semantics.
“It is a grossly silly assertion that American men and women who are participating in the killing and dying in Iraq and Syria, whether it be directly or indirectly, do not count as boots on the ground,” said Matthew Hoh, who has served as a Marine and at the Pentagon and State Department. “Boots on the ground,” he said, is “a phrase that serves as a dog whistle to those of us who have actually been to war.”
Tyson Manker, a Marine Corps corporal during the invasion of Iraq, argues that the distinction between “boots on the ground” and special forces is meaningless to soldiers overseas. In a statement emailed to The Intercept, Manker wrote: “To Obama, sure it’s meaningful. For the … Marines on the ground shooting and getting shot at, not so meaningful.”
The Obama administration has company in Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. During a Democratic debate in February, Clinton said “we will not send American combat troops back to Syria or Iraq. That is off the table. But we do have special forces.”
The administration is also refusing to limit the number of special forces it might send in the future. At a separate press conference Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook wouldn’t deny that the U.S. might send hundreds more special forces soldiers in coming weeks. “We’re going to continue to look at every single opportunity we have, working with our local partners, to see how we can accelerate this campaign,” Cook said.
So the world should let Assad continue to bomb his own people?
So then we let Assad continue to bomb his own people?
Americans LOVE lying slick talking Incompetent Presidents like Obomba and GW Bush
I must credit the Obama and Bush administrations for inspiring me to invent an artistic creation. It is a weather vane, which features an arrow which points in the direction opposite that of the wind.
Inspired by the fact that over the past 15 years, every single announcement by the State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury departments, not to mention the White House itself or the Fed, has been a lie.
Kirby must still be operating in a time where prior comments/statements can be pulled up and presented almost instantly. Makes you wonder what century Kirby thinks he’s in. I can imagine Kirby slithering backwards trying to avoid the obvious.
I find it astonishing that in 1978 under Jimmy Carter the US congress CREATED their FISA courts.
I wish Jimmy Carter would admit that this court turned the USA into COWARDS UNACCOUNTABLE! Think we are above the International Courts. Let their people come into the USA and take our military and throw them into a BLACK HOLE along with all the money that has been WASTED on our military COWARDS! They can do the crime, but a CRY BABY when it comes time to PAY the price for their TERRORISM!
Obama LIES and children die! Hit an American and you are a Terrorist, let the Americans bomb the S**t out of another country, it doesn’t count as a n International crime.
How about we let the International courts SPEAK out instead of us LISTENING to the PROPAGANDA of the USA Illegal FISA and the military. I want to hear out of the mouth of SANITY instead of out of the mouth of TERRORIST!
Clinton said “we will not send American combat troops back to Syria or Iraq. That is off the table. But we do have Special Forces.”
Clinton statements like this among many of her statements made during the debates when she qualified her utterances are prime examples of deplorable political double speak, and that is what you get with the Clintons “Americas best republicans”.
When she takes the oval office with the blessing of the corporatocracy we will hear endless double speak when she serves as her husband did, as the betrayer of the people of which they feel their pain, but choose to make sure they add more of it.
“We are not privatizing Social Security we are just lending it to Wall Street”. – Yes, to help hold up the Wall Street house of cards financial scam and let them feast upon a nice new source of fees, which can be tapped into for campaign and foundation contributions.
“We will not reduce Social Security benefits”. – Until no one is watching or until we can figure a way to bury the cuts in multi-thousand page legislation.
“We will seek peace in the Israel and Palestinian conflict” – Yes, in a way that will maximize APIAC’s political contributions to all political cronies that will continue to support the Apartheid of the Middle East as we once did the Apartheid of South Africa.
“We will make America a better place for the poor and middle class” – Until we can use the ruse of compromise to create exponential sources of corporate welfare while forcing new and more hidden forms of austerity upon the masses.
Why is the U.S. even involved in Syria at all? Most informed people understand that is all about oil and gas pipelines and protecting investments of the big oil companies. Plan A, destabilising Syria with a proxy terrorist army is falling apart with Russia’s entry into Syria. This plan by the CIA, MI-6, Mossad and Turkish MIT, used Al Qaeda terrorists to create ISIS, which is rapidly being destroyed by Russian air power. Sending U.S. troops there without being asked by the legitimate Syrian government is basically an invasion. 250 special forces against Hezbollah and the Syrian army represent a suicide mission.
To all you people commenting on this article: please understand that in the U.S. military — in which I reluctantly served forty years ago — a “boot” refers to a recently enlisted person still undergoing basic training in “boot camp.” Therefore, when the Obama administration says that it will not deploy “boots” on the “ground” [meaning, “battlefields”] in the middle east or anywhere else, they simply and truthfully mean that they will not send into combat recent enlistees who have not yet completed basic military training. Got it? Perhaps if more American military veterans would explain military terminology [ i.e., impenetrable bullshit-jargon and gobbledegook] to their non-veteran countrymen, everyone would understand the childish innocence, boy-scout truthfulness, and salt-of-the-earth honesty of U.S. military spokespersons.
Please stop laughing hysterically and vomiting at the same time!
Let’s put it this way – Tommy Franks is not involved so there is at least the possibility of success.
In the months immediately after 9/11 a small group of Special Forces were inserted into Afghanistan [yes, they were wearing boots]. They succeeded in ejecting the Taliban. Then W followed the tradition established by Poppy and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Having succeeded in wrapping up 10,000 American soldiers in the country and facing a return of the Taliban, the Cheney/Bush administration got kind of bored and had Gen Franks invade Iraq with a force of 85,000 – a venture that just didn’t work out too well.
Basically, in the ME more troops do not indicate better results. We can go in with small numbers of people and be seen as helping the locals. Drive a tank column 350 miles into Iraq, and we will be seen [for some reason…….] as invaders.
These Washington war liars are beneath contempt.
After all the lying from this administration over the last 7 plus years is anyone surprised?
Boot’s is his cat’s name.
I know that there seems to be some distinction being used for the US “advisors” in Iraq & Syria. Some of these fine young people are being or going to be killed. To me this has become war even if shrouded in lofty rhetoric. Presidents don’t like that term because it tells the truth in all its ugliness and horror. Instead it becomes an action or conflict to keep Americans from launching protests against yet another war. In my book it is war in all its nasty bloody violence of people killing people in the name of some nonsense over ideologies or resources. In the ME it’s resources that drive the hostilities which are being rapidly depleted at an alarming rate. When these run out in about 10-20 years the REAL wars will start because the economies are built on energy extraction. There are over 150 million people that will have no means of financial support when the oil runs out. Today the squabbles over territories will be like children’s sandbox fights, tomorrow real big bloody wars. Maybe the US govt needs a bit of truth injected and stop the squabbles and save the big guns until later when the Arabs lose their only means to buy food and water.
No boots!
They are wearing sneakers.
Flip-flops. It’s hot and sandy!
I don’t know why there is any surprise. This is the same Obama Administration that insisted on calling the Libyan War a “kinetic military action.” They simply don’t like telling the simple truth.
The fundamental requirement of any leader is to level with his/her people. They must know that the boss is not lying to them.
When the Fort Hood slaughter is “work place violence” and there are no boots on the ground, in places where you can die in combat, this requirement is broken. The American people, particularly those who go in harm’s way, for us, can not trust the words from this Administration. That makes them, and us, ineffective.
“Advise & Assist” means US forces directing forces in the fight. If there’s one American engaged in fighting in country there’s “boots on the ground.”
Parsing this reality isn’t just self-serving political speak, but it wholly denigrates the servicemen’s efforts and sacrifices whose boots Obama willfully chooses to ignore.
Hmmm, small group of american forces being deployed by a charismatic Democrat president into a military morass with an undefined goal. Said popular charismatic president replaced by a more belligerent president who was in his administration…
Syria = Vietnam perhaps?
Clintons don’t tend to make the same mistake twice. Folr the Bush family, that’s considered to be a tradition.
“Let’s be clear. When the president said ‘boots on the ground’ he didn’t mean ‘boots on the ground’ the way YOU thought he meant ‘boots on the ground’ .”
In the summer of 2011, the beginning weeks of civil war broke out in Syria, the Tehran Times released a report entitled, Iran, Iraq, Syria Sign Major Gas Pipeline Deal. The report provided details on Iranian plans to export its vast natural gas reserves to Europe through a pipeline that traverses both Iraq and Syria. This new Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline would reportedly be the largest gas pipeline in the Middle East and would span from Iran’s gas-rich South Pars field to the Mediterranean coastline in Lebanon, via Iraq and Syria.
Syria is already part of a Western-ordained gas pipeline that spans from Egypt to Homs. This pipeline, known as the Arab Gas Pipeline, was originally planned to continue traveling north of Homs up into Turkey. From there, it can be piped into Europe. The major players of this Western approved pipeline include Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among other Gulf nations.
Most Arabs view the Islamic Pipeline as a Shi’ite pipeline serving Shi’ite interests. After all, it originates in Shi’ite Iran, passes through Shi’ite Iraq, and flows into Shi’ite controlled Syria. Therefore, the Sunni-dominated Gulf nations have both an economic and religious reason for preventing the Islamic Pipeline from becoming a reality. So far, the Gulf nations have violently opposed Syria’s adoption of the Islamic Pipeline by arming opposition fighters within Syria in order to destabilize the nation.
Watch North East Syria in the coming months as the Syrian Army backed by Russian air power liberates Dier Ezzor and Raqqa. The US will still have troops, boot or whatever, and more of them around the pipeline route and main oil fields. Shell invested 11.2 billion in Mosul Petro-Chemical plants, while ISIS is still in control. Washington is confused , rather directionless in regards to explaining their actions, not their goal which hasn’t changed.
Yes, excellent synopsis. However, both Qatar and Iran have drawing rights from the vast Persian gulf gas field that includes South Pars and the Qatar controlled portion named North Dome. Iranian development of the South Pars field has centered on a Iran to Oman pipeline since the lifting of sanctions by the west. The pipeline once completed will carry 1 billion cubic feet per day that, when liquefied, will allow for the export of 1.5 million tonnes of Iranian gas to the west. The Saudi led GCC is viewing this pipeline as a direct challenge of its political, economic, and cultural dominance in the Gulf region. For its part, Oman has been deliberately distancing itself from the GCC for years by serving as an intermediary between the US and Iran.
The said “boots on the ground” but nothing about “boots on the sand”!
Get it????
Sound like you could be a spokesman for this admin
This is why I have been impressed, all things considered, with Putin- strong, strategic leadership.
The problem with boots on the ground, is that NOBODY still understands why we have been the in the ME and what we are still doing there. I mean we know of course, more dollars for Elites, but we don’t know.
What is the objective, short and long-term and how will 250 boots on the ground accomplish this? Slippery slope, all day long…
If Obama is this willing to lie about his war, can’t wait to see what the Clinton presidency is going to look like.
ok no boots. Maybe condoleeza and her manolo blahniks that kept her from being respectful during katrina, maybe the (hopefully) large stockpiles of shoes to be thrown at trump or cruz could make a guest appearance too
A suspicious absence of Democrats from your comment.
couldn’t think of any democrat stupidity with shoes, can you think of any?
So, if these troops die doing the nonsense they are commanded to do, then who is going to be blamed? Better make sure they do nothing at all, just PR.
I get a sick feeling from all this. No boots on the ground does not mean no war, it just means that the war we started will have the front lines filled with people of color from a country besides the US. “Just a buffalo soldier…”
“There was never this ‘no boots on the ground,’” said Kirby. “I don’t know where this keeps coming from.”
What is it about the gov that turns seemingly normal persons into compulsive liars and warfikkers?
I’m sure the boots are made in China, like everything else, so it may be technically true that there are no *American* boots on the ground.
;)
Not true. Look up Berry Act. Everything deployed by US soldiers is made in the US using US materials.
I assume they’re not carrying weapons since they’re just there to advise?
I hate that phrase. It not only means putting people in harm’s way — and needlessly, as usually happens when politicians use that phrase — but it also means the people often leave one or both of their boots there on the ground.
Yes, a hill of boots…
I certainly hope that the families of booted but not “boots on the ground” personnel – killed by an enemy action – do not get screwed out of any death related benefits due to this semantic embarrassment.
When is a lie not a lie? Whenever it suits our government. “WE don’t TORTURE” W.M.D.’s – Red Alert everytime his poll numbers were down…..
lying through his teeth
it’s a new form of war — combat by euphemism
But surely here the US administration is trying simply to find a New Balance —
between what’s boots and what’s sneakers. Well, just so long as the three
promised trade pacts will get implemented and honored, and not opposed.
let’s see in vietnam we had a war with a lowercase “w,”like that made it not so horrible; we had to destroy the village to save it; ambushes became “meeting engagements”; we weren’t going to send american boys to do what vietnamese boys should be doing; an air war and the introduction of american combat troops were the result of a torpedo attack that never happened; if we didn’t stop them in hue, we would soon be fighting them in long beach; we were fighting for democracy (forget the heroin).
those bullets were real even if the words weren’t.
we ain’t learned nuthin’
you will notice how the new yuk wallstrip media never, never has older experienced persons at the mic & cam – just some young ignorant dummies get’n paid to brainwash our children to getting killed for their wars for profits – and land and oil.
Special Forces use to mean Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance, Army Special Forces or Navy SEAL. The tip of the spear has broadened, now many military and “other” organization are trained for special operations, indeed special operations are the new “general” operations. The Soldiers filling the boots get the new reality while our leaders try to whitewash it.
Hillary Clinton “We will not send American combat troops back to Syria or Iraq. That is off the table. But we do have special forces.”
“Tyson Manker, a Marine Corps corporal during the invasion of Iraq, argues that the distinction between “boots on the ground” and special forces is meaningless to soldiers overseas. In a statement emailed to The Intercept, Manker wrote: “To Obama, sure it’s meaningful. For the Marines on the ground shooting and getting shot at, not so meaningful.”
got that right.
special forces are eSPECIALly for LOCATIONS in the middle east, not say angola.
and combat will mean to fire standard issue weapons, not special weapons.
They sure dont mind getting us killed for their wars for profits land and oil.
It’s too bad we can’t force the children of TPTB to be sent over there as “not boots on the ground” , then see how their definition evolves.
This is what journalism is all about, holding their boots to the fire.
I don’t think this distinction is entirely bogus. I mean, Jimmy Carter sent helicopters to rescue hostages in Iran, but he didn’t make war on Iran. And the U.S. has various forces in Mexico, but it doesn’t have what most people would “boots on the ground” there either.
The real problem is we’re using stupid baby talk instead of serious, thoughtful terminology. How can the government run as a democracy when it treats its voters like children? And when the voters seldom measure up even to the low expectations people have for them?
“The real problem is we’re using stupid baby talk instead of serious, thoughtful terminology”.
All the better to pull the wool over our eyes.
One wonders if people in the USA are serious about defeating ISIS? Every military observer says the same thing, air strikes can degrade their capacity – troops, munitions, supplies, command and control – but defeating them will require occupying their territory physically, defeating them in battle and rounding them up, as with any war
If the Western governments and their publics are too windy to do it, then let the local people take over In this case, that means the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led militia fighting ISIS in eastern Syria They are too small at present, about 8,000, to both defend the territory they have captured and also to attack the ISIS base in Raqqa, which will likely involve street fighting through the city They are also predominantly Kurds, who won’t be welcomed with open arms by Arabs, particularly the PYD Kurds involved here, so the job of training and increasing the number of Arab and Assyrian (Christian) is underway
That is the main job that the US troops are doing, they are there as trainers, along with troops from other allied countries, including I think my own (UK) There will be some small forward squads doing intel to pinpoint key ISIS targets and more at the base doing logistic, repair and security 300 troops is hardly a big number, but more importantly, no one has come up with a better way of taking ISIS down
There seems to be a new isolationism in the West, where we want to close our eyes to events elsewhere, the better to avoid any possibility of fighting anyone, and keep our fingers crossed that all problems will go away Of course they don’t, we found that in the run-up to WW2, determined people keep going until some one says enough and stops them
We are getting too used to war being a synthesised process, where distant air strikes are seen in the same way as computer games, virtual reality The problem is that ISIS is real reality and coming to a shopping mall near you if they can – either we stop them where they are or we will have to stop them in our backyard
But oh what a tremble about 300 troops on the ground or 3,000 and oh what a struggle for Obama to take such a small, tremulous step (The European leaders are by and large even more spineless)
let’s be real clear about one thing – the republican thieves wanted to invade a sovereign country to rob them of land and oil for texas refineries.
we will defend our “shores”. just our shores. only our shores. we will rebuild America so that we actually do have something to defend.
and finally- to END THE CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST,
how about deliver to them GW Bush and Dick Cheny and the team live in person onto their soil as a peace offering. See what happens. Nothing to lose.
Libya and Syria are Obama’s and Hillary’s to own. Not Bush not republicans. The Islamic pipeline just could not be allowed to pass through Syria. It would benefit Iran and Russia, not the US.
i don’t want them getting near our shopping malls either. perhaps if we got out of that region all together(we really have no business being over there in the first place) we may be able to alleviate such a dire threat.
So if it’s only special forces it’ll be sneakers on the ground?