When two Navy Seals were killed in Syria, a White House spokesman said, “the relatively small number of U.S. service members that are involved in these operations are not in combat but are in a dangerous place.” But, as Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) says, our troops in Syria and Iraq are definitely, by any definition, in combat.
From Dan Sullivan, The truth about our continuing combat role – The Washington Post:
President Obama has repeatedly told the American people that U.S. troops are not in combat in the Middle East. In 2010, he announced that “our combat mission is ending” in Iraq. He used the same words in 2014 regarding Afghanistan. More recently, he said that our mission in Syria “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”
Yet last week in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, I asked Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. if our troops in the Middle East, including in Syria, are engaged in combat. Both unequivocally said yes. To our members of the military serving overseas, Carter and Dunford were stating the obvious.
Indeed, recent reports in The Post and the Military Times describe up to 200 Marines at Fire Base Bell in northern Iraq firing artillery daily in support of Iraqi troops and killing Islamic State terrorists. Our soldiers serving as part of the Joint Special Operations Command in the Middle East conduct regular counterterrorism missions to kill and capture terrorists. Since 2014, our brave pilots have dropped approximately 40,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria in close-air-support missions focused on killing Islamic State members and destroying their infrastructure and supply operations. An additional 1,200 bombs have been dropped supporting the coalition fight in Afghanistan combating the Taliban.
Some of our service members have been killed conducting these operations, while others have been wounded. All of this is the very definition of combat.
To Carter’s credit, he said at the hearing: “These people are in combat . . . and I think that we need to say that clearly.”
Apparently, the White House didn’t get the memo. This week, when asked about a Navy SEAL killed in a fierce firefight involving U.S. Special Operations forces, Kurdish commandos and Islamic State fighters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that “the relatively small number of U.S. service members that are involved in these operations are not in combat but are in a dangerous place.”
From Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), The truth about our continuing combat role – The Washington Post:
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