No Boots on the Ground? Defense Secretary Carter Says We’re Not in Active Combat, then Says “This is combat”

How many Americans even know whether or not America is at war?

The military-industrial complex and its lapdog mainstream media keep acting like airstriking numerous countries in the Middle East is not war. Once upon a time, such actions would’ve fallen under the very definition of war, literally, which is “a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state”.

Americans have been continually reassured by our so-called “leaders” that we are not officially at war (a semantics game at best), and that there are no “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria even though we have thousands of American soldiers over in Iraq we are told as “military advisors” who are “training, advising, and assisting” Iraqi security forces…

Oh yeah, they also carry out other missions from time-to-time, but again, don’t worry, it’s not “war”.

We are also told we have soldiers “flying combat missions” over Iraq and Syria (also somehow not war) and raids going on (also somehow not war).

According to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, none of this equals “assuming a combat role”.

After an American soldier, 39-year-old Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, died in October (the first since 2011) while leading his Delta Force team in a special operations raid on an Islamic State compound in Iraq “not fighting” ISIS, Carter couldn’t seem to keep his “we are not at war” story straight in a press conference (via Defense One):

“Americans are flying combat missions, thousands of combat missions, over Syria and Iraqi territory. There are Americans involved in training and advising Iraqi security forces around the country. We do not have combat formations there the way we had once upon a time in Iraq, or the way we have had in years past in Afghanistan,” Carter said.

By calling everything a “support service,” they get around officially labeling it “combat”.

I can call a donkey a magical flying unicorn, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so, does it?

However, Carter couldn’t even keep this line straight within the same press conference. As the press pressed Carter to discuss the death further, Carter brushed them off with:

“This is combat. Things are complicated.”

before leaving the podium.

Okay…

So it’s not combat… but it’s combat.

[amazon text=George Orwell&asin=0451524934] would be so proud.