245.4 - Lovely Little War: Obama sending 200 more troops to Iraq

Lovely Little War: Obama sending 200 more troops to Iraq

And more news from our lovely little war in the Middle East.

The drumbeat to renewed overt US war in Iraq got a bit louder on April 18 with the announcement that Barack "I've got a Nobel Peace Prize and you don't" Obama is sending another 200 US troops to Iraq, troops that will be embedded closer to the front lines.

The additional troops will bring the total to over 4,000 and exceed the previously-declared "cap" on US troops in Iraq, but that presented no problem: Obama simply raised the cap.

There actually are hundreds more US forces in Iraq, but for various reasons they aren't counted in the total. The true number is thought to exceed 5,000.

The new forces are to be embedded as "advisors" - I can never help but remember that embedded "advisors" is how the Indochina War started - at the battalion level, significantly closer to the front lines than the division and brigade levels at which they had been previously.

In addition to the troops, the US is supplying $415 million to the Kurdistan Regional Government and setting up a third long-range rocket artillery unit, and has agreed to employ Apache attack helicopters and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which are truck-mounted rocket launchers, to support Iraqi forces looking to take Mosul back from Daesh.

Of course, this is not nearly enough for some people. Sen. John McCan't, who never saw a war he didn't want to expand and blood he didn't want to shed, dismisses it as "grudging incrementalism" and says it just proves the need for a vastly increased death - excuse me, I mean military - excuse me, I mean "defense" budget.

I keep telling you to "Watch this space." Because it keeps getting filled in, little by little.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/us-sends-200-more-troops-to-help-iraq-fight-islamic-state/
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-18/us-pledges-more-troops-weapons-money-to-fight-isis-in-iraq
http://www.aol.com/article/2016/04/19/mccain-blasts-obama-s-anti-isis-troop-increase-as-grudging-incr/21346367/