Obama Might Send Armed Soldiers, On the Ground, to Help Fight ISIS—But Don’t Worry, They Won’t Be ‘Ground Troops’

Still confused about
whether or not
Washington is willing to send ground troops to fight ISIS? The
New York Times tries to clear
things up:

Mr. Obama, in his White House speech and again to
troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., ruled [deploying
ground forces] out. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that if airstrikes failed to vanquish
the militants, he would recommend it to the president.

The White House has tried to square these two statements by
offering an extremely narrow definition of combat: American
advisers could be sent to the front lines alongside Iraqi and
Kurdish troops, and could even call in airstrikes, without directly
engaging the enemy. It is a definition rejected by virtually every
military expert.

“Calling in airstrikes is just as much combat as firing a rifle at
someone,” said John A. Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who
served in a tank battalion in Iraq and helped write the Army’s
counterinsurgency field manual. “What that guy really is doing is
painting a house with a laser designator that results in that house
being vaporized.”

The American advisers are armed, and if they are shot at by the
enemy, they are authorized to return fire. In a close combat
advisory role in a city, experts said, the American troops would
tell Iraqi commanders which house to hit, how much ammunition to
use in an assault, and how to organize medical evacuation for their
troops.

Read the rest here.