Boot To The Head (Of State)

Yeah, reality is a bitch sometimes when you're leader of the free world, huh.

Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."

Earnest said the promises of "no boots on the ground" first came in the context of removing Syrian President Bashar Assad because of his use of chemical weapons. Since then, Syria has become a haven for Islamic State fighters.

USA Today's  Gregory Korte goes on to list 16 times that President Obama said there wouldn't be "boots on the ground" and yet, here we are with at least SOCOM forces in Syria. The right will say we need another 199,950 troops or so, and the left, zero.  There's no distinction here,  "Obama lied!" is what both sides will claim.

To this I say "you were idiotic not to think we'd have special ops troops on the ground in Syria, because that's what they are there for."  Whether or not Josh Ernest should have admitted as such is definitely arguable, but let the screaming about "That Nobel Peace Prize-winning war criminal" continue long enough and just maybe we can elect someone who really will put hundreds of thousands of troops in Syria, Iran, and Yemen while we're at it.

Meanwhile, Russian airliners are mysteriously breaking up over the Sinai. Things are getting weird out there and it's not a good thing. Maybe having a couple of guys out there keeping tabs on Syria isn't a wholly bad idea.