{"id":6485,"date":"2014-09-16T20:53:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T20:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=6485"},"modified":"2014-09-16T20:53:08","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T20:53:08","slug":"iraqi-slope-getting-slippery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6485","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi slope getting slippery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>That slope that leads into Iraq is getting more slippery all the time.<\/p>\n<p>The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, said it is &#8220;possible&#8221; that American ground troops will be brought back into Iraq to fight the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/congress-scrutinizes-obama-military-strategy-070816643&#8211;politics.html<\/p>\n<p>I believe this is the kind of thing the commander in chief, President Obama, said won&#8217;t happen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president,&#8221; Gen. Dempsey said in a testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Will the president heed the advice of his top military adviser? Therein lies the stickiest of wickets possible for the president.<\/p>\n<p>His critics say the United States cannot defeat the Islamic State with just air power. They also suggest that our coalition-building, which worked pretty well in advance of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is insufficient as well.<\/p>\n<p>So, does the president act on his instincts and stay the course, which means &#8220;no boots on the ground&#8221; in Iraq? Or does he follow the advice of a team of four-star military brass &#8212; all of whom have substantial combat experience &#8212; and send &#8220;advisers&#8221; in with Iraqi troops to root out ISIL terrorists?<\/p>\n<p>Can you say &#8220;conundrum&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s my fervent hope that whatever &#8220;boots&#8221; hit the ground in Iraq remain on the feet of advisers and not on those of infantry or other troops trained in the combat arms.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, keep dropping bombs on the bad guys.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That slope that leads into Iraq is getting more slippery all the time. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, said it is &#8220;possible&#8221; that American ground troops will be brought back into Iraq to fight the Islamic State. http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/congress-scrutinizes-obama-military-strategy-070816643&#8211;politics.html I believe this is the kind of thing the commander &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6485\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Iraqi slope getting slippery<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,14],"tags":[540,2330,2347,2565,2934,5177],"class_list":["post-6485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-iraq","tag-isil","tag-joint-chiefs-of-staff","tag-martin-dempsey","tag-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}