NBC's Richard Engel says boots are already on the ground, embedded with local fighters in Iraq

[cali]

During his prime time speech last night, President Barack Obama vowed that no combat troops would fight on foreign soil in the pursuit of ISIS, an assertion contradicted by NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who says that U.S. boots are already on the ground in Iraq.

“I know there are already American boots on the ground where I am now,” Engel told MSNBC, adding, “They are troops who are staying away from reporters, they are embedded with local fighters trying to guide in air strikes, gathering intelligence — the kind of thing you would have thought the Green Berets would have done many years ago, and which are now being done by Navy SEALS and Delta Force and other Special Operations Forces.”

Engel went on to state that Obama was engaged in a “secret war” to dislodge ISIS while questioning the effectiveness of such a strategy.

The NBC reporter’s revelation that U.S. troops are already working alongside local fighters in Iraq to target ISIS contradicts Obama’s claim last night that his plan, “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

In a subsequent interview, Engel slammed Obama’s strategy to eliminate ISIS as “wildly off-base,” asserting that comparisons to U.S. military activity in Yemen and Somalia were an oversimplification of the problem.

<snip>

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nbc-reporter-boots-already-on-the-ground-in-iraq-they-are-embedded-with-local-fighters/5400994

[JoePhilly]

1. So comparing this to Yemen and Somalia is an over simplification ...

... but comparing this to (claiming it is the same as) Bush's 150,000 troop invasion with a 10+ year occupation, is not.

Got it.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. LOL....so true

Engel is a doosh.

[JoePhilly]

10. Can see it all over DU today as well.

[jwirr]

28. They talked about the so called comparison of ISIS to Yemen and Somalia in that same program.

I think it was Chris Hayes who said the comparison was not between the groups but instead the method of attacking each group was comparable. They did not go back and check it out.

[JoePhilly]

29. Right ... which makes sense.

The approach is also similar to what Clinton did with Bosnia. The US focused on air support.

Meanwhile, some are claiming this is just like Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003.

[newthinking]

2. Our boots are on the ground everywhere we see an interest

[SummerSnow]

4. a financial interest

[Schema Thing]

3. Yeah we didn't need Engel to tell us that. Obama told us that.

[MineralMan]

5. Sounds like they're engaged in intelligence gathering

and communicating ISIS positions to me. Doesn't sound like combat roles at all. Someone has to point out where the ISIS forces are, doncha think?

[msanthrope]

9. Precisely. Somebody's gotta be there to run the equipment, send back the logistics, and coordinate.

Looks like the Iraqis and the Kurds are the ones in the combat roles.

[MineralMan]

12. Oddly enough, that's just what the article at the link says.

Maybe the OP didn't read the article. Seemed clear enough to me. Yes, we have people imbedded. That way, they're where they can see what's happening and provide the necessary intelligence to call in those air strikes. How else would we know where the ISIS forces were?

Conclusions. People are jumping to them.

[msanthrope]

14. Perhaps the OP did not read the whole article, merely the excerpt they put up. I'd like to think

that an OP would read all of the source they are providing, but they may not have had the time.

[MineralMan]

15. All too often, OPs are posted after only a cursory glance

at the article, and without any other reference. President Obama said that this was happening, and we've had troops there doing this for some time. Those 150 air strikes were directed by those boots on the ground, which have been there for a while already.

Some people are not really following what is going in. They're just posting based on their opinion of the matter, rather than actual factual information.

[msanthrope]

22. I find this one of the more disconcerting aspects of some OPs. Quality, not quantity, is a laudable

goal.

[MineralMan]

23. Yes. I do too.

Reading with understanding would seem to me to be the first step in deciding what to post here. There's another thread where a poster doesn't understand ISIL and ISIS and the meaning of those acronyms. Somehow, the poster thinks that ISIL was a later term than ISIS, and that the President is getting it wrong by using ISIL.

That reflects a lack of information about what is actually going on and is in indication that that poster has not actually been following this closely at all. Why would someone post something that demonstrates a lack of knowledge? I don't get that at all.

The other thing that often bothers me is someone creating their own headline for a news story that already had an accurate headline. Generally, the new headline created by the poster does not accurately reflect what is in the story. Maybe they think that nobody on DU will actually read even the excerpt, much less click through to the full story. Odd, I think.

There are some puzzling things about DU and that's one of the things that puzzles me the most. Why would someone post something that is just incorrect or misstated?

[msanthrope]

24. Headline changing often indicates agenda-driven OPing. As for demonstrating a lack of knowledge

willingly, perhaps you presume that the poster has enough self-awareness to perceive that behavior. And perhaps, the poster knows their audience in the sense that no matter what they say, they simply will not be challenged as to accuracy.

I've pretty much described Glenn Greenwald's posting style, I realize.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. The U S has military personnel in one hundred thirty nations.

We are an empire. We can quibble what kind of empire we are but we are an empire.

[amandabeech]

8. This article's characterization of Richard Engel's reporting from Iraq is accurate.

I don't know if Engel's statements after Obama's speech are available online somewhere, but for those who didn't see him last night, it would be worthwhile to search them out.

Engel characterized our activities in Yemen and Somalia as sporadic. We do some surveillance, and when we find what we think is a terrorist operation, we act. In the case of Yemen, we report to the Yemeni government, and Yemeni troops will go in or the Yemeni government will ask us to go in.

In Iraq, we will be involved in these operations constantly and simultaneously.

Engel also stated that the Iraqi Army simply would not be able to do the job that our President outlined. Engel said essentially that the Iraqi Army is a Shiite army led by Iranian Army personnel. The Iraqis living under ISIL rule or in danger of being taken over by ISIL are Sunnis who have had terrible experiences with Iraqi Shiites and who absolutely hate Iran. Engel said that they will not let Iranian led Iraqi Shiites into their villages.

ISIL armies are led in part by Sunni leaders of Sadam Hussein's Baathist army and by Sunnis that the US trained. No matter how evil ISIL is, to Iraqi Sunnis, armies led by Iraqi Sunnis will be more welcome than an Iranian led Iraqi Shiite army.

Engel was so upset by the President's characterization of the situation on the ground that he looked like he was actually shaking with emotion.

If Engel is right, and it seems that he most often is, it would appear that our President has not been hearing anything like what Engel is saying. That's very much like the "stove-piping" of information to the Shrub before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It's hard to believe that the President would let that happen, but I am concerned.

[TwilightGardener]

17. Richard Engel has struck me, for a long time, as being slightly...off...

He gets very weird and opinionated--more of a pundit than a reporter.

[cali]

20. Engel is one of the more erudite reporters around with a deep knowledge of the region and

he is a fluent arabic speaker as well.

I have no idea what you mean by "slightly off" or weird. And he doesn't strike me as any more opinionated than most reporters- but he is a hell of a lot more informed than most.

[TwilightGardener]

21. He's not a reporter anymore. All he does is editorialize. I watched an interview

of him last week by Andrea Mitchell, and he just went on and on about how all the deaths in Syria's civil war were Obama's fault because Obama just didn't support the rebels to overthrow Assad. His agenda is very clear, and I don't know why you don't see that. He is not an objective observer, AT ALL. Also, what is he reporting here? That American special forces are on the ground with the Peshmerga? That's our whole fucking strategy--DUH, Richard Engel.

[amandabeech]

27. Check reply #25. It might answer some of your questions. n/t

[amandabeech]

26. He was clearly very troubled about the President's plan,

and I agree that there's a bit of a pundit in him, but I don't see him as "off" or "weird."

[drray23]

11. what revelation?

That is ridiculous. The president has said several times that we had special forces and other troops on the ground to assess the situation and coordinate with kurds and iraqi army. Its not a revelation. The big difference is that we do not have 100,000 people mired in the desert.

[The Magistrate]

13. Everyone KNows Special Operations Types Are Present, Ma'am

This cannot come as much of a surprise to anyone who understands how things work.

[TwilightGardener]

16. Special forces are everywhere.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

18. Yeaaaaahhhh...we already knew this, Mr. Engel. nt

[jillan]

19. I saw this interview last nite and was wondering wtf was with him? Lawrence O'Donnell asked Engel

a brilliant question...
along the lines of - you do realize that the reason we are acting on Isis now is because of the barbaric murdering of two war correspondents who were doing the same job as you are doing now.

Engel replied that even if he was beheaded we should not change our strategy dealing with Isis.
Interesting.

[bklyncowgirl]

25. Richard Engel was kidnapped in Syria himself

Yes, it was Shabiha Assad's thugs who nabbed him and he was eventually rescued by the Free Syrian Army but you can't blame the guy for thinking there but for the grace of God go I. If had been Isis or Al Nusra instead of the FSA who blew his captors to hell and rescued him and his crew, this could have been him.

[jwirr]

30. That attitude in your last sentence is an old one and honorable. My uncle who faught in Korea

heard that the Pueblo had grounded in North Korea he said "they knew what they are doing - we are not going after them" and again when the diplomats were taken hostage in Iran he voiced the opinion that it was part of their job to not expect the government to make allowances in policy to free them. The danger was part of the job.

[jillan]

31. It was fascinating to me that Lawrence even thought to ask him that question &

even more fascinating to listen to Engle's reply.

I wonder how many that are in these areas of constant war feel like that... because it seems like foreign policy has become nothing more than a pay-back.. You killed ours, will kill yours.