Are combat operations in Iraq really over? Our troops don’t think so

  We all heard Barack Obama’s speech from the Oval Office on August 31st in which he declared the official end to United States combat operations in Iraq. He claimed that by ending the combat operations in Iraq he was fulfilling a campaign promise to end the war in Iraq.

  So, is the Iraq war over just because Barack Obama has declared it is? Our troops don’t think so. As a matter of fact, many of our troops feel that by Barack Obama declaring an end to combat, their own service and sacrifices are being denigrated because they still face the very same dangers they did before Barack Obama declared the war over.

  One soldier summed it up this way:

“When NBC talked about the last combat troops are gone, they made it sound like everything is basically over,” he said, after escorting a 19-truck convoy through a part of northern Iraq where roadside bombs and mortar attacks are still a danger.”To us it was like a slap in the face, because we are still here … we are still going in harm’s way every time we leave out of the gate.”

    Yet another soldier had this to say:

“That doesn’t really change a thing, it is still dangerous, if a life is gone, it is gone,” he said. “As long as we are going in harm’s way, it (the war) is not over for us.”

  Yet another soldier claimed that they still get attacked, but the attacks are less frequent and less lethal, but the fact is that we still have brave men and women serving in harm’s way in  Iraq. If the war is over someone should probably fill our enemy in to the fact that they have already lost–or did we lose, was this a surrender speech by Barack Obama?

  Barack Obama’s first two years as president have been tough to say the least. He has failed at almost everything that he has tried–his one victory being the healthcare reform legislation, which is so despised by the American people that members of his own party don’t even dare to mention it when they are on the campaign trail.

  Barack Obama had to do something to try to shore up his base before the midterm elections so he decided to declare to the American people that the Iraq war is over. By doing this he felt he would be able to claim a major victory headed into the elections, and he hoped would resonate with his far left base.

  This is nothing more than leftist, Orwellian newspeak being disseminated to the American people by the propaganda arm of the Obama regime, but we have seen this before. The war on terror is now the “overseas contingency plan,” terrorist acts are now “man-caused disasters,” and the combat operations in Iraq “are now over.” Meet the same boss, same as the old boss; nothing has changed in Iraq other than the name of the mission.

  Simply changing the name of the operation does not change the operation itself–nor the risks involved, but Barack Obama was so desperate that he decided to give it a try anyway in the  hope that the American people would not realize what he was up to.

  Barack Obama decided the time was right for him to try to score a major political victory and he made  his move, but it is clear that combat operations are still being conducted by United States soldiers, regardless of what Barack Obama is now calling these operations.

  For the 700 New Hampshire National Guardsmen who were deployed on September 11th of this year the war is not over, it has just begun.

  Is this Barack Obama’s “mission accomplished” moment? It certainly seems so to me. Call it what you will, but until all of our heroes come home it is still a combat mission to me.