Obama’s Invisible War

Since Aug. 7, the United States has been involved in a nonexistent war in Iraq, which expanded into Syria on Sept. 22. It is a war without a name. The Department of Defense did not baptize it until Oct. 15, when it was already two months and one week old. In theory, it is only an aerial war, although there are already 1,600 U.S. soldiers on the ground, a number which President Barack Obama would like to increase to 3,000.

Those “advisers” could soon have another name, however, since Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey — who made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Saturday and confirmed that the battle is beginning to bear fruit — remarked on Thursday he is considering the possibility that when Iraqi soldiers attempt to retake the city of Mosul, the second largest city in the country, next spring, they could “be accompanied by U.S. forces.” That would mean sending soldiers to the front lines of the conflict.

All of those word games are not accidental. Neither was it coincidental that the war did not have a name until Nov. 15, when it had already been active for two months and one week. Without a name, whatever the United States was doing in Syria and Iraq was not officially a war — which also implies that the soldiers who participated in that campaign were not eligible to receive decorations.

Thus, the 1,600 “advisers” that the Pentagon sent to Iraq in the middle of October could not receive the Iraq Campaign Medal, created in 2003. Neither they, nor the tens of thousands of soldiers involved in the bombings in Iraq and Syria, belong to the group that can receive decorations from the global war against terror, established on Nov. 7, 2001, when the United States began the Afghanistan bombings — despite the fact that they have been fighting against a terrorist group, the Islamic State, which formed out of a split from al-Qaida. Paradoxically, the soldiers do receive the bonus that corresponds to combat duty, and once they abandon active service, they are eligible for loans from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Recognition

On Nov. 15, the Pentagon gave the thing a name: Operation “Inherent Resolve.” It was the recognition of one fact — the United States is at war — but also of another: Washington does not want to talk about it. Neither do more than 20 allied countries that contribute to the military force; several of them — Belgium, Holland, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — contribute directly, with fighter planes that have already carried out bombings in the region.

General Dempsey is meeting with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad. The Obama administration and the rest of the coalition members, therefore, have managed to create an invisible war. In the age of the Internet, the West’s conflict against the Islamic State group has all the hallmarks of a 19th century colonial war: a succession of battles in remote territory.

The Kuwait War in 1991 made General Norman Schwarzkopf into a television star. The war in Kosovo in 1999 did the same for NATO’s Chief Commander Wesley Clark, who even launched a brief presidential campaign with the Democratic Party in 2004. Iraq and Afghanistan produced other recognizable faces: Tommy Franks, during the invasions of both countries; Richard Sanchez, when Iraq fell apart; and David Petraeus, the star of the conflict.

In this war, the individual with the highest level of responsibility has not appeared anywhere, despite having the same job that made Franks and Petraeus famous: commander of the U.S. Central Command. His name is Lloyd Austin, he is 61 years old and he is African-American. If Schwarzkopf and Clark became famous for their press conferences, and Petraeus for his press leaks, Austin is the “invisible general,” in the words of The New York Times.

Remote-Controlled Planes

An invisible general is perfect for an invisible war whose dimensions are much larger than what the Pentagon’s succinct statements let on. The war against the Islamic State group is not based on remote-controlled planes, the famous drones, like those used in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. On Oct. 5, for example, the United States admitted to ABC television that it had been employing Apache helicopters to bomb Islamic State group positions around the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The use of the Apache indicates that the United States is fighting against very small units. It also carries a risk — a helicopter is much easier to take down than a plane.

But together with the Apache, the United States has launched its other Air Force jewels, among them the B-1B Lancer, a monster designed to launch atomic attacks on the Soviet Union with a capacity of 34 tons of bombs. The B-1Bs that the United States uses in Afghanistan are based in Qatar, and they have been in action since the first moment of the new war in Iraq. Their attacks were crucial in the withdrawal of Islamic State group soldiers from the city of Haditha in northern Iraq.

The most dramatic event has been the deployment of the F-22, the latest jewel in the U.S. aerial arsenal. Designed as a fighter, the F-22, which costs $412 million per unit, has bombed Syria at least once, and probably provided support when the Syrian air force attempted to intercept American, Arab and European airplanes that attacked the Islamic State group and other groups in the north of the country. Either that, or the Pentagon decided not to try out an airplane that has been seen as a failure because of constant technical problems during its development phase and tests in real combat situations.

With all of this secrecy, it becomes very difficult to know how the war that does not exist is going. No one can know if the Islamic State group is retreating or if it keeps advancing despite the attacks; in the same way, it is impossible to know the human cost of the bombings. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, eight weeks of aerial attacks by coalition countries on the fundamentalists have caused 765 deaths, of which 50 were civilians. That number is tiny compared to the 200,000 deaths during the Syrian civil war. But, like everything in this war, it is only speculation.