The New War in Iraq and Syria, American "Boots on the Ground" soon?

US attack helicopters recently over Iraq and Syria

As sure as day follows night, when it comes to conflicts in much of the world, official Washington will in all likelihood initiate or otherwise destabilize that conflict, the latest being the American air war in Iraq and now Syria against the Islamic State-that new Muslim "enemy" in our never ending global war on terrorism-even though "Dear Leader" Obama has "assured" us it won't include American "boots on the ground".

The latter hasn't happened as yet; supposedly just some US special ops forces on the ground "advising" Iraqi government commanders.

But wait, here's the latest update from the Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby [i] , "Airstrikes alone are not going to save the town of Kobani"-a Syrian Kurd enclave on the border with Turkey under siege by IS militants. They "are going to continue to grab ground and there are going to be villages, towns and cities that they take in Syria and Iraq". Kirby's assessment was followed by other "war" department officials blaming "the poor performance on Iraqi and Syrian forces battling them on the ground". It shouldn't be hard to see the "groundwork" being laid here and where US involvement is heading.

This tripe by the "war" Department is eerily reminiscent of our time in Viet Nam in the early 1960's when we had only military "advisors" to the South Vietnamese army. They weren't doing very well against the Communist Viet Cong guerillas or Ho Chi Minh's regular North Vietnamese army, but then voila, in 1965-after Lyndon Johnson was re-elected on the promise not to expand the war in Viet Nam-there was the "Tonkin Gulf Incident", which reports at the time indicated the North Vietnamese had attacked an American ship without provocation and Johnson used this incident to justify escalating that war eventually placing some 500,000 American troops on the ground.

Of course we've since learned the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" was bogus, a false flag event but used as the catalyst to get us more directly involved to escalate the war.

"Dubya" Bush invaded Iraq on the false pretext Iraq's Saddam Hussein had WMD's, was allied with Osama bin Laden, 9/11 and we don't want "mushroom clouds" over American cities.

Even Hitler maintained Germany was first attacked by Poland using that false pretext to Blitzkrieg and send his Wehrmacht to overrun that country in September, 1939 and begin WWII.

Demonizing an "enemy" while highlighting its brutality goes to justifying, initiating and-soon to be- escalating a new war in Iraq and now Syria against the Islamic State over its bloodthirsty beheading rampage, the takeover of towns and cities,thus promoting R2P i.e. responsibility to protect Iraqi's, Syrian's Kurds-all useful pawns in official Washington's "playbook" that could be used to justify the eventual-inevitable?- American boots on the ground needed to slay the latest "bogeyman" beast-we created-but now must be destroyed as a potential threat to America.

Getting back to the stiffs in the "war" Department they're saying, "We've warned for weeks against overstating the effect of air power"-even as they defended current military strategy. "The decision to keep US troops out of a ground combat role means that ousting Islamic State fighters will take a year or more and that additional years will be needed to defeat them in their home base in Syria." Again it's pretty clear where all this is heading.

The hokum never ceases from official Washington because the military/industrial/corporatist "dragon" requires the "fuel" of war-and now endless war-to feed its insatiable thirst and hunger for power and hegemony in the world.

Also in less than a month there's a Congressional election and once that charade is over, regardless of the results, "The decision to keep US troops out of a combat role" will surely be reconsidered, particularly if those pesky beheading Islamists continue their "Caliphate" rampage as "they continue to grab villages, towns and cities in Iraq and Syria".

Don't bet the ranch but if the history of US military engagement since the end of WWII is any guide, in all likelihood we'll see American escalation of the war in Iraq and Syria, with American boots on the ground.