Obama's Wars

Campaigning to end the wars, Obama has instead expanded them.

Obama began his second term having brought one war in Iraq to an end and pledging to bring home America’s ground troops from a second in Afghanistan.

  WaPo

No. He did not end the war in Iraq And he certainly hasn't pulled out of Afghanistan.

As he nears the end of his presidency, Obama faces the prospect that he will leave office with ground forces deployed to three combat zones.

Last month, the president said he would keep 5,500 ground troops in Afghanistan to advise struggling Afghan army and to pursue the remnants of al-Qaeda. In Iraq and Syria, the president has incrementally boosted the U.S. force, beginning an initial deployment of several hundred troops to Iraq in 2014, after Iraqi army forces in Mosul were overrun by Islamic State fighters. The president sent 450 more American trainers and advisers after Iraqi forces were routed at Ramadi by a much smaller Islamic State force in the spring.

Wait a minute. What happened to "he ended the war in Iraq?" Amazing contradiction in the same article gone totally unnoticed.  "Ending the war" doesn't mean what you think it means.

President Obama’s decision to expand the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Syria is a reflection of the conflicting pressures on a commander in chief who doubts that military force alone can end the conflicts in those countries, but who also feels compelled to act in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe and a growing threat to the United States.

The threat is only growing because we haven't ended the "conflicts".

The president on Friday said that he was sending about 50 Special Operations troops to northern Syria to work with Kurdish and Arab fighters battling the Islamic State. The deployment, though small, marks the first full-time deployment of U.S. forces to the dangerous and chaotic country.

[...]

The troops, planes and plans for more raids represent an “intensification” of the president’s existing strategy, said senior administration officials.

Yeah, let's get on the ground in Syria. That'll fix it.

Without a clear overarching strategy to resolve the conflict, “we’re looking at things in a granular way,” the official said.

What the hell does that mean?

The goal, for now, is simply to incrementally reinforce those areas that are working and abandon initiatives that are not.

That would be the whole bloody war. Until we abandon that, nothing is going to work.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.