Remember this?

“If you like your health care plan you can keep it, period. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, period.”

This was said over and over again during the 2012 election cycle. The President was perfectly clear. He made it a point to be perfectly clear. He continually reminded us of his perfect clearness.

Forward to 2014.

“Let me be perfectly clear. There will be no American troops on the ground in Iraq,” said the President five different times in five different venues in the past week.

The number of times a thing is stated does not increase its validity. Adding the words, “Let me be perfectly clear,” do not increase the clarity of something so simply stated as to need no clarification.

In fact, adding superfluous clarifications makes me skeptical of the words they were intended to clarify.

They are not troops, those we are now sending to Iraq. They are “advisers.” I would advise these advisers to fight like the ferocious troops the government says they are not if they are threatened by ISIS marauders, lest they be taken hostage and paraded around in video executions.

The world is a perilous place. Being a soldier is a perilous business. I would just ask that if we are to send our soldiers to some foreign conflict, even for the best of reasons, that our government allow them to be soldiers; that the objective to be accomplished is understood and prosecuted, not public opinion mollified, as public opinion is as flighty as an un-caged canary; it flits about resisting the cage, but has no destination other than the cage.

I do not envy the President. I wish him wisdom, and vision, and the courage to defend his oath of office in the face of all perils.

God Bless America!

©2014 Mississippi Chris Sharp