Always question why people in government suddenly do something they just about never do. Your questioning may well provide insight into what the government will do next.
On Tuesday, author Peter Van Buren, who worked at the United States Department of State for 24 years, engaged in just such questioning. Van Buren noted, in his article “About That Delta Force Guy Killed in Iraq…,” the oddity of the “very public attention given at the highest levels in Washington” to the death of Delta Force Member Joshua Wheeler in a strike mission in Iraq given that the “United States does not formally acknowledge the existence of Delta Force, and rarely mentions the names of any of its members, even after they leave the service.”
Could there be some ulterior motive behind the atypical publicity? Thinking the situation through, Van Buren found one:
So why all the public attention to Wheeler’s death, and why now?
One reason stands out: we, the public, are being readied for a larger US combat role in Iraq and Syria, one big enough that it will be hard to keep hidden.
Here we are three days later with the Obama administration announcing the insertion of US special forces in Syria in contravention of President Barack Obama’s repeated promises to keep US ground troops out of the fighting in Iraq and Syria.
Van Buren got it right.
Read Van Buren’s complete article here.
