AP

1. Telling the truth about the current U.S. combat role

When a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed last week near Mosul in Iraq, the White House just couldn’t bring itself to say he was killed in combat – which he clearly was. Responding to a question from a reporter, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “the relatively small number of U.S. service members that are involved in these operations are not in combat but are in a dangerous place.”

This ridiculous fiction must stop.

Writing in TheWashington Post, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the Obama administration is doing a great disserve to our service members and to our standing abroad by pretending we’re not engaging in combat operations against ISIS.

“President Obama has repeatedly told the American people that U.S. troops are not in combat in the Middle East,” wrote Sullivan, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves. “In 2010, he announced that ‘our combat mission is ending’ in Iraq. He used the same words in 2014 regarding Afghanistan. More recently, he said that our mission in Syria ‘will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.’ Yet last week in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, I asked Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. if our troops in the Middle East, including in Syria, are engaged in combat. Both unequivocally said yes.”

That much is obvious, especially to our increasing number of service members being deployed to the Middle East.

“Our soldiers serving as part of the Joint Special Operations Command in the Middle East conduct regular counterterrorism missions to kill and capture terrorists,” Sullivan wrote. “Since 2014, our brave pilots have dropped approximately 40,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria in close-air-support missions focused on killing Islamic State members and destroying their infrastructure and supply operations. … Some of our service members have been killed conducting these operations, while others have been wounded. All of this is the very definition of combat.”

Why won’t the White House acknowledge this?

“Perhaps the commander in chief is truly unaware that they are, which would be troubling indeed,” Sullivan speculated. “More likely is that because he’s told the American people repeatedly that he will end wars and won’t send combat troops to the Middle East, the word contortions coming from the White House are part of a twisted attempt to salvage and protect the president’s legacy.”

But it’s doing real damage.

“First, it diminishes the service and sacrifice of our troops and their families,” he wrote. “Americans serving in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan know they’re engaged in combat operations. The commander in chief needs to acknowledge this fact and the bravery it entails, not disguise the true nature of their duty.”

And it is hurting America’s standing overseas.

“Islamic State terrorists know that they’re in combat against U.S. forces, but when the president says otherwise, it signals a lack of conviction, making it harder to defeat these terrorists,” he noted.

It’s time for the White House to clearly acknowledge the truth – we are at war against ISIS.