We’re probably sounding like a broken record on this, but we don’t care, because it’s important and true and these are American lives we’re talking about.

Remember that part from the 1999 Mike Judge comedy Office Space when they’re talking about the Superman III scheme of stealing very small amounts (fractions of a penny we think it was?) from many, many computer transactions that deal with very large sums — from the tech company they work for? Basically, the trick was based on this idea that if you do things smalltime, many, many times, no one will notice, even if the total at the end is significant.

Think about that, and then read this new White House announcement via Newsweek:

President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.

The deployment, which will increase U.S. forces in Syria to about 300, aims to accelerate recent gains against Islamic State and appears to reflect growing confidence in the ability of U.S.-backed forces inside Syria and Iraq to claw back territory from the hardline Sunni Islamist group.

Obama and the Pentagon keep on sending small numbers (relatively) of troops overseas to fight in the Middle East, and while it doesn’t seem significant (when compared to a surge or a clear declaration of war, let’s say) the aggregate is.

And we understand these troops are mostly special operators whose duties are not to do battle on the front lines, but train and advise the native forces to do so. But come on. They’re in the line of fire, and the enemy can wound or even kill them too. Let’s not kid ourselves, even if it would feel a lot better to do so.

To defend Obama (and Carter and the Pentagon) they’re in a tough spot. If they don’t send force to deal with ISIS (Islamic State, IS, ISIL, Daesh) they run the risk of the terror organization getting larger and larger and thus endangering the homeland and/or our allies overseas. If they do send troops over, as they’re doing, they get flack for putting Americans in harm’s way, and potentially repeating the recent wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

You can watch Obama explain his reasoning to this touchy situation below, during his ongoing visit to Germany.

He talks about “driving ISIL back” and that the added forces will continue the momentum they’ve built up (along with NATO) in the past few months: