United States Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced Tuesday that the Pentagon will be sending, once again, a new Special Operations force to Iraq to strengthen the fight against ISIS alongside Iraqi operations.

While giving an update of President Obama’s masterplan to defeat the widespread militant group, Carter called this new deployment of — let’s be honest here — “boots on the ground” a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” that will assist Iraqi soldiers in combatting ISIS in their own country.

Sounds like the Pentagon’s/White House’s PR strategy: if we call it “special” enough, give it a big multiplex, Orwellian tag, it won’t seem as bad — and won’t attract as much of a public outcry as stating that there will be more U.S. troops on the ground in combat scenarios in the Middle East.

“These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders,” Carter said (and by ISIL he means ISIS or the Islamic State or Daesh or IS). “That creates a virtuous cycle of better intelligence, which generates more targets, more raids and more momentum.”

One more thing: he also stated that these “elite American forces” might go over to Syria and conduct “unilateral operations” there.

Okay.

This from the Washington Post:

Several weeks ago, the Obama administration approved a plan to expand its military effort against the Islamic State, which remains dug in across Iraq and Syria despite over a year of U.S. and allied airstrikes, as well as sending Special Operations forces to Syria and increasing the number raids against militants.

In October, a Delta Force soldier was killed in a joint raid to free hostages in central Iraq, the first time since the U.S. military returned to Iraq in 2014 that an American service member died in combat there.

If you watch/listen to the video, it starts out with Carter saying — in his Hollywood voice — “we’re at war. We’re using the might of the finest fighting force the world has ever known.”

His last remarks captured in the footage are extremely interesting, and deserves to be dissected and reserved for contemplation:

“Through our own action, and those of our coalition partners, the military campaign will destroy ISIL’s leadership and forces, deprive it of resources and safe haven and mobility. All the while we seek to identify and then enable motivated local forces on the ground to expel ISIL from its territory, hold and govern it, and ensure that victory sticks.

“This strategic approach sets the conditions for a political solution to the civil war in Syria, and to crippling sectarianism in Iraq, which are the only durable ways to prevent a future ISIL-like organization from reemerging.”