Many people are left to ponder over the political overtones of the phrase, “operation faithful patriot,” and why it was used in the first place. However, now that the mid-term elections are behind us, perhaps the White House felt it had served its purpose.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the decision to change the name was made by Defense Secretary James Mattis’s office, which issued the order on Election Day.
Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Jamie Davis told CNN, “we are not calling it ‘Operation Faithful Patriot,’ we are calling it ‘border support,” rebranding President Donald Trump’s deployment of more than 8,000 troops as “border support” the day after 2018 midterm elections.
The mission, highly criticized as a political stunt ahead of mid-term elections, is now called “border support.” However, the “mission status remains unchanged at this time,” US Northern Command told Business Insider.
Separately, a US defense official told CNN the Pentagon decided the mission should not have been designated a “named operation” in the first place because it is not a combat mission. The deployed troops are just supporting border patrol agents.
Trump’s troop movement to the U.S.-Mexico border is the largest deployment of his presidency. As the mid-term elections approached, Trump stirred up fear and hatred within his faithful followers by declaring the country was being invaded – calling it a national emergency that required protecting the security of the country and its citizens.
