State Department: ‘We cannot win this war by killing’ ISIS
Want to stop ISIS? Give them… jobs?
State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf is at it again.
Last night, Harf sat down with Chris Matthews who had several straightforward questions about how the U.S. plans to deal with ISIS. It was one of those wonderful moments where Matthews was absolutely right.
“How do we stop this? … If I were ISIS, I wouldn’t be afraid right now… nothing we’re doing right now seems to be directed at stopping this [ISIS].” Matthews said.
Harf: Well, I think there’s a few stages here. Right now what we’re is trying to take their leaders and their fighters off the battlefield in Iraq and in Syria; that’s really where they flourish.
Matthews: Are we killing enough of them?
Harf: We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war.
‘So how do we defeat ISIS’ you might be wondering? Don’t worry, the State Department is like, totally on top of this:
Harf: We need, in the medium and longer term, to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups.
Fair enough. Cut out the root; kill the plant. But, somehow I don’t think this is exactly the root we’re looking for…
Harf: Whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs…
JOBS. WE’RE GOING TO DEFEAT ISIS BY ENSURING THEY HAVE JOBS, YOU GUYS. And to ensure ISIS remains occupied enough to forget their sacred past time of lopping off heads, we must provide unrestricted access to basic human rights like free heath care, and wifi. Probably, anyway. Because at this point, why not?
Matthews: We’re not going to be able to stop that in our lifetime or fifty lifetimes. There’s always going to be poor people, there’s always going to be poor Muslims. As long as there are poor Muslims and the trumpet’s blowing, they’ll join. We can’t stop that, can we?
What follows can only be described as, The Most Ignorant Thing Anyone Has Said in the History of People Saying Ignorant Things, Middle East Edition:
Harf: We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people. You’re right. There is no easy solution in the longterm to preventing and combating violent extremism. But if we can help countries work at the root causes of this. What makes these 17 year old kids pick up an AK-47 instead of trying to start a business, maybe we can try to chip away at this problem, while at the same time, going after the threat, taking on ISIL in Iraq, in Syria and helping our partners around the world.
I’m so old, I remember the Democrats railing against W for his “arrogance” in trying to establish Western style democracies in the Middle East. Yet here we have the very same people pondering why Syrians aren’t more entrepreneurial.
Matthews: This sounds like we’re going to get rid of juvenile delinquency over time in America by erasing poverty and improving education. Sure, over time. But the American people are getting humiliated morally but this.
Then entire exchange is here:
At this point, I sincerely hope Marie Harf is the worst spokesperson in the planet, and that what comes out of her mouth in no way reflects the DOS’ actual agenda or beliefs.
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Comments
Wanted: State Department mouthpiece.
Job Requirement: Extreme stupidity.
B.O.’s most outstanding talent:
Hiring, surrounding hisself with this kind of people.
He does it to make himself look smart
And he fails at that too.
I think the guys cutting off heads seem to think that they have good jobs. What happens to them when they lose these great jobs?
This is the real “JV Team.”
How pathetic and embarrassing.
This Administration just can’t seem to get past Islamic Privilege
they have jobs.
ballistic tests.
The little jihadis are already well on their way up the jihad career ladder by killing women, children, aid workers, journalists, fellow Muslims, etc. Their chosen career couldn’t be more meaningful to them even if it came with vision and dental. They seek the ultimate fringe benefit of martyrdom should they expire on the job. It may just be a comprehension deficit on my part, but they don’t seem to be entertaining other offers at the moment.
Group hug time! We need a Group Hug Czar and we need one now.
C’mon in here, sweetie, biiig hug….
Joe? Is that you, Joe?
I imagine it’s a difficult task to be a higher up in the State Department. I imagine it’s even more difficult when you’re stupid and have no clue as to how the real world works. These people not only should be fired, they should be barred from voting, driving, having children, and exposure to sharp objects.
Holy cow. We’re finished.
Lessee…
how, again, did we win the war against Imperial Japan (which was HIGHLY analogous to ISIS)?
How did we win the war against Nazi Germany?
How have we won any war we unambiguously won?
We killed people and their ability to resist us. Hard. Unstintingly. Without any show of remorse.
Maybe the plan is to be so utterly naive and ridiculous that the enemy dies of laughter ~
Ain’t. Workin’.
It would probably work better if the Muslims weren’t humorless killjoys, a characteristic they share with the holier-than-thou progressives.
Both groups are a boil on the butt of humanity ~
Send Jon Stewart.
He’ll DESTROY them…!!!
I’m so old I remember when Democrats like Obama were outraged that George W. didn’t have a comprehensive “exit strategy” for Iraq.
Strangely, I heard not a peep out of any of those Bush critics when Libya descended into chaos after Obama decided, without bothering to consult or get authorization from congress, to use the U.S.A.F. to take out Libya’s strongman Gaddafi. Not a single word of condemnation was uttered, not even when Obama made the stunning admission during a t.v. interview that he “really didn’t give much thought” to what would happen in Libya after his air strikes took out Gaddafi.
If only the Byzantine Empire had known it was this easy…
Now hiring: Daisy pushers/worm feeders
Experience required:
—–5-10 years of extreme rage against western devils
—–2-3 years of work as jihadi
—–Has killed civilians for random 7th century justifications
Preferred skills:
—-Can cut heads off with dull knife
—-Knows how to score with a goat
Position open until we stop receiving applicants.
So, if all they need is jobs, why can’t we start with Chicago?
If you are a blathering idiot, you must work for the 0 administration.
Proof – look no farther than marie and jen. Really SAD that WE have to
pay for this crap !
It sounds like we don’t need a new Secretary of Defense. We need the Labor Department to get busy.
Marie Harf has like a totally good job. But, as you can see, dude, a “good job” is no guarantee of like, a good end result, you know. LOL.
More liberal falderal: fix the institutions with tons of money and people will turn out all right.
We, the working taxpayers are paying for this institutionalized BS.
Wow! Did I hear that right? Did someone finally top Patty Murray’s statement that bin Laden is popular in the Middle East because he builds daycare centers?
You know ISIS, and before that the Syrian Civil War was doing agood job of wrecking the Syrian economy, so if a good economy is the solution, there is no solution. You can get agood economy only AFTER you defeat ISIS.
Now it might actually even be that ISIS agrees with this analysis, and if so, would want to wreck the economy.
In other places jihadists certainly are against schools.
You can say, maybe, that better schools, especially western schools, will prevent this. You know what? Maybe the terrorist leaders agree with this. Where does that get you?
You can’t run and build schools till the war is won.
Back to the drawing board.
Maybe they think that the terrorist leaders don’t realize that education and jobs are a weapon, and won’t interfere.
But I’m afraid they’re onto us.
The United states tried to improve the Iraqi economy, but al Qaeda in Iraq – which became ISIS kept sabotaging things.
Soon we’ll see an influx of illegal immigrants into ISIS territory, there to do the jobs ISIS terrorists apprently won’t do.
—————————————————
I’m kinda old. I’ve never heard anything quite so stupid as what the White House advisors put in the mouths of their spokesmorons. Not during the Johnson years, not during the Carter years, not during the Clinton years. That’s a high bar to clear and the Obama team routinely sails twenty yards higher.
What’s truly disturbing is the low bar for ineptitude, stupidity, and incompetence this administration has set for its successors. We thought Carter was bad, until we got saddled with the current jackass. How low will the next jackass have to go to beat Zero’s present position as “worst president ever”?
Really, Henry, this is exactly the same meme the Collective has used for decades.
First, define the war against the West as a series of criminal acts, to be addressed by the U.S. criminal legal system.
Second, apply the old, old Collectivst canard that crime is caused by poverty, which has been debunked more thoroughly than perhaps any social theory in history.
And, yet, it won’t die, and just keeps mutating.
Any question as to why there are blonde jokes?
Hey, not fair to the rest of us blondes!
“Harf: Whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs…”
Just think, of only Osama bin Laden’s father had been able to find him an opening in the family construction business, the twin towers might still be standing.
Harf: “But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war.”
Let’s list all of the wars in human history which were won by means other than killing the enemy, by ‘killing the way out of the war’:
Did I miss any?
Harf has apparently spent the whole day on Twitter trying to dig herself out of this one.
Up, honey. Up! Dig UP!
(as usual the LI comment box isn’t playing nice with cut & paste on my iPad… Go to Twitchy for catch her greatest hits)
Many grammar! So educate! (My kingdom for an edit feature…)
I wonder if anyone, say around 1965, would believe that 50 years later the level of intelligence at the highest levels of the US government would be dumber than the common cockroach?
The story over at Weasel Zippers is mundane, but the headline/subheadline is funny:
BOKO HARAM ISSUES NEW THREAT AGAINST NIGER, CHAD
Boko Haram Is Crying Out For Jobs
lol @ that, and lol x 100 @ Harf.