Friday, August 22, 2014

Political dissonance

I believe it was James Burnham who said that it only takes one side to declare a war and define its stakes. The State Dept. apparently sees things a little differently. Bryan Preston cites State Dept. spokesimbecile Marie Harf:
“This is not about ISIL versus the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf objected. “They are killing anyone who gets in their way: Sunnis, Shia Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Iraqis, Syrians, anyone who gets in their way — and now an American.”

“So this is not about what the United States is or isn’t doing”…
Yeah, tell that to James Foley’s parents.

And I love this part: “And they [ISIL] don’t represent any religion.” Right. And the pope ain’t Catholic and Southern Baptists don’t believe in full immersion.

Wars – or whatever Harf wants to call large armed conflicts involving tens of thousands of combatants and affecting hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians – aren’t won by the side that is mired in ambivalence and willful blindness. This one certainly isn’t going to be won by a chief executive who sees the presidency as little more than something impressive to put on his resumé (or as an increasingly irritating encroachment on his golf time).

Dangerous and frightening times, my friends.

Update - From Anonymous, in the comments: "If ISIS started destroying golf courses you'd see a very different response from this administration."

4 comments:

rinardman said...

When I was a kid my dad kept bees, in hives in the backyard. He would always tell me to "Just ignore them, and they'll leave you alone."

Who knew? ISIS is just like bees!

bruce said...

Very true, Paco.

“And they don’t represent any religion.”

What? If the bureaucrats can't tell the truth, they should say nothing. Comforting lies are much worse than silence.

Anonymous said...

If ISIS started destroying golf courses you'd see a very different response from this administration.

Michael Lonie said...

Considering that the ISIL swine will cite you sura, verse, and hadith to justify their barbarism from unquestionabley authoritative Muslim sources, it ill behooves ignorant State Department officials to parrot Obumbler's equally ignorant statement that ISIL does not represent any religion. Indeed, the reason they are killing so many is that they believe that they are the good Muslims, and the ones they're killing are bad ones.

Can't anybody in Washington play this Great Game?