Latest dispatch from President Obama's Department of Terrible Deeds in the Name of Christ . . . Morning Joe invited State Department spox Marie Harf on today to give her a chance to clarify what she said to Chris Matthews about the US being unable to "kill our way" out of the ISIS problem and the need to focus on the "root causes" of terrorism. Morning Joe invited the State Department spox on today to give her a chance to clarify what she said to Chris Matthews about the US being unable to "kill our way" out of the ISIS problem and the need to focus on the "root causes" of terrorism.
After brushing off the suggestion by General Michael Hayden that she'd like a "mulligan" on those remarks, Harf attempted to distract from the focus on Islamic terrorism. Discussing this week's White House summit on "extremism," Harf cited the Lord's Resistance Army led by Ugandan Joseph Kony. Huffed Harf: "I don't remember people talking about that as much anymore, but that's a Christian militant group."
Sorry, Ms. Harf. It's true that people aren't talking much anymore about the Lord's Resistance Army. That's probably because its leader Joseph Kony is on the run, and while certainly a menace in its region, the group never posed a direct threat to the United States or the West at large. But nice try!
If Harf wanted to discuss a clear and present terrorist danger in sub-Saharan Africa, she should of course have cited Boko Haram, which is slaughtering thousands in Nigeria. But they're Islamic terrorists, so that didn't suit her purposes.
PS: There's something so ineffably bureaucratic and trivializing about Harf's statement that the goal of the summit is to identify "best practices" for dealing with terrorism. General Patton's got your best practices right here!
MARIE HARF: This week at the white house, we have over 60 countries from around the world who are facing a number of different kinds of extremist threats, who are coming together to say, okay. What are the best practices for how we can identify people who may become extremists before they do? To help prevent that? And then once they do, to help counter that. This is not -- you're absolutely right, Mike, this is not just a threat in one place. If you look at the Lord's Resistance Army and Kony, Joseph Kony, I don't remember people talking about that as much any more, but that's a Christian militant group. So there are a lot of different extremist groups we face and there are different tools we have to go after each one of them.
