State Department under fire for saying finding 'jobs' for jihadis - not 'killing them' - is the only way to defeat ISIS, as White House avoids saying latest beheading victims were Christian
Since we are giving tax refunds to illegals who didn't pay taxes I won't be a bit surprised when ISIS files for unemployment benefits. I learn something everyday. ISIS is not composed of ruthless, bloodthirsty, terrorists they are actually a "group" of people who just happen to be unemployed. But if they were employed the atrocities they commit would be deemed "workplace violence". Finally I got it.
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'Countering violent extremism' conference kicks off in Washington but the White House insists 'we are not treating these people as part of a religion'
Marie Harf, the State Department's no. 2 spokeswoman, said Monday night that 'lack of opportunity for jobs' in the Middle East should be US focus
'We cannot win this war by killing them, we cannot kill our way out of this war,' she said of the ISIS terror army
Lengthy statement from the White House after brutal killings of 21 Christians by ISIS-linked minitants in Libya made no mention of Christians or Muslims
By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com
Published: 12:03 EST, 17 February 2015 | Updated: 19:04 EST, 17 February 2015
The Obama administration is drawing fire for suggesting that defeating ISIS requires more of a jobs program for terrorists than a sophisticated approach to killing them.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Monday night on MSNBC that 'we cannot win this war by killing them, we cannot kill our way out of this war.'
Instead, she said, the administration should 'go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups' – including 'lack of opportunity for jobs.'
'We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance,' Harf insisted. 'We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.'
The embarrassing gaffe aired as the White House attracted new criticism for papering over religious aspects of a mass-beheading of Coptic Christians by the ISIS terror army.
JOBLESS JIHAD: State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf insisted Monday night on MSNBC that a jobs program in the Middle East could stem the tide of ISIS
President Obama steps off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Bace in Maryland after spending Presidents' Day weekend playing golf in Palm Springs, California
'THEY WERE CHRISTIANS': Pope Francis mourned the loss of 21 Copts in Libya who were beheaded on video by ISIS terrorists
Video surfaced on Sunday showing Libyan ISIS sympathizers decapitating 21 Christians on a beach. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest issued a 192-word reaction condemning the brutal killings as 'despicable' and 'cowardly' but made no mention of the religion of the killers or their victims.
The words 'Christian,' 'Islam' and 'Muslim.' were not included in Earnest's statement.
The video itself was titled 'A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross.' The slaughtered men, clad in orange jumpsuits reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay detainee garb, were described as 'crusaders.'
One of the men was seen praying just moments before his throat was slit.
Families of Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS inconsolable
The White House convened a conference with representatives from more than 60 countries on Tuesday on a subject it calls 'countering violent extremism.'
Like Earnest's statement, administration officials connected with the event have studiously avoided any mention of radical Islam or its animosity toward Christians and Jews.
'We are not treating these people as part of a religion,' a senior administration official said Monday during a conference call with reporters.
'We're treating them as terrorists. We call them our enemies and we'll be treating them as such.'
World leaders outside of Washington have leapt to connect ISIS, the self-described Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, with a religious battle that pits Islamists against the world's other great religions.
The 21 Copts, 'were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians,' Pope Francis said Monday at the Vatican, speaking in his native Spanish.
MUSLIM VS. CHRISTIAN: The five-minute ISIS video released on Sunday was captioned: 'The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church'; One of the terrorists (center) boasted that 'safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for'
IMPATIENCE IN CONGRESS: Republicans including New York Rep. Peter King are growing more frustrated with a White House that steadfastly refuses to frame the ISIS battle in religious terms
'The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard. It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians!'
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was 'appalled by the murder of Christians in Libya, a simply barbaric and inhumane act.'
'Our efforts to defeat the monstrosity of Islamist extremism must not waver.'
A CNN/ORC poll found 57 per cent of Americans disapprove of how President Obama is handling the threat posed by ISIS. Even among Democrats, 46 per cent say America's battle with ISIS is going badly.
Public approval of the administration's anti-ISIS efforts has slipped by 8 percentage points since September.
Part of that slide may be due to the State Department's focus on what conservatives deride as 'hashtag diplomacy' – a program of pushback through social media designed to strip away ISIS's glamourous appeal to would-be jihadis.
The New York Times reported Monday that State is engaged in a broad effort through its Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications to coordinate all the government's social media resources in response to nearly 100 Twitter accounts blasting pro-ISIS recruiting messages into the Internet's digital ether.
'We're getting beaten on volume, so the only way to compete is by aggregating, curating and amplifying existing content,' Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel told the Times.
'These guys aren't BuzzFeed,' Stengel said. 'They're not invincible in social media.'
But National Counterterrorism Center director told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week that 'the government is probably not the best platform to try to communicate with the set of actors who are potentially vulnerable to this kind of propaganda and this kind of recruitment.'
'We try to find ways to stimulate this kind of counternarrative, this kind of countermessaging, without having a U.S. government hand in it.'
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