Sky News reported Tuesday: “In the five-minute video, posted on social media sites by Islamic State sources, the group declares that Mr Foley was killed after Barack Obama ordered airstrikes against IS positions in northern Iraq. The group also claimed to be holding another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and said his life depended on the US President’s next move.” How could this be “not about the United States and what we do”? Does Obama really think he is fooling anyone?
Actually, the answer to that one is yes. With the mainstream media eagerly carrying water for him, Obama is fooling millions. But the Islamic State jihadis must laugh with contempt when they see statements like this. And how they must laugh when they hear Harf say: “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion.” Obviously it does. Its name is the Islamic State. Harf and Obama and Kerry are sure that it is misunderstanding Islam, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is operating in the name of Islam. This denial is ridiculous, and it endangers people, as we will never defeat an enemy we refuse to understand.
“State Dept. on Beheading of U.S. Journalist: ‘This Is Not About the United States,'” by Brittany M. Hughes, CNS News, August 21, 2014:
(CNSNews.com) – Deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf on Wednesday condemned the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic terrorists, but she also stated that the ISIS threat “is not about the United States and what we do.”
Harf spoke after President Obama told the nation that “governments and peoples across the Middle East” should come together in a “common effort to extract this cancer, so that it does not spread.” He then went golfing.
“I think ISIL wants to make this about the United States and our actions. And I think what the President was trying to say was that this is not about the United States and what we do. This is about countries in the region coming together to fight a shared threat, and this is not about us.”
Foley, captured in Syria in 2012, was brutally murdered by the militant Islamic group ISIS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who then posted a video showing the beheading on YouTube and threatened to kill more Americans if the United States tries to intervene in Iraq.
Obama said Foley’s murder “shocks the conscience of the entire world.”
Harf told reporters there was “no justification” for Foley’s murder, but she couldn’t say how President Barack Obama plans to respond to ISIS now that they have murdered a U.S. citizen.
When pressed by reporters for details on what the United States expects from the other governments in the Middle East, Harf refused to go into specifics on how the administration is working with other countries to eliminate the threat posed by ISIS.
“Clearly there’s more we can all do to fight ISIL,” she said.
Harf also emphasized the administration’s view that ISIS does not accurately represent the religion of Islam as a whole.
“ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion. The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better,” Harf said.