White House On ISIS: It’s A War Of Narratives
[guest post by Dana]
During a dreadful weekend in which bombs exploded in several U.S. cities, an absurd Clinton-like debate about the definition of “terrorism” took center-stage, a horrible knife attack, for which ISIS claimed responsibility took place in a mall, explosive devices were discovered at a train station, and U.S. Marines may have been targeted at a charity run, President Obama remained silent. At least about these occurrences. No public statements, no public condemnation, no reassurances offered to the American people. And apparently, he had no plans to do so, even though it appeared that a wave of terror was unfolding before our eyes. Nothing. Further, I can’t find a report confirming that he has contacted the governors of New York, New Jersey or Minnesota.
But hey, the man’s been busy with other pressing matters, so let’s cut him some slack. After all, there’s a pivotal election just a mere 7 weeks away, and a legacy to preserve. So what’s a sitting president to do during a weekend of terror? Certainly not focus on national security and threats to the homeland. National security or himself?? Oh, please. You’re not new at this. Thus instead of addressing the American people, President Obama played identity politics this weekend as he shamed black Americans into voting for Hillary and used accusations of sexism as a tool to manipulate big-money Democrats into voting for the woman he believes will preserve said legacy. When you have priorities like that, it just doesn’t leave much time for trivial matters like terrorism and national security.
But no worries, White House spokesman Josh Earnest broke it down for us, explaining that the “war against ISIS is “in some ways […] just a war of narratives”:
“We can also work to lift up the voices of prominent, patriotic Muslims in the United States, there are millions of them,” Earnest said. “They can speak to the poisonous, empty, bankrupt mythology that is being propagated by ISIL. In some ways this is actually just a war of narratives. And so we want to make sure we’re getting out our counter-narrative against ISIL, and we’re having some progress.”
I just heard a report that the president is expected to make a statement sometime this morning about the horrible events this weekend. Unless a pressing issue concerning his legacy comes up…
–Dana
UPDATE: President Obama just made finished making a statement regarding this weekend’s terror attack(s). It was fairly generic. He reassured us that he had been receiving regular briefings about the events this weekend as they unfolded, and that our counter-terrorism and law enforcement professionals are working hard to keep us safe. He also reiterated that if we see something, say something. Sure thing…
Priorities, people.
Dana (995455) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:23 amOnce again, we have the typical Obama Administration meme or referring to Da’ish or ISIS not as ISIS, but as ISIL, an acronym which ‘justifies’ their claim to the Levant, the land which includes Israel.
A ‘war of narratives’? Yeah, I s’pose it is: our narrative is that we want to make nice and just want to get along withe everybody, and their narrative is that they want to kill us.
The Dana who noticed (f6a568) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:33 amWell, if he can’t turn out the plantation vote in Philly, then he won’t be able to maximize the cash value of OFA. Race grifters gotta grift.
Rick Ballard (aa3895) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:37 amOur strategy: Insult maniacally depraved terrorists so much by calling them ISIL and Da’ish, they’ll be compelled to cry uncle just to make it stop.
Dana (995455) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:38 amRelease the Dogs of #HashtagWar !!!!!!!!!!!
Colonel Haiku (e0ff3c) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:38 amIt will become important to Obama if someone plants a bomb in the green on the fourth hole of his favorite golf course. Until then, nothing to see here, just move on.
Skeptical Voter (1d5c8b) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:41 amThe Dana who noticed (f6a568) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:33 am
NO, I think it’s something like thia.
There’s one narrative – both by Original al Qaeda ® ™ and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/IS/Islamic
State/”the” Islamic State/Whatchamacallit – that Islam teaches killing people.
And the counter-narrative is that Islam doesn’t.
But that they gotta have Muslims say that. They have to be the ones to say what they are propagating is a poisonous, empty, bankrupt mythology.
There are some people who volunteer to help. The truth is, they should be ignored, because those are not the ones teaching that killing is wrong. They are probably still being paid by the Saudis.
Sammy Finkelman (dec35d) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:52 amlike CAIR for instance or ISNA, that jeh spoke at their convention, with the khan’s in tow,
narciso (d1f714) — 9/19/2016 @ 8:56 amUPDATE: President Obama just made finished making a statement regarding this weekend’s terror attack(s). It was fairly generic. He reassured us that he had been receiving regular briefings about the events this weekend as they unfolded, and that our counter-terrorism and law enforcement professionals are working hard to keep us safe. He also reiterated that if we see something, say something. Sure thing…
Dana (995455) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:01 amThe current photos selected by Fox and CNN for use on their main page show poor little headchopper strapped to a gurney while the NY Post uses the hog – well tied – photo of him cuffed on the ground. The narrative never rests.
Rick Ballard (aa3895) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:12 amI’m not creating this when I read English transliterations of the hadith or Quran, and convey the information to you.
Take that to the bank.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:22 amWhite House continues its war on reality.
njrob (c4a768) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:26 amNo Islam to see here, folks, Move along. And rest assured, your national security apparatus remains clueless as a matter of policy.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:26 amThey’re way, way too sophisticated, unlike simple me, to resort to the truth.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:31 amMr 57 wrote:
And they wonder who created the Donald Trump phenomenon. They created the Donald Trump phenomenon, along with the mealy-mouthed Republicans who never challenged the Democrats’ narrative.
Damn! “Narrative!” There’s that word again!
The Dana planning to vote Libertarian (f6a568) — 9/19/2016 @ 9:35 amDana, true.
And I’m not happy about any of it.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 10:06 amit’s a beautiful fall day here
got off my train and it was all popo and puppy dogs
go get them bombs doggies!
america
happyfeet (a037ad) — 9/19/2016 @ 10:20 amLike I said, another satisfying shave. I worry sometimes I’ll grow lazy and not put a
proper edge on the straight razor. Which I calculate is 15 degrees.
But still, I do it for the country.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 10:33 amToo lazy
Dammit. I guess I provided the evidence.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 10:48 amBob23–
We have both kinds here: #NeverTrump and fools.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 9/19/2016 @ 10:59 am#6
That will certainly piss off the owners of the private golf course on Martha’s vineyard that let him use the course for free. Further – he was too cheap to tip the caddies. Cheap piece / BOS. (Sorry I misspelled BOS)
joe (debac0) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:04 amBarack’s absolutely right; we defeated Nazi Germany with a barrage of narratives. No tanks, planes, bombs, or ground troops were needed.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:14 amIn fact, the platoons of Madison Avenue advertising executives who landed at Omaha Beach during the D-Day Invasion is the best kept secret in American military history.
23: CS, don’t overlook the JAG special ops parachute teams delivering subpoenas far behind enemy lines. Without them German armor would have played havoc with the landings.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:23 amCS, I actually wouldn’t knock our Allied propagandists and admen that hard, their mission was to rouse America’s fighting spirit, and they did it to the point where the personnel necessary for the attack fought, and fought hard.
Unfortunately their weak and foolish descendants can’t, or won’t. They hate their own countrymen too much to recognize things that any prole could see coming a mile away, and fear for their own livelihoods from their own ever-shrinking clientele of rich brats more than the future of their own country. Egg Mcmuffin is the sterile fruit of that evil philosophy.
Dystopia Max (76803a) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:29 amWhich category do I fall into?
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:34 amBob Stewart,
I had a Great Uncle who once spoke of the delivery of those subpoenas. It was during a family Labor Day picnic thirty years ago, and my recollection is that he’d probably enjoyed a few too many hard apple ciders that day.
He confided in me that legal wranglings and narratives was the one-two punch against the Nazis.
When he asserted that Churchill, Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, et al, had been given too much credit in the history books, I thought that Great Uncle Larry was just a bit tipsy.
But now Barack has set the record straight.
I feel so patriotic, that I may kneel next time I hear the national anthem.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:37 am#25 Dystopia Max,
I was knocking Josh Earnest. Duh.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 11:51 amI’m glad Obama’s getting regular briefings, ’cause terrorist attacks catch him with his pants down an awful lot.
CayleyGraph (353727) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:01 pm@Cruz Supporter, BobStewart:
Oh, not just World War II either. When Frederick, Elector Palatine was driven from his ancestral lands, his father in law, James I of England, sent 100,000 ambassadors to his aid.
Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:04 pmCayley Graph,
Barack is flipping the channel among ESPN, Golf Channel, and MSNBC in order to find out what’s going on.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:06 pm“Dana, true.”
“Egg Mcmuffin is the sterile fruit of that evil philosophy.”
On a sad day like today, it is comments like these that keep me coming back to Patterico.
ThOR (6d5e33) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:17 pm“Bombing Suspect Charles James Wolcott Captured After Shootout in New Jersey
—Ace
Sorry, I mispelled the suspect’s name — his name is Ahmed Khan Rahami.
He shot one cop in the hand and the other in the chest (though that bullet was stopped by the policeman’s vest).
Josh Earnest, When Asked If We’re Letting In Muslim Immigrants Without Enough Scrutiny: “We’re in a Narrative Fight with ISIL.” Oh grand. So much more civilized than a real fight.
Sean Davis has some thoughts too.
Earnest’s comments come after a weekend of narrative violence across the U.S. A pipe narrative exploded in a garbage can near a Marine Corps race in New Jersey. In New York City, a separate narrative blast injured 29 people on Saturday. Law enforcement authorities believe the same wicked wordsmith was responsible for both narrative explosions. On Saturday evening, another vicious narrative stabbed nine people at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. That word terrorist was finally stopped by an NRA-certified concealed carry instructor’s sick burns and also multiple rounds from the instructor’s personal sentence pistol.
The weekend’s narrative violence is unfortunately nothing new for Americans. Last June, a lone narrator shot up a night club in Orlando, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. In December of 2015, two radical Islamic poets killed 14 people and seriously injured 22 others in a war of narratives at a special needs health center in San Bernardino, California.”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/365893.php
Colonel Haiku (e0ff3c) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:22 pmBob @29, funny you mention horse sense. I can feed ’em. I can clean their stalls. But I can’t ride them. I was never able to ring up more than a walk. A trot brings tears to my eyes, and does unnatural things to my hips. I was building up the courage to have one final go, and
I saw your comment.
P.S. I like horses. Just not riding them. Ouch. Carting. They can haul my fat a## around in carts.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:23 pmMy claim to fame. I cleaned Charlie O’s stall, the mule that was the Oakland A’s mascot.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:28 pmHis blankety blank did, indeed, stink.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:36 pmDid you know The Hammer?
ThOR (6d5e33) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:38 pmWhen jihadists blow people up or set them on fire or cut their heads off, it’s a ‘narrative,’ but when a police officer shoots an armed thug, it’s an act of ‘evil.’
Any questions?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:39 pm(Yeah, I do, too!)
Not getting the allusion, ThOR.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:43 pm39. Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:39 pm
Well, no. If you think that, you’re really misunderstanding the word. Admittedly, it’s a somewhat new word.
When jihadists say things that add up to saying that is right, that is a narrative.
More exactly,, when they come up with a whole ideology – Josh Earnest calls it a “poisonous, empty, bankrupt mythology” – whose goal is to get people to join them – that’s a narrative.
The way he’s using it, it’s almost another word for a religion or maybe more like a detailed explanation of right and wrong, good and evil – the contents of a catechism.
He doesn’t say “poisonous, empty, bankrupt religion” though, but “poisonous, empty, bankrupt mythology.” That way he makes it clear he doesn’t mean the Islam taught in most mosques.
Sammy Finkelman (dec35d) — 9/19/2016 @ 12:56 pmM.C. Hammer, aka Stanley Burrell, was a batboy with the A’s from 1972 to 1980.
ThOR (6d5e33) — 9/19/2016 @ 1:42 pmI know Jesus Christ defeated death, that the hammer of thor was nothing commpared to the hammer the US Navy was about to drop on Kurita, that’s why he withdrew, and Chesty Puller was the greatest Marine who ever lived.
That’s what I know.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 1:49 pmWords mean nothing more and nothing less than Mr. Ernst wants them to mean. What is reality??? Is there a reality? If you don’t like things the way they appear, imagine something pleasant, or fly to Hawaii for a week of golf. If unkind people use words to make you feel bad, banish them and seize their words to make them mean something that gives you a warm glow. This is the Age of Globalized Therapy! Pharmaceuticals raining from the school nurse to calm the over active boys, more drugs produced in motel rooms and condominiums to sooth those children as they leave school. Prescription drugs for the elite. Plastic surgery for aging pols to make them appear young to their anesthetized supporters. Utopia!
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 9/19/2016 @ 1:53 pmI had the privilege of meeting White Feather.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 1:55 pm@44, words mean something, Bob, when they involve ambushes and ruses.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 1:58 pmHammer of thor my @$$.
http://www.proguns.com/springfieldarmory-m25whitefeather.asp
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:02 pmhttps://www.amazon.com/White-Feather-Carlos-Hathcock-Sniper/dp/1885633092
I’ve got your hammer hanging, thor.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:10 pmSteve, meaning this man?
Kishnevi (050eae) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:13 pmhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock
Ah, you posted the answer while I was probing Wikipedia.
Kishnevi (050eae) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:15 pmYes Sir Kishnevi I shook his hand.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:17 pmIt happens, dude.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:19 pmGunny Hathcock gave a speech at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center.
I shoock his hand, thanked him.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:30 pmIndiana Governor and republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence about “marratives”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/09/19/governor_mike_pence_calls_the_show
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:35 pmShoock. Shook. Whatevs.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 2:43 pmwe understand what you meant,
http://www.weaselzippers.us/296189-breaking-masked-intruder-enters-utah-elementary-school-police-snipers-on-scene/
narciso (d1f714) — 9/19/2016 @ 3:34 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo8NG7rrTeI
Yes, there is such a thing.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 4:07 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3uL1b6EeTI
Marine Corps Recruit District, Sandy Eggo.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 4:21 pmBy the way, kishnevi, 25 or 30 years from now, nobody will be bragging about shaking my hand. Unless between now and then I do something stupendous, which seems unlikely.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/19/2016 @ 4:43 pmwell it’s doomberg,
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/reporter-to-clinton-concerned-bombings-isis-sympathizers-russians-swing-election-trump/
narciso (d1f714) — 9/19/2016 @ 5:03 pm#41 Sammy,
Oh, my goodness. (Buries face in hands.)
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/19/2016 @ 5:42 pmWhen the White House calls this a “war of narratives,” it demonstrates that they have no flaming idea how to win a war! In World War II, we won because we killed not only German and Japanese soldiers, but the German and Japanese civilians who supported the war efforts, the ones who supplied not only munitions, but food and clothing and everything else the soldiers in the field needed to continue to fight, we destroyed their infrastructure, we destroyed their ability to continue the war, and we killed and maimed so many of the boys younger than fighting age that the ones who were uninjured were so mentally broken down that they were not thinking about continuing to fight once they did get old enough. We might not have been deliberately targeting civilians from the air, but we did not care that women and children and the elderly were getting burned to death and blown to pieces by our bombs.
Da’ish cannot be defeated simply by targeting the fighters when we can find them; Da’ish can only be defeated by killing so many of the population in general that the fighters cannot continue, and that the boys growing up won’t want to fight, by destroying so much of their infrastructure that the people will be too busy just trying to survive that they’ll have neither the time nor the ability to fight. This isn’t a f(ornicating) war of narratives; this is a war of steel and blood and death. Da’ish know that; Barack Hussein Obama does not.
The historian Dana (f6a568) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:43 amDa’ish can only be defeated by killing so many of the population in general that the fighters cannot continue, and that the boys growing up won’t want to fight, by destroying so much of their infrastructure that the people will be too busy just trying to survive that they’ll have neither the time nor the ability to fight.
Problem is, the German people and Japanese citizenry were battling for political and economic reasons, not a zealous, religious and cultural war. ISIS is– or wants to cloak it as that. Nazis crooned Christmas carols and tuned into Der Bingle on the BBC and the Japanese played baseball.
ISIS is not Nazi Germany nor Imperial Japan. The general count is there’s not enough of them to fill the frigging Rose Bowl.
In this day and age, the first step to putting this fire out is to starve it of fuel: dry up the revenue stream. And they’ve stolen a lot already– beginning with looting ‘our’ money in Iraq’s bank. (Thank you Iraq for dropping your rifles faster than a Frenchman.) Bit it sits someplace. Lke in banks. Or oil farms. But that draws the oil industry and international banking system into it. And both money and oil are ubiquitous once in the marketplace. So which big oil firms and which big global banks are going to walking away from this revenue pool first?
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/20/2016 @ 2:51 pmIn nearly every video poted by ISIS, they’re hauling butt in Toyota pick-ups.
Not Fords. Not Chevy’s.
Why Toyota’s?
The American auto industry has lost the terrorist truck market, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/20/2016 @ 2:57 pmPride in service and all that, but can you imagine anything stupider?
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:05 pmthe narrative tends to get people, maimed or killed,
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/20/clarion-ny-suspects-mosque-linked-subversive-islamist-group/
narciso (d1f714) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:11 pmToyota is the best.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:27 pmEven the jihadists know that — and a number of them don’t even expect to be around once the warranty expires!
toyota’s haven’t been slobbered on by fat-ass illiterate united autoworker trash
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:28 pmugh ugh
*toyotas*
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:29 pmthey are dependable, going back to the ‘technicals’ in somalia, nearly a quarter century ago, yikes how far back was that,
narciso (d1f714) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:31 pmThey use Fords.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-plumber-i-didnt-sell-my-truck-to-isis/
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:49 pmDon’t kid yourself.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:51 pmStill, I expect my Toy to last me a quarter of a million miles, at least.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:52 pmyes yes they are nice cars that really care about america
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:54 pm“Oh, what a feeling!”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/20/2016 @ 4:58 pmI’ve got 230K on a 4Runner.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:01 pmIt’s like the Steve Austin of vehicles…faster, stronger…(LOL)
Close, CS, but no cigar.
http://www.vintageoffroad.com/viewvehicle.cfm?id=456
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:07 pm228k on an ’01 Highlander… only Toyota serviced.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:07 pmOr, did you mean 230k on the clock?
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:10 pmYeah, about the only good thing from my marriage was that that the driveway at my exes family’s outings resembled a Toyota/Lexus dealership and it rubbed off. Got a 2006 Highlander at 90k and a 2010 Camry at 65k. In my formative driving years of the early 90s, a Toyota Corolla was considered a ghetto Rican car and the gold chrome Camry was a dead givaway for a black woman public employee with years in.
urbanleftbehind (847a06) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:20 pmI suspect they don’t build them as tough as they did several years ago. Just a hunch.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:25 pmDCSCA (797bc0) — 9/20/2016 @ 2:51 pm
something like that is true.
But it may have a world class intelligence service. Of course, I am ot sure exactly who is running this.
But in any case, Baghdadi got the United States to kill all the people standing in his way toward the pinnacle, and just now a week or two ago, he got the United States to kill a person he feared might become a rival.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-says-no-2-leader-mohammad-al-adnani-dead-n640171
He sent him on a mission unusual for him, which exposed him.
The money is in warehouses, some of which the U.S. bombed. And a lot of money – Euros, Dolalrs, etc – seems to have been destroyed because they reduced the pay of their fighters.
Sammy Finkelman (dec35d) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:26 pmIf my google skillz improve, I’ll show you can not believe the price of a remanufactured Bronco or an FJ40. Six figures. It’ll make you appreciate your Tacoma.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:29 pmI’ll let you know.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:36 pmColonel Haiku and I must be cut from the same cloth.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:37 pmHe’s got an ’01 Higlander with 228K.
My 4Runner is an ’01 with 229K.
Then again, I’m sure our friend Dustin will tell us that we’ve each been spinnin’ our wheels! (LOL)
Steve57,
Love the link to the Cruisers.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/20/2016 @ 5:39 pmWon’t be able to afford any of them if illary wins ! (LOL)