Right Wingers Freaking Out at Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Feat. the Dumbest Man on the Internet
Yes, folks, it’s yet another ridiculous trumped up fake outrage, spreading like wildfire through right wing blogs and news sites. You can probably expect to see this on Fox News any minute if it hasn’t shown up there already.
This time the idiots are freaking out at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who isn’t war-like enough for them. Gen. Dempsey was testifying at a hearing on ISIS today and made the following outrageous statement:
The nature of the threat is such that, as I mentioned, it will only be defeated when moderate Arab and Muslim populations in the region reject it. And therefore, the way forward seems to me to run clearly through a coalition of Arab and Muslim partners, and not through the ownership of the United States on this issue. And so the strategy does that.
It seeks to build a coalition, encourage an inclusive government to address the grievances that have caused this in the first place, it applies U.S. military power where we have unique capability to do so, and over time it allows those populations to reject ISIL.
And they’re off!
This dumb misconstrued fake outrage seems to have originated with the Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper (as many of these stories do), who wrote:
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, said that the army of the Islamic State is fighting because of “grievances.”
[…]
Dempsey did not specifically lay out the “grievances” motivating the terrorists.
As usual, this brain dead talking point started spreading immediately through right wing blogs (that’s Halper’s intent, of course). Two examples:
PJ Media’s Bryan Preston blurted:
During today’s often-interrupted Senate hearing on the rise and threat of the Islamic State, Gen. Martin Dempsey testified that ISIS’ fighters have taken up the fight over “grievances.”
Use of that word would seem to justify their actions, or at least give them some moral cover for them.
And from there, we get to… yes… the Dumbest Man on the Internet, Jim Hoft.
Despite all of the not so subtle clues, the Obama administration still insists ISIS is fighting because of perceived political grievances, not because of radical Islamic beliefs.
OK, folks. Let’s go back and actually read what Gen. Dempsey said to kick off this mindless outrage-fest, shall we? Here’s the relevant section:
…encourage an inclusive government to address the grievances that have caused this in the first place…
It’s incredibly clear, if you aren’t a member of the Wingnut Parrots’ Unison Chorus, that Gen. Dempsey was talking about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki when he said “encourage an inclusive government,” because Maliki has done anything but that. Maliki has built a divisive sectarian government notorious for excluding Sunni Muslims from the decision process, and favoring Shiites in all aspects of the government. This is no secret — it’s been extensively discussed. For one example out of many: Why We Stuck With Maliki — and Lost Iraq.
As a result, many Sunni Muslims in Iraq have felt they had no choice but to support ISIS, because the alternative for them was worse.
When Gen. Dempsey used the word “grievances” in the context of creating an inclusive government in Iraq, this is clearly what he was referring to: the grievances of the Sunni Muslim minority, not the “grievances” of ISIS.
But these moronic wingnut parrots are taking this to mean Dempsey was expressing some kind of sympathy for ISIS, instead of talking very reasonably about how to prevent groups like ISIS from gaining power in a future Iraqi government.
This has been your fake outrage alert of the day. Please be advised that all right wing talking points should be assumed to be fake until proven otherwise (which almost never happens).
For the record, here’s the full testimony from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Dempsey, making it crystal clear that both Hagel and Dempsey were talking about the Sunni minority’s grievances with the Maliki government:
From Hagel’s statement:
The effort to rid Iraq of ISIS cannot be successful without the support of all elements of Iraqi society, including not only Shiites, Kurds and religious minorities, but also the Sunni tribes who strongly oppose the Maliki government. The more the new government in Baghdad does to address the grievances of Iraq’s Sunni communities, the more successful they will be in helping rid their country and the world of the ISIS poison.
Dempsey starts speaking at about 19:27 into the video.
The distorted talking point started by Daniel Halper was clearly deliberate and malicious; he didn’t misinterpret Dempsey’s remarks, he misreported them, on purpose.
