The State Department Follies

US Defense Watch ^ | December 29, 2015 | Ray Starmann

[pboyington]

Yesterday, the State Department unveiled its greatest successes of 2015. The list of so-called “pivotal foreign policy moments” is so ludicrous, so incredibly delusional, that one has a hard time taking them seriously. The whole presser spectacle on Monday was almost laughable, if not tragic.

The State Department believes they’re making history. What they are making is one hideous blunder after another under the Obama administration.

Foggy Bottom has hit rock bottom.

Listening to a State Department briefing is like watching a Looney Tunes cartoon as the Foggy Bottom fools parade across the stage: Toner, Kirby, Kerry, and of course, Marie Harf, of ISIS jobs fame.

Overture, curtain, lights, this is it the night of the nights…

It began yesterday when the State Department listed “bringing peace” to Syria as one of its 2015 accomplishments. Keep shaking your head, I am.

The claim was made in a Dec. 24 blog post written by Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Public Affairs.

Outlandish claims seem to be the hallmark of Kirby this year. He was the Pentagon’s snake oil salesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the Five O’Clock Charlie air campaign that is still being conducted with the usual White House vim and vinegar. Apparently, we’ve amped up those airstrikes to a whopping 150 in December against ISIS. That’s about five a day folks. (Gulf War I, daily average 1500)

At yesterday’s briefing, Kirby’s replacement, Mark Toner, called it a “truthful claim.”

“Now look, the operative word there is bringing, not brought, so we’re bringing peace and security to Syria,” he told reporters.

Toner doubled down on Monday, saying that the United States has helped unify the Syrian opposition, as well as the international community, around a road map for a political transition from the Assad regime.

“We’re not there yet, we recognize that, but we do believe through a lot of hard, diplomatic spade work we have made progress,” he added.

The only spade work is the amount of horse dung that is being shoveled at the press.

Syria is a disaster, plain and simple. Everything the Obama administration has done there has been wrong, from getting rolled by Putin, to backing invisible Syrian rebel groups, to fighting ISIS with a rolled up yoga mat.

The list of successes also included the fight against ISIS, which the State Department refers to as ISIL. Perhaps, by calling them ISIL, the State Department believes they’ll just disappear. Here’s a snippet of the muddle being swallowed at Foggy Bottom.

“Although challenges remain, we have made positive strides over the last year, including in our fight against ISIL. This forward progress will only continue as more countries pledge resources to the anti-ISIL effort and as citizens around the world increasingly reject ISIL’s misguided ideology. Moving forward we know that together the global coalition – active both on the battlefield and on the airwaves – can and will degrade and ultimately destroy extremist organizations, like ISIL.”

Courtesy of Monty Python’s Flying Circus…

Positive strides, forward progress, moving forward, slipping backwards into delirium…

Another “success” claimed by the State Department is the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal, which gives Iran a green light to build a nuclear bomb and use it against Israel. Ted Cruz has vowed to shut down that deal on day one of his presidency and rightfully so.

Among other “pivotal foreign policy moments” this year was Protecting Artic Communities. Kerry speaks of protecting the Artic, not from a diplomatic national security standpoint, as he should be focused on, but on preserving the Arctic’s ecosystem. Is he the Secretary of State or Marlin Perkins? Why is the Secretary of State worried about Artic climate conditions and flora and fauna? Aren’t there a thousand other guys in a hundred other US government agencies who can focus on that?

This segway’s into another quote, “accomplishment,” Protecting the World’s Oceans. Once again, is he the Secretary of State, the chief diplomat of the United States or Jacques Cousteau?

Finally, there’s my personal favorite, “committing to ambitious goals.” So, having some goals is now deemed a pivotal foreign policy moment? Do any goals make a pivotal foreign policy moment? Or, do they have to be really big goals, like New Year’s Resolutions?

Could doing your laundry be a pivotal foreign policy moment? Or, does it have to be a little bigger such as cleaning the gutters?

Who’s in charge at State? It can’t be Kerry. He’s too busy tracking North American Caribou with Jim Fowler or swimming with the sharks at Sea World.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad world at State.