Harf contradicts Carter’s assessment of Iraqi Army
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Daily Caller which reports that Marie Harf, that tactical genius from the State Department, disputes Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s bleak assessment of the Iraq Army – that they have no will to fight.
Appearing on “The Situation Room” with host Wolf Blitzer, Harf argued that Iraqi forces do indeed “have the will to fight” even though they are facing ISIS, an army she described as “incredibly well-equipped” and “well-trained.”
They s#!t. We’ve all seen the propaganda videos from ISIS that highlights their “well-trained” troops hopping around like crack-addled bunnies. And the horizontal ladder! Don’t forget how well they negotiate that contraption. Fox News helpfully put together of some of Harf’s past statements that seem void of any logic or truth.
How she can think that the Defense Secretary’s blunt assessment of the Iraq Army could be anything but truth, is beyond me. The Iraq Army actually, physically ran away from ISIS in Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul leaving valuable functioning weapons and vehicles in their dusty wake. They did the same thing in front of us in 1991. How a rational person could jump out of his vehicle and run from Kuwait City to Basra is beyond me, but that’s what happened.
According to the Fox article, Harf is leaving the State Department’s briefing room to be John Kerry’s senior adviser for strategic communications, because that’s how it works in this administration – when you’re an incompetent boob, you get promoted.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
Ashton Carter just doesn’t understand the nuances of the Iraq Army.
Harf’s favorite song:
And as you can see, she likes pearl necklaces.
*golf clap*
Well done, sir.
Marie Harf and Wolf Blitzer in the same room?
Christ, that’s a black hole of stupid right there.
Not as bad as her and Kerry in the same room, though.
Oh dear God, no.
And I’m not done building the bomb shelter yet.
I’m pretty sure the two on them in the same room would cause their stupid to combine into a black hole and drain the intelligence of everyone that walks in the door. Heck, it might even drain the smarts from the room directly above and below theirs too.
Can’t we treat them like kick-me dogs and get them shock collars to make them quit yapping? My head is starting to hurt.
Everybody remember this and repeat after me…..
(Cause we’ve ALLLLLLLLL seen it.)
Fuck Up, Move Up.
nothing to see here, now move along please.
I dunno about “well-trained”, but they are well-equipped–with lots of US-made hardware stamped “Property of Iraqi Army,” condition: never fired, only dropped once.
My ass they want to fight. I’m sure there are a few here on this blog that can back me up when I say this.
In 2007 and again 2009-10 these SOBs. Did not seem to understand the concept of using there weapons had a few that shot there foot off and many more that went awol and can go on and on but who cares
Bahahahahahaha ! ! ! !
Nope, no concept of weapons at all.
In 08 in Baghdad, we trained some IP’s on how to use their weapons in an outside covered range. The ceiling and the walls above the Hesco barrier backstops were filled with bullet holes from training.
This is the problem you get when you have the level of corruption that is the Iraqi State right now.
Why fight when cousin Abdullah has told you that your going to get paid if you just show up. Or not. And still get paid.
That and the Iraqi Armys Motto seems to be Run first, then maybe grow a backbone later if they threaten your personal mud hut.
She has “Inflate to 32 psi” stamped on her forehead.
so if she gave a BJ, she’d actually get more stupid? If that’s even possible
It seemed to work in Monica’s case. I mean who keeps a bio-soiled dress for that long without cleaning it?
She probably figured she’d get mileage out of it either way.
And far be it from me to defend Blowjob Willie, but seriously, look at Hildebeast. If you were married to…THAT, you’d be feeling up fat chicks at the office, too.
!
Awesome Post.
That would be full figured to you mister………..
I’m surprised that even one of the women he was banging ended up in playboy or penthouse, can’t recall which. Gennifer Flowers, wasn’t it?
I believe so. Dude would have screwed the wind if it stayed still long enough.
I would submit this is probably less a promotion and more a “where can we stick this dumb bimbo to ensure she does as little damage as possible?”
This senior adviser slot is kind of like calling a secretary an “administrative assistant.” She’ll be handling his message traffic and scheduling media appearances.
Exactly. A promotion would be a move to the White House press office or a position on the NSC. She interviewed to keep her current position but wasn’t selected. Since the administration owes her for her political allegiance, and couldn’t afford to keep her screwing up in front of the cameras, they gave her a very important sounding job that is essentially an SES level admin assistant until Jan 2017.
Bobo – I doubt she’s even an SES, frankly. All the senior advisers here are 14/15 GS types. LOL
I don’t know Nicki…at OSD, she’d be an SES. I Googlefoued and couldn’t find anything.
She is a political appointee at the Undersecretary level. Her salary is between $174-222K. From a protocol standpoint, she is the equivalent of an SES/0-7/8.
From a different standpoint, she’d be a ten delta one tango.
You mean an Indian Delta one-zero Tango?
*AHEM*, – India Delta one-zero Tango, stupid clumsy fingers!
Appears that I was one also. Thsnks for the edit…
I dunno, guys. Our undersecretary here has two senior advisers one is a 15, and one is a 14, IIRC.
But… we may be a different beast.
How the heck was she even hired in the first place…so many unemployed vets could do a better job…myself included.
The Iraqi Army has always been a paper tiger, one of the more entertaining commentaries around was the late 80s assessment (prior to the US Engagement of these troops) was that the Iraqi Army was one of the five largest standing Armies in the world and consequently had to be considered a force to be reckoned with.
Unstated in that size assessment was why it was so big. That size was largely produced by a war of attrition against Iran that left the country’s people mostly destitute consequently membership in the Army was a guaranteed meal and paycheck. It never meant they were an Army of motivated professionals ready to be unleashed upon the world.
I remember back during the first Gulf War we constantly were told that Iraq had the 4th (or whatever) largest army, equipped with top of the line Soviet equipment, battle hardened after 8 years of war with Iran yada yada yada.
Then after we went through them like feces through a waterfowl, they suddenly were transformed into a ill-equipped worn out bunch of demoralized draftees (at least according to the media)
^^ Spot on Stacy, all show NO GO for those turds…
Prior to GW-I, Iraq had the 5th largest Army in the world. Post GW-I, Iraq had the 5th largest Army in Iraq.
Well played AW1Ed, well played.
+54!.
People in the library are wondering why I was just rolling on the floor….
Hmm. A political science degree from a bottom ranked college and some “real world” experience as a CIA analyst. Yep, she’s more than qualified to evaluate military matters.
And don’t forget – she was a ME leadership analyst, which for anyone with half a brain means a stellar career with tons of promotion potential. But instead, she went and transferred to public affairs at the agency, which tells me she couldn’t hack it as an analyst.
You forgot the MA in Foreign Affairs from UVA. That’s what made her a stellar candidate for the senior positions at CIA and State so early in her career.
We trained a group that were supposedly the cream of the then Iraqi army. They called themselves the Iraqi Special Forces. Because they were special. After we trained them we told them we were going on a mission to find bad guys. Everyone knew where they were. They refused to get in the vehicles so we fired them and kicked them off the base. Another group was brought to us. They didn’t want to be known as the same name as the last group because they were different. So they called themselves the Iraqi Special Special Forces. I got medevac’d before they came to fruition, but I doubt things went much differently for them.
Is that “Special” as in “ShOrT BuS” Special?
Can you see the lick marks on the windows?
Oh, they were special allright.
How can one tell if Marie Harf has been using their computer?
If there’s white-out on their screen, that’s it, she was there.
Harf said, “even though they are facing ISIS, an army she described as “incredibly well-equipped” and “well-trained.”
Well trained, well if beating the shit out of the Iraqi Army at every encounter counts as additional training, then yea. Against the Kurds…not so good.
“Incredibly well equipped”, I’d say without doubt. Besides foreign support just consider every weapon and ammo, piece of military equipment and vehicle the Iraqi’s have run off like cowards and left them, hell yes. They don’t need a rear supply train. They have one in front of them. It’s called the next Iraqi outpost or city.
One of the things that caught my eye in all of the video released besides all the US equipment the bad guys were scarfing up was all of the fighting age men who were running from the fight. In most countries ravaged by war their is a generation of men missing because they died fighting for their families and homes. That isn’t the case in Iraq.
That, and the adult males there will switch sides in any conflict at the drop of a hat, they’ve been that way for millennia, just look at how often they traded sides and alliances in the anarchy following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Well, now, guys, you can’t expect her to actually say this correctly, can you?
What she said was ‘well-equipped and trained’. The correct way to say it is as follows:
‘The Iraqi army is well-equipped with all the stuff we gave them, which they are now abandoning to ISIS at every opportunity. Their training sessions have resulted in consistently poor performance on their part, and their best defense to date is to run away, leaving behind all those weaspons that the US and other countries supplied to them. That increases by about 98.7% the possibility that these millenia-long tribal wars will result in the majority of these quarreling, uncivilized psychos killing each other off, eliminating their need for Western support.’
See, if Harf said that, it would mean that she actually pays attention to news sources like Reuters and AFP instead of the comic strips, and that she has a working brain cell or two. But if you notice, when she makes her pres statements, no one asks her if she’s asleep at her desk when she creates that twaddle.
She’s a bimbo. What? You can’t see the stick her head sits on? That string that makes her lower jaw flap up and down so that it looks like she’s actually saying something does make a difference, doesn’t it? If someone behind the curtain told her to say the sun rises in the West, she probably would.
Like I said, she’s a bimbo.
I do recall some of the videos C-SPAN showed from 1991, like the Iraqi ‘soldiers’ (conscripts) who were found in a hole in the desert with a few cups of rice, no warm clothing, and almost no water. I wondered how the Iraqis expected to fight, never mind win a war with that. Then I realized that nobody up top gave a shit and those men were dead men before they left their villages.
This is Karma, It’s what we get for making fun of Baghdad Bob.
But Baghdad Bob was actually funny!
Harf! Harf! Harf!
Sorry, just had to cough up a bit of phlegm.
Sounds like a sea-lion with a lisp…
Makes sense. A cow with a hairlip goes, “Moof.”
She is an idiot.
Which makes her fully qualified to work for the current administration.
Think she’s a GS15? Must be. Gawd – if I could be at her level of ‘knucklehead’ I’d be SES by now.
How stupid does one have to be to abandon an M-1 A1 ? That sucker is bullet proof, air conditioned, and can back up at 45 miles per hour. You’d have to be pretty stupid to un-ass from a high speed, all terrain, rolling fortress and hope for a ride out of the battle space. These fuckers are too stupid to be fighting a war. They deserve to be serfs and peons under the boot of ISIS. We should have repossessed the entire country and kicked all of the Iraqis out.
WHY the shiteatingmuddafuck didn’t we arm the Kurds to the teeth, they have the balls and the will to fight, and they’ll stay on our side if we do, at least I think so.
Why?
Because the Kurds would kick ass and take names, not just of the Syrians, Iranians and Iraqis, but of the Turks as well, that’s why.
Can’t go arming a competent force that actually might accomplish something that Zero doesn’t seem to want happen (an independent Kurdistan) now, can they?
That, and it would just be too sensible of a decision.
yup!
Whadda ya get when you put two dim-wits in the same room? HARF_A_WIT!
harf! harf-harf! harf!!
This is the positive-spin brainiac who, when she isn’t reading non-responsive copy in answer to reporters’ questions at State, says things like this about the collapse of Ramadi: “[Iraqi security forces] have held their lines on the outside of the city.” Incredible. I think we ought to have a what-if-Harf-had-been-around-when contest. Here’s my entry. It’s April 16, 1912 and Harf is spokeswoman for White Star Lines. “What we need to focus on here is that it was only one of two sister ships. The other is fine.”
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!??
You doubt the word of the famous, world-renowned military genius, Marie Belisarius Harf?
I’m shocked. Shocked, I say …
This is the female equiviliant of Baghdad Bob.
And almost as good looking
Why does it surprise anybody what Marie Harf says? This entire administration, from top to bottom, constantly lies and misrepresents the truth. They believe everybody eats this stuff up like a bunch of dummies. Just do you part in 2016.
The scary part is that a lot of the idiots out there either do believe it or are too lazy and/or indifferent too care about what is true. As long as the free stuff keeps flowing.
Hey, she works at the STATE DEPARTMENT. She has access to all the smart STATE DEPARTMENT stuff and has John F(riggin’) Kerry for a boss and we all know what a GREAT WARRIOR he was (and he has the hat to this day, he has the hat!). And Carter, he’s just SECDEF, what could he know?
Totally legit!