This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: John Kerry

  • Syria accepts Russian proposal

    While John Kerry and Chuck Hagel are making their case for military action against Syria, Syria has accepted the Russian proposal that they turn over control of their chemical weapons to the international community, says Fox News;

    Syria’s foreign minister said Tuesday that President Bashar Assad has accepted a Russian proposal to turn over control of Syria’s chemical weapons, potentially opening the door to defusing a stand-off with the United States as President Obama indicates he’s willing to give the “diplomatic track” a try.

    According to the Associated Press, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday after meeting with the Russian Parliament speaker that his government’s officials quickly agreed to the Russian initiative to “derail the U.S. aggression.”

    But according to broadcast news, the President intends to continue to make his case for military action to the country tonight. I watched a little of John Kerry’s statement to Congress this morning and he told us that the US has a “huge” national interest in attacking Syria, that being the containment of chemical weapons. It looks like that has already been accomplish since the only chemical weapons that have been used are entirely with the borders of Syria.

    Chuck Hagel told Congress that we have to use military force to insure the credibility of US military force – says the same guy who called the ‘surge” in Iraq a failure before it began. The same guy who said that our war against terrorism was our “greatest military blunder”.

  • Post Fact Checker awards Kerry 4 Pinocchios

    The Washington Post’s Fact Checker examines John Kerry’s claims that he opposed the 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Kerry comes up short on the truth;

    …given that Kerry has now twice in recent months made the claim that he opposed the war in Iraq, this is clearly not a case of a momentary slip-up.

    For Kerry, the uncomfortable fact remains that he voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq, he believed the intelligence that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he said there was little choice but to launch an invasion to disarm him. Kerry may have been highly critical of Bush’s diplomatic efforts in advance of the invasion, but that is not the same thing as opposing the war when it started.

    It’s time for the secretary to stop making this claim. In trying to make a distinction between his vote to authorize the war and his later dismay at how it turned out, Kerry earns Four Pinocchios.

    While I’m not surprised that Kerry would lie (Christmas in Cambodia, anyone?) I am surprised that the Post would actually call him out on it. Yeah, we really dodged a bullet in 2004. But that bullet came back around in 2008 and got us in the ass.

  • Kerry offers Syria a deal

    Apparently, John Kerry offered Syria a deal in order to avoid a military strike. He told them that they have until the end of the week to turn over all of their chemical weapons to the international community and the US won’t make splodies at them, according to Stars & Stripes. The Russians seemed amenable;

    Kerry told reporters in London early Monday that Assad could resolve the crisis surrounding the use of chemical weapons by surrendering control of “every single bit” of his arsenal to the international community by the end of the week.

    Hours later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov promised to push its ally Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them quickly to avert U.S. strikes. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem immediately embraced the proposal. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged acceptance.

    That seemed to raise prospects for avoiding an expansion of the Syrian civil war, and spokesmen said the administration would take a “hard look” at the proposal. But the matter was far from settled. The White House continued to build its case for action, with Obama taping six television network interviews for late Monday and administration officials briefing more members of Congress as they returned from summer recess. Obama will address the nation Tuesday night.

    Of course, the White house is skeptical that Syria will comply quickly and completely, so they’re still going through the motions of preparing for war. The President is supposed to go on six networks to push his “punishment” solution. Kerry also made the impending attack seem more palatable by promising that it would be ” unbelievably small, limited kind of effort” accodring to Politico;

    …Kerry’s comments Monday caused even some of the president’s strongest backers for military intervention to call the White House’s outreach a disaster.

    […]

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) strongly favors a strike on Syria, but criticized Kerry’s comments.

    “I don’t understand what he means by that,” Rogers said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “This is part of the problem. That’s a very confusing message — certainly a confusing message to me that he would offer that as somebody who believes this is in our national security interest.”

    Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you send out John Kerry, a known serial waffler, to define your foreign policy. The boy can barely speak English on a good day and now he’s the face and voice of American policy. Kerry and Hagel are such a clown act.

  • Rand Paul: How do you ask a man to be the first man to die for a mistake?

    I’m not a big fan of Rand Paul, mostly because he was a Kokesh-hugger when Kokesh ran for Congress a few years back, but, Paul has been making more sense lately. Yesterday, he wrote an op/ed in the Washington Times in which he turned John Kerry’s 1971 question to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee back on Kerry and asked, “How do you ask a man to be the first man to die for a mistake?”. Then Paul finally addresses the questions that I’ve been asking here for the last few weeks;

    To the extent that Mr. Kerry made a case at all — along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel — the secretary was not very convincing. Even as the committee predictably approved authorization of the use of military force, the administration still failed to demonstrate any clear national security connection the United States has in Syria. The supposed justification for intervention to stop the use of chemical weapons still does not tell us how military action would actually deter their use. We’re still not absolutely sure about the origins of their use.

    Meanwhile in another Washington Times article, Democrats discuss how they’ll hold their noses and vote with the President;

    “There were people who said, I love the president; I trust the president; he’s like my son. But we just — as one lady said — she said, I disagree with my husband, but I love him to life. And so, you know, you’re going to have those disagreements,” said Maryland Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings. “We all have to, I think, look at this not just in a vacuum of what’s happening today, but what’s going to happen with regard to future generations.”

    […]

    Another Democrat who attended the briefing, Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota, said that while there are “no good options,” he is leaning towards voting yes, pending the language of the final resolution.

    “To me, there is enough evidence that there has been a chemical weapons attack, that it was authorized by the regime and I believe that we have to demonstrate that you can’t do that,” he said. “I want to make sure that it’s narrow enough that people in Minnesota and people in this country and people around the world understand that it’s about these chemical weapons.”

    There are no good options, they’ll just vote for war-like actions in Syria. I wonder how they’d vote if the President wasn’t a member of their own party. No, I don’t really wonder. Does anyone admit to supporting George W. Bush’s adventures just because they liked him as the president. Wouldn’t we be called vacuous lacking in any intellectual depth if we said that publicly? So how do these cretins think they can get away with making these comments?

  • Jean Fraud Kerry: Leading the Charge of the Lie Brigade

    Obama’s choice of John Kerry to lead the charge for war against Syria demonstrates once again just what a tin ear this administration has. When you have a hard sell from the get-go, it helps to have a credible spokesman. Has every member of the president’s inner circle forgotten the 2004 election and how John Kerry was shown by former members of his naval unit in Vietnam to have huge credibility issues regarding his own war record and his untruthful testimony before Congress about American atrocities in Vietnam? Have they never considered that the reason John Kerry never followed through on his promise to sue those sailors who had portrayed him as a fraud and his war record as phony, for defamation, libel and slander was due to the simple fact that a complete defense to such charges is if their statements happened to be true?

    John Kerry’s former shipmates rose up, almost to a man, and deprived him of the presidency with vicious lies and he didn’t sue? With the potential for damages that such a case would present? With the opportunity of righteous retribution against those who had harmed him so grievously? With the promise of vindication before the entire world and the means to clear his name? I’ll wager every lawyer reading this will tell you that his failure to sue was due to that one little issue of truth. He sought neither vindication nor punitive damages because as a lawyer himself he understood that legal discovery and testimony would not only destroy his legal position, it would destroy what remained of his political career.

    So John Kerry tucked tail, despite being mocked for doing so, and let the issue die away quietly so that he could retain his senate seat and survive to head the state department, a job where many believe the ability to lie blatantly and convincingly is considered essential. The problem, however, lies with the millions of Americans, particularly millions of veterans like me, who wouldn’t take John Kerry’s word on any topic, but especially on an issue that involves such a malodorous misuse of our military. My own informal sampling around the Internet tells me that any Obama Red Line attack draws a red flag from most veterans, a cohort notable for standing strongly in support of any legitimate implementation of military force.

    Some will say that since Kerry is Secretary of State and has friends in Congress, he should be leading this campaign. But many millions of us are convinced Kerry’s carefully crafted career is based entirely on lies pertaining to military operations, both his and others. Apparently our sage leaders in the White House think Secretary Botox sufficiently detoxed from his 2004 debacle to lead this Charge of the Lie Brigade, a widely unpopular military proposal, with an outcome likely similar to its Crimean counterpart. It’s truly questionable who’s dumber, the fools in the administration who picked Kerry to sell this suspect story or the fool Republicans in Congress who are sucking it up.

    Consider that most of those in Congress are lawyers so they have to be fully aware that Kerry didn’t sue in 2004 because he couldn’t risk the trial discovery process. They know he’s a fraud who lied about his war record and the so-called Vietnam atrocities, yet his former Senate colleagues have just bought the self-serving lie this administration huckster is selling. What a bunch of cheese-eater weasels.
    Hey, at least I’m not alone here. This guy definitely agrees with me. Jean Fraud Kerry indeed.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Jeff Duncan vs John Kerry

    Congressman Jeff Duncan, Republican from South Carolina confronts John Kerry and highlights the point that the loss of American lives in Benghazi and in the Fast & Furious scandals gives Americans pause when contemplating the use of military force in Syria;

    From The Blaze;

    “Bottom line is there’s a need for accountability and trust-building from the administration,” he said. “The administration has a credibility issue.”

    “Mr. Kerry, your predecessor asked, ‘What difference does it make now?’” he continued, referring then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous hearing outburst earlier this year. “Well, this is the difference, Mr. Secretary.”

    “These issues call into question the accountability of this administration,” Duncan said. “Its commitment to the personnel on the ground, and the judgment that it uses when, making these determinations. The American people deserve answers before they move forward talking about military involvement in Syria.”

    Of course, Kerry falls back on his three months in Vietnam with a videographer;

    Secretary Kerry was not amused with Duncan’s line of questioning and responded by citing his and his colleagues’ (i.e. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey) service records.

    […]

    He added, visibly annoyed: “We’re talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi and Fast and Furious!”

    No, John Kerry, we want answers to questions about AMERICANS who were killed in Benghazi and Fast & Furious before we send more AMERICANS into a civil war that doesn’t concern us. Certainly, the deaths of SYRIANS by the use of chemical weapons is horrible, but it no way justifies the death of even one AMERICAN to punish the people who haven’t yet been proven to my mind to be responsible for those horrible deaths.

    This administration hasn’t been forthcoming in answering questions in the deaths of Americans in the past, so how can we trust them to send more Americans into harm’s way. I know we have at least one reader out there who can pass along our appreciation personally to Congressman Duncan, it’s abotu time someone started holding these people’s feet to the fire. And anytime John Kerry hides behind the events in Vietnam that are seared into his Swiss cheese memory is a wonderful time.

  • John Kerry’s “Munich moment”

    On Saturday, John Kerry compared Bashar al-Assad, the ruler of Syria to Hitler and Saddam Hussein (but I thought Hussein was a benevolent leader who deserves to still reign over Iraq according to the Democrats) because Assad used chemical weapons. Today, Kerry told House Democrats that they are having a “Munich moment” in deciding whether to strike at and punish, Syria for their alleged use of chemical weapons.

    Kerry’s derisive comments on Assad and his reference to the 1938 Munich agreement between Adolf Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain — after which Chamberlain infamously declared it would lead to “peace for our time” — showed the hard line the White House is taking in its drive for congressional approval of the Syrian resolution. Top administration officials argue that a failure by the United States to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime will only lead to more violence and instability in the region.

    So much use of Nazi-related hyperbole. Especially since those same people railed against the Nazi hyperbole when used against Hussein’s regime. I think the Democrats’ Munich Moment came with the three Congressmen on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace claiming he was more trustworthy than the President, back in 2003. And if Assad is Hitler, why aren’t we trying to remove him power as a stated goal instead of just “punishing” him? We “punished” Hussein for 12 years and accomplished nothing.

    Or this could be a Munich Moment in 2009 when Kerry was lobbying for his current job;

    John Kerry's Munich Moment

    Another Munich Moment in 2007 when the Bush Administration was trying to isolate Assad and Pelosi was trying to engage Assad;

    Pelosi's Munich moment

    Kerry also said that Israel, America’s closest ally in the region, backed the need for a U.S. military response.

    Since when did what Israel wanted ever matter to this administration?

  • Kerry defends decision to use force on Syria

    Ya know what? If I was the president, I don’t think I’d send out someone who more than half of the country polled in a general election expressed distrust to explain my case. Kerry, rightly said that we don’t have to take his word for anything, and I certainly wouldn’t. Kerry’s TV appearance today was based solely on emotion and not even a little bit on proven facts. You can watch the video at this link, if you can stand to listen to that voice.

    All he proves is that which we already know – someone used some sort of poison gas on a large number of people, but he doesn’t offer any proof that it was indeed the Assad regime.

    “I’m not asking you to take my word for it,” Kerry said, urging people to read the report. “This is what Assad did to his own people.”

    Kerry called Bashar Assad a “thug” and a “murderer” who must not be allowed to escape retribution for the attack.

    The intelligence assessment said the U.S. government has “high confidence” that the Syrian government carried out the chemical attack using a nerve agent.

    The report said preliminary findings show 1,429 people were killed in the attack, including at least 426 children.

    I have no doubt that someone used gas on those people, but what I don’t know is who actually pulled the trigger and what we plan to do about it, and how that intended plan will prevent the next attack, and how will preventing that attack make us safer? these are the same questions that Biden, Kerry and Obama demanded of President Bush, but now they seem less inclined to answer those same questions.

    The Bush Administration took two or three dozens of countries in their coalition, the Obama Administration has only the country that wasn’t in that coalition – France. the Bush Administration couldn’t get approval from the Security Council, and regardless of how the UN inspectors report from Syria, the Obama Administration won’t get the Security Council’s approval either.

    At least Hussein presented a real threat to us by supporting terrorists outside their borders and a real threat to the UN pilots enforcing the no-fly zone. Syria threatens Israel and Turkey, but they don’t have a capability to threaten us.

    If our goal is to merely punish the Assad regime, it goes against the principles of waging war. The purpose of military power is to defeat an enemy, not to spank them and send them to a corner wearing a dunce’s hat.

    Kerry admits that there is no military solution in Syria, yet here he is proposing a military solution. No wonder he missed his opportunity to be President.