Kerry: Recent Paris attack lacked 'rationale' of Charlie Hebdo strike

[mystery-ak]

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/260484-kerry-suggests-legitimacy-behind-charlie-hebdo-attack

 By Kristina Wong - 11/17/15 05:08 PM EST

Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Tuesday there was a "rationale" behind the terrorist strike on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, unlike the recent "indiscriminate" ISIS attacks in Paris. 

Speaking about the Paris attacks to staff and their families at the U.S. embassy in Paris, Kerry said "there's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that."

"There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, OK, they're really angry because of this and that," Kerry said.

"This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn't to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That's not an exaggeration," he said.

Kerry came under immediate criticism on social media for his remarks, which seemed to imply a "legitimacy" to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, where terrorists had gunned down 12 employees of the paper, known for its satirical portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

That attack in January was attributed to radical Islamic militants linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Friday's attacks, which has been linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, killed at least 130 people across Paris and wounded hundreds more.

Kerry went on to say that the purpose of the Paris attacks "was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, 'Here we are.'"

"And for what? What's the platform? What's the grievance? That we're not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it's indiscriminate," he said.
 

[mystery-ak]

Lay off the botox Kerry..it's called terrorism.

[Lando Lincoln]

Just another insight how these leftists think.  Whatever the reach in logic, Mr. Kerry, there is no human rationale for gunning down innocents.  12 people were gunned down in the Charlie Hebdo event.  Think about that for a moment, Mr. Kerry, and all that that entails.  Save your pseudo-intellectual, leftist drivel.  Bastard.

[240B]

Several European news outlets were stretching to find some kind of blame on the side of the West for what happened in Paris.

This has two basic origins.

The Leftists in the West fundementally believe that all evil, anywhere in the world is cause by, and therefore is the fault of, Western oppression, or exploitation, or greed, or whatever. So, it was not really the terrorists' fault. They were merely reacting to some sin that we committed.

This is a foundational dogma of the Western Leftists.

Also, the Western Leftist elite are megalomaniacal narcissists, and they cannot comprehend the very idea that someone may not like them. In their world they consider themselves to be absolutely perfect in every way. It is not possible that the masses would not adore them.

So when something like Paris happens, there can only be two answers. Either it was some kind of misunderstanding, or we must have done something to provoke them.

The Western Left does not recognize abject hate and abject evil, because the philosophy they live by does not admit that these causes exist in the world.

[Fishrrman]

240b wrote above (in a generally excellent post):
"The Western Left does not recognize abject hate and abject evil, because the philosophy they live by does not admit that these causes exist in the world."

No, not quite.
The left DOES "recognize abject hate and abject evil".

The "evil haters" of the world are the white Christian males of Western Civilization, who are the attackers and destroyers of all things good...

[rangerrebew]

Networks Ignore John Kerry’s Suggestion of a ‘Rationale’ for Charlie Hebdo Terror Attacks
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
 
 

On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same city on Friday.

Speaking in Paris, Kerry first declared that, compared to Friday’s terrorist attacks, “there’s something different that happened with Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that.”

Kerry further elaborated that, in January, “[t]here was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that” whereas “[t]his Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.”

While each of the network evening newscasts sent a network personality to interview Kerry, none of them added these comments as an addendum to any of their stories centered around the terror attacks.

On the CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley was shown pressing Kerry on the U.S. so-called strategy for defeating ISIS by pointing out “that never in history has an air campaign accomplished the goals that you just set out in this interview” to (as the administration often calls it) ultimately degrade and destroy ISIS.

As part of ABC chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz’s report on airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria, she touted Kerry’s pledge to foreign correspondent Alex Marquardt that “[t]he United States has been steadily ramping up over the course of these last months.”

Over on NBC Nightly News, Holt let Kerry off the hook for admitting that he “was shocked” but “not surprised” by Friday’s Islamic terrorist attacks because ISIS fighters “have gained great expertise over a period of time and they have some people in ISIS who have been fighting in the terror network for a period of time, so they have access to C-4 and they have access to explosives.”

Meanwhile, FNC’s Special Report did indeed allude to Kerry’s disturbing justification of the Charlie Hebdo attacks at the tail end of correspondent Rick Leventhal’s live segment from Paris. Host Bret Baier noted that the comments “raised eyebrows there and here.”

Leventhal provided some background before reading Kerry’s full comments:

    Yeah, he was making some remarks and he was referring to the Charlie Hebdo attacks from January. In that case, you may remember the terrorists justified the slaughter of people in the editorial office because of cartoons that they had published that made fun of the prophet Mohammed. Well, the secretary of state seemed to give some rationale to that attack. He said “there’s something different that happened with Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.” He went on to say that people were being targeted just for being people, different than the terrorists themselves.

The relevant portion of the transcript from FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier on November 17 can be found below.

    FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
    November 17, 2015
    6:04 p.m. Eastern

    BRET BAIER: I want to ask you one thing, something else that Secretary of State Kerry said in Paris, raised eyebrows there and here.

    RICK LEVENTHAL: Yeah, he was making some remarks and he was referring to the Charlie Hebdo attacks from January. In that case, you may remember the terrorists justified the slaughter of people in the editorial office because of cartoons that they had published that made fun of the prophet Mohammed. Well, the secretary of state seemed to give some rationale to that attack. He said “there’s was something different that happened with Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.” He went on to say that people were being targeted just for being people, different than the terrorists themselves. Brett?

    BAIER: Okay, Rick Leventhal, live from Paris. We’ll get reaction to that in a bit. Rick, thank you.

Source URL: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2015/11/17/networks-ignore-john-kerrys-suggestion-rationale-charlie-hebdo

[mountaineer]

If Kerry can justify the slaughter of innocent people at a magazine office in Paris, it's not a stretch to believe he could find justification for certain murders in the US. If the murderers' political views gibe with his (and Obama's), I guess anything is possible.

[mountaineer]

Don Surber writes:

Daesh Bag of the Day


No, the Daesh Bag of the Day award does not go to John Kerry. Nope, the award goes to the New Republic and any other  news organization -- or conservative -- who falls for this trap.

Let me explain. From the New Republic:

    World leaders have taken to calling ISIS “Daesh,” a word the Islamic State hates. Since the attacks in Paris, both John Kerry and François Hollande have used it. The Kurdish militants battling ISIS in Iraq already use the term regularly, though they risk losing their tongues by uttering it.

    Daesh is an acronym. It stands for the Arabic name of the Islamic State: al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. When Jen Percy, a New Republic contributor, went to northern Iraq this year, the Assyrian Christians waging a war against ISIS were calling ISIS troops “Daesh.” In her article for our September issue, she called it “a pejorative term for ISIS in Arabic.”

    Zeba Khan, writing for the Boston Globe, has explained why “Daesh” could be read as an insult: “Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from ‘to trample down and crush’ to ‘a bigot who imposes his view on others.’”

The argument by Kerry is juvenile and petty: You see? Do not call them Islamic State because that's what they want to be called, get it?

This is a lame attempt to get people to not call the Islamic State the Islamic State because liberals want to pretend that terrorists have hijacked Islam, which is a religion they revere, unlike Christianity.

You are taking Kerry's word that Daesh is an insult? Here is what he said on October 9, 2002: "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

And Kerry said this on January 23, 2003: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."

[mountaineer]

Oh, good grief. More on "daesh" but from last year:

opinion | Zeba Khan
Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’
 October 09, 2014
Boston Globe

The militants who are killing civilians, raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that that country would stop using any of those names and instead refer to the group as “Daesh.”

The Obama Administration should switch to this nomenclature, too, because how we talk about this group is central to defeating them.

Whether referred to as ISIS, ISIL, or IS, all three names reflect aspirations that the United States and its allies unequivocally reject. Political and religious leaders all over the world have noted this. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, “This is a terrorist group and not a state. . . the term Islamic State blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists.” President Obama made similar remarks saying, “ISIL is not Islamic . . . and [is] certainly not a state.”

Muslim scholars around the world have denounced the group’s attempt to declare a caliphate. Egyptian Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi published an open letter to Muslim scholars explaining, “A group simply announcing a caliphate is not enough to establish a caliphate.” The Syrian Sufi leader Muhammad al-Yacoubi called the group’s declaration “illegitimate” and that supporting it was “haram,” or forbidden.

The term “Daesh” is strategically a better choice because it is still accurate in that it spells out the acronym of the group’s full Arabic name, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. Yet, at the same time, “Daesh” can also be understood as a play on words — and an insult. Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from “to trample down and crush” to “a bigot who imposes his view on others.” Already, the group has reportedly threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who uses the term.

Why do they care so much? The same reason the United States should. Language matters.

With some 30,000 to 50,000 fighters, Daesh is a relatively small group, and propaganda is central to its growth strategy. Whether hijacking popular Twitter hashtags or using little known distribution channels to post videos to YouTube, their leadership knows that the war of words online is just as key to increasing its power and influence as the actual gruesome acts they commit on the ground.

By using the militants’ preferred names, the US government implicitly gives them legitimacy. But referring to the group as Daesh doesn’t just withhold validity. It also might help the United States craft better policy.

A number of studies suggest that the language we use affects the way we think and behave. By using a term that references the Arabic name and not an English translation, American policy makers can potentially inoculate themselves from inherent biases that could affect their decision making. A University of Chicago study last year showed that thinking in a foreign language actually reduces deep-seated, misleading biases and prevents emotional, unconscious thinking from interfering with systematic, analytical thinking.

Changing what the United States calls this band of militants is not going to make them go away. Yet we also know from over a decade of war that military tactics do not stamp out extremism either. As the prominent Muslim sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah recently said after issuing a fatwa against the group, “The problem is that even if you defeat these ideas militarily by killing people, if you don’t defeat the ideas intellectually, then the ideas will reemerge.”

The State Department understands this and recently launched a more sophisticated digital war to combat the ideas espoused by the group on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Building out a savvy online campaign is a step in the right direction, but the United States is weakening the potency of its own messaging if it continues to refer to the group as ISIL.

American officials should not be in the business of telling Muslims at home or abroad who is or isn’t Muslim. Nonetheless, by reframing how we talk and think about these violent extremists, we can support the chorus of Muslim scholars who are intellectually pushing back on Daesh’s religious claims, the scores of Muslims around the world who have publicly rejected the group, and, ultimately, the silent majority of more than 1 billion Muslims who are as likely to reject the heinous actions of Daesh as we are.

[aligncare]

Only the left would come up with such tripe. Change how you talk about your enemy and that can and will defeat them! Oh, brother.