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Sunday, July 20, 2014

At Least He Makes Hillary Look Good

Earlier today I posted about Hillary Clinton's crazy comments that the "reset" with Russia was a brilliant success.  While the comments came before the Russian supported separatists shot down a civilian airliner in Ukraine (with indirect Russian support and most likely with direct Russian support), they nevertheless now make Mrs. Clinton look at best foolish and at worst delusional.  Now, however, we have had another event which makes Mrs. Clinton look good by comparison.

Today's event happened on Fox News Sunday, the interview program hosted by Chris Wallace.  Secretary of State John Kerry was a guest on the show, and during a commercial break, he took a cell phone call on speakerphone from someone at the State Department.  Kerry is no novice when it comes to dealing with the media.  After all, he ran (and lost) for president in 2004, so he understands very well that everyone in the control room could hear every word of his call and could see his reactions.  Kerry used the call to blast the Israelis for civilian casualties in Gaza.  There was some operation today by Israeli forces that resulted in 14 casualties among civilians.  Kerry frowned and stated "It's a hell of a pinpoint operation", and then Kerry said that he [Kerry] had to get over there.

Clearly, Kerry was using this as a method to pressure the Israelis about civilian casualties.  Well, to be fair, it may just be that Kerry is a complete idiot who forgot that he was in a TV studio wearing a microphone and in front of video cameras when he had his conversation on speakerphone.  Either way, Kerry has managed to make Mrs. Clinton look good by comparison.

If Kerry is really such a moron that this happened by accident then he needs to be fired by president Obama.  There is no alternative; if this was an accident, Kerry is even dumber than Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and essentially no one could be that stupid.

If Kerry is using language like this intentionally to pressure the Israelis then he deserves to be fired by president Obama.  Kerry knows that the Israelis have take all sorts of steps to limit civilian casualties.  Most of these steps are not things that American troops did in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Remember, during US involvement in those two countries, more than a quarter of a million civilians were killed and many more wounded in the fighting.  These figures do not include the insurgents who we were fighting; they are just civilians who got in the way.  Some of the crazy high estimates of casualties put the total civilians losses at over a million people.  And, of course, these are civilian casualties in wars that Kerry voted for while in the Senate.

Right now, the last thing that the US Secretary of State ought to be doing is harping on the issue of civilian casualties.  He should realize that perhaps the best thing he could do would be to make the leaders of Hamas understand that America will NOT pressure the Israelis to stop their efforts before Hamas's capabilities to launch missiles and attacks through the tunnels are fully degraded.  If Hamas were to realize that it was fighting a battle that it could not win on its own and also one for which the USA and the West will not pressure some compromise outcome that gives Hamas something it can call a "victory", then the leaders of Hamas might actually stop this war.  By his actions, Kerry is actually prolonging the very fighting he claims to want to end.



 

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