After Much Deliberation and Delay, John Kerry Recognizes that ISIS is Committing Genocide Against Christians and Yazidis and Shiites

They resisted this. It took the House to embarrass them into doing so.

Why? Are Christians only permitted to be the Villains in their fantasy morality plays?

Secretary of State John Kerry determined Thursday that the Islamic State group is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, meeting a congressional deadline for a decision.

The declaration, while long sought by Congress and human rights groups, changes little. It does not obligate the United States to take additional action against IS militants and does not prejudge any prosecution against its members.

A day after the State Department said Kerry would miss the deadline because he needed to gather evidence and act deliberatively, Kerry said he had completed his review and determined that Christians, Yazidis and Shiite groups are victims of genocide and crimes against humanity by IS militants. The House earlier this week passed a nonbinding resolution by a 393-0 vote condemning IS atrocities as genocide.

"In my judgment Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in territory under its control" Kerry said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

He outlined a litany of atrocities that he said the militants had committed against people and religious sites, as well as threats. "Daesh is genocidal by self-acclimation, by ideology and by practice."

Saying that he was "neither judge nor prosecutor nor jury," Kerry added that any potential criminal charges against the extremists must result from an independent international investigation. Kerry said the U.S. would continue to support efforts to collect evidence and document atrocities.

He was pretty Johnny on the Spot in declaring the US had committed war crimes "reminiscent of Jenjis Khan." Why drag his feet on this one?

I assume that the State Department genius misspelled "acclamation" as "acclimation," or else the genius at AP misspelled it. It doesn't make sense that ISIS could be genocidal by "self-acclimation."

It would make sense if they were genocidal by self-acclamation:

acclamation

: strong and enthusiastic approval or praise

: a vote to accept or approve someone or something that is done by cheers, shouts, or applause

I'm not just pointing that out to be Mr. Smary Pants, but to make this point: If ISIS is openly, strongly, enthusiastically declaring itself to be genocidal, and cheers and applauds this declaration...

...why did John Kerry need so long to determine they were genocidal? We've seen the bodies, we've seen the beheadings and burnings. The only possible defense could be "yeah we did that, but we didn't mean to."

John Kerry announces what everyone knows: ISIS is openly, proudly, enthusiastically genocidal by their own self-description.

Yet he resisted calling them what they call themselves.

Again:

Why?

Well, this is why: Because Obama considers the American public a violent and dangerous enemy army whose passions must be restrained through lies.

Obama admits his pathologies to his court biographer Jeffrey Goldberg:

Later, the president would say that he had failed to fully appreciate the fear many Americans were experiencing about the possibility of a Paris-style attack in the U.S. Great distance, a frantic schedule, and the jet-lag haze that envelops a globe-spanning presidential trip were working against him. But he has never believed that terrorism poses a threat to America commensurate with the fear it generates. Even during the period in 2014 when isis was executing its American captives in Syria, his emotions were in check. Valerie Jarrett, Obama's closest adviser, told him people were worried that the group would soon take its beheading campaign to the U.S. "They're not coming here to chop our heads off," he reassured her. Obama frequently reminds his staff that terrorism takes far fewer lives in America than handguns, car accidents, and falls in bathtubs do. Several years ago, he expressed to me his admiration for Israelis' "resilience" in the face of constant terrorism, and it is clear that he would like to see resilience replace panic in American society. Nevertheless, his advisers are fighting a constant rearguard action to keep Obama from placing terrorism in what he considers its "proper" perspective, out of concern that he will seem insensitive to the fears of the American people.

In other words: When all of Salon Webzine's hysterics were hysterically screaming that rightwingers were just too hysterical over the slaughter of 9/11, Obama was sitting there nodding deeply, saying, "Exactly."

Update: AP was way wrong. John Kerry said "genocidal by self-proclamation." Not sure how that got changed to "acclimation."

posted by Ace at 04:19 PM

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