Shame on Kerry for Rationalizing Terror

 

"Rationale" for Charlie Hebdo attack more understandable
- Stephanie Condon

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday suggested that the "rationale" for the terrorist attack against the satirical French publication Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 people dead in January, is more understandable than any rationale for last week's attacks in Paris.

"There's something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that," he said in remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. "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."

Charlie Hebdo has continued to print its satirical, at times offensive, cartoons. Following Friday's attacks, it published a cartoon of a bullet-riddled Frenchman drinking, with the caption "They have guns. Screw them. We have champagne."
[CBS News]


Kerry sees 'rationale' in Charlie Hebdo murders - Eliza Collins

Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that there was a “rationale” for the assault on satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, unlike the more recent attacks in Paris.

“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo," Kerry said in Paris, according to a transcript of his remarks. "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.”

 

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, which took place in January, killed 12 people and was perpetrated by radical Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen.

[Politico]
*

UPDATE:

Are Some Terror Victims More Innocent than Others? - Elliott Abrams
 
Secretary of State John Kerry said that the November killings in Paris are more terrible than those of January. "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, okay, they're really angry because of this and that." Sure. They were angry about cartoons that lampooned Muhammad, and about Jews. Completely understandable.
  
When people kill journalists and Jews, that is not an attack on "everything that we do stand for," whereas attacking a restaurant and stadium and a concert hall is. A bit odd: Do we stand for good food and sports and music more than we stand for freedom of the press and freedom of religion? Religious minorities and journalists perhaps are to blame in some sense for their own troubles.
  
At Harvard last month Kerry had this reaction to the terror spree of Palestinians stabbing Jews in and near Jerusalem: "There's been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years. Now you have this violence because there's a frustration that is growing." This statement was plainly false. There has been no "massive increase in settlements," something the statistics show quite clearly.
The writer is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
(Weekly Standard)