A Sad Commentary On Where We Are As A Country

CNS News posted an article yesterday about Secretary of State John Kerry‘s appearance before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State and Foreign Assistance.

The article reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State and Foreign Assistance today that he is having an “additional evaluation” done to help him determine whether the systematic murder of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East—at the hands of the Islamic State and others—should be declared “genocide.”

“I will make a decision on it as soon as I have that additional evaluation and we will proceed forward from there,” Kerry said.

Kerry was responding to a question put to him by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R.-Neb.), who is the sponsor of a resolution that would declare on behalf of Congress that it is in fact genocide.

The article includes part of the transcript of the hearing. This is an excerpt:

Kerry: Well again Congressman thank you for a very moving and eloquent description of the problem. And I appreciate, you were lucky to be in that room to witness that, and I certainly appreciate your reactions to it. And I share just a huge sense of revulsion over these acts, obviously. None of us have ever seen anything like it in our lifetimes. Although, obviously, if you go back to the Holocaust, the world has seen it.

We are currently doing what I have to do, which is review very carefully the legal standards and precedents for whatever judgment is made. I can tell you we are doing that. I have had some initial recommendations made to me. I have asked for some further evaluation. And I will make a decision on this. And I will make a decision on it as soon as I have that additional evaluation and we will proceed forward from there.

I understand how compelling it is. Christians have been moved in many parts now of the Middle East, I might add. This is not just in Syria, but in other places there has been an increased forced evacuation and displacement, which is equally disturbing, though it’s not—you know, they aren’t killing them in that case, but it’s a removal, and a cleansing ethnically and religiously, which is deeply disturbing. So we are very much focused on this. And, as I say, I will make a judgement soon.

I am amazed at the Secretary of State’s ability to ignore the obvious. I am reminded of President Clinton’s comment that he regretted not intervening in the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990’s.

ABC News reported in 2014:

But in the years since, the former President Clinton has called the failure to intervene in Rwanda one of his biggest regrets.

“I do feel a lifetime responsibility,” he told ABC in 2008, while on a trip to the country. “I feel like a lot of people … had something to do with it.”

In March 2013 Clinton again talked Rwanda, when he told CNBC that he believes had the U.S. intervened, even marginally, at the beginning of the genocide at least 300,000 people might have been saved.

Admittedly, this statement may have been made with Hillary Clinton’s political future in mind, but the fact remains that sooner or later, all of us have to live with the consequences of our actions.