Sunday, May 1, 2016

Kerry: all hair, no head

War hero, by his own admission, and current Secretary of State for not much longer, John Kerry has pleaded with the Syrian government forces to please stop bombing the city of Aleppo moving forward.

"At the end of the day, there's gonna be lots of dead civilians if you keep bombing indiscriminately, and that just is not good. It isn't good. It's bad. So please stop," Kerry begged in the short, powerful sentences he is known to lob at our enemies.

The bombing has been devastating this week, with heavy civilian casualties that included a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed scores of people one of whom was one of the last pediatricians left in Syria.

Russia has sat on its collective hands, doing nothing to pressure chinless Assad's bombing campaign.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the increased fighting has caused a humanitarian disaster for millions of people and issued a statement that four medical facilities on both sides of the city were hit by bombs. The ICRC appealed to both sides "for an immediate halt in the attacks."

Kerry is planning to have a sit-down with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva on Sunday. He will include the foreign ministers of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, Aleppo was not part of the original "cessation of hostilities" agreement, so for Assad and Putin's way of thinking, "nobody said we couldn't."

Kerry uselessly expressed "deep concern" about Aleppo to de Mistura and Riad Hijab, the chief negotiator for the High Negotiations Committee.  The Secretary of State made it "crystal clear" that ending the violence in Aleppo and returning to a total nationwide ceasefire, would be 'tremendous'. 

Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the presidential race, said, "I really hope the shooting will stop. I really do. It would be fantastic if those folks could shake hands like men, and end this nonsense. They've got to end it. I mean, folks, it's crazy that people are killing each other over what? A crappy country that doesn't even allow beauty contests and the women, and I love the Syrian women, wear head scarfs in that heat? All those dead folks, and I love dead folks, are a total waste. So let's not do this anymore."

Kerry calmly disagreed with Russia's claim that the airstrikes were targeting Al Nusra in Aleppo. "Oh please, who are you kidding?" he said. "You are bombing civilians. You always bomb civilians. That's no right. That's not fair. That's not the American way."

The other State Department "John," Kirby this time, using longer sentences than Kerry said, "The Assad regime continues to escalate the conflict by predominantly targeting innocent civilians and parties to the cessation of hostilities--not Nusra, as the regime falsely claims. Such attacks are direct violation of the cessation and must stop immediately."

Both Putin and Assad chuckled and said in unison: "Oh yeah? Whattaya gonna do about it?"

What happens going forward, down the road, at the end of the day, remains a mystery. Will Obama allow Aleppo to be thrown under the bus is anybody's guess.



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