Free Republic

ANKARA--U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday played down chances of an imminent broad coalition against Islamic State militants, illustrating the difficulty Washington faces winning commitment for a military campaign in the heart of the Middle East. Kerry met Turkish leaders to try to secure support for U.S.-led action against Islamic State, but Ankara's reluctance to play a frontline role highlighted the challenges of building a willing coalition to wage what will likely be a tough offensive. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to build support for President Barack Obama's plan, announced on Wednesday, to strike both sides...

U.S Secretary of State John Kerry has stated that airstrikes alone will not be effective in defeating the genocidal ISIS militants. In an op-ed which appeared in the New York Times, Kerry suggested a global coalition using political, humanitarian, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools to support military force in order to tackle ISIS, reported the Guardian. The U.S Secretary of State also added that he and defense secretary Chuck Hagel would be using Nato summit-scheduled for next week at Celtic Manor in Wales- to meet European ministers and to seek to "enlist the broadest possible assistance."

The United States is at war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), the White House and Pentagon said Friday, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly declined to use that phrase. “In the same way that we are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe, we are at war with ISIL,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby echoed that sentiment, telling reporters that while the effort was "not the Iraq war," they should "make no mistake, we know we...

US Secretary of State John Kerry challenged ISIL’s definition of itself and insisted that the self-proclaimed Islamic State is not, in fact, Islamic. “I studied Islam in college,” Kerry asserted. “None of the books I read or classes I took mentioned anything about beheading unbelievers or raping women. I’ll stack this up against the mutterings of an uneducated terrorist any day of the week.” Palestinian-Jordanian politician Muhammad Bayoudh Al-Tamimi disagreed with Kerry and maintained that ISIL’s “actions and words stem directly from the Quran and Sunna—two of Islam’s most sacred texts.” A spokesman for ISIL suggested that “perhaps this chattering...

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that to counter the ideology of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its claim of a "religious foundation" for its actions, part of the strategy of the international coalition he is attempting to assemble must be to "begin to put real Islam out there." Kerry, in Paris for talks with various world leaders to build that coalition, further said that all of the Arab leaders he had spoken with earlier concurred about their focus on "real Islam and how important the Friday sermons are." The secretary of state recently...

Wednesday at the Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on U.S. strategy for combating ISIS, after Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) criticized Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was left "shaking and trembling" in shock. Boxer said, "I think it is shocking and a sad state of affairs that we heard just now, such angry comments aimed at you, Mr. Secretary, and through you, at our president ....

<p>Kerry got into a heated exchange with Corker who said, "I want to say as I said personally, we have three senators, president, vice president, secretary of state, that are exercising terrible judgment right now.</p>

If you want to be part of what’s hot and trending, dhimmitude is all the rage. It’s a big tent sort of a movement, so all are welcome. No prior experience required, though liars and cowards are preferred. This month (and the month isn’t even over yet), Secretary of State John Kerry really outdid himself, showing how it’s done for those who may be new to the dhimmitude circle.

Here again the leading scholar of Islam tells us what it is. But Secretary Kerry, half a billion Muslims can’t be wrong.Oh, how the poor clown struggles between smirks and condescending snickers. He struggles to answer whether to call it war. It tells us what it’s not. He “doesn’t care about what we call it.” It’s not this kind of war, it’s not that kind of war.’

Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States welcomes potential action on the part of Iran to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) while the Obama administration maintains it is not coordinating militarily with the nation. In remarks to the United Nations Security Council in New York on Friday, Kerry called for a "holistic, global campaign" to defeat ISIS, noting, "the coalition required to eliminate ISIL is not only, nor even primarily, military in nature," he said using an alternate acronym for the group. "The fact is there is a role for nearly every country...

John Kerry was speaking about ISIS. And he’s wrong. As usual. 1. Mohammed practiced slavery 2. The Islamic campaigns were carried out for loot. Including the human kind. Many of Mohammed’s first Muslims were out for slaves. Including female slaves. 3. Mohammed enslaved and raped women These are all facts that are not seriously in dispute. ... Mohammed’s armies looted and killed the men and enslaved the women. It’s elementary Islamic history. The only thing Kerry got right is that there’s nothing in the Koran about shooting the men. Guns didn’t exist then. That’s why they chopped off their heads...

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) came to prominence and notoriety when he famously shouted, ‘You Lie’ at Barack Obama during the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress. If ever there was a prime opportunity for a reprise, it occurred during an exchange between Wilson and Secretary of State John Kerry.Wilson asked Kerry if the U.S. was at war. If Kerry’s response had been a yes or no, the clip below would be no more than five seconds. As it was, Kerry took a more circuitous route to his answer, which was beyond ridiculous. After several seconds of hemming and...

John Kerry, like Obama, went out of his way to defend Islam by saying that ISIS does not represent Islam: So I wouldnÂ’t compound the crime by calling them a state whatsoeverÂ… TheyÂ’re the enemy of Islam. ThatÂ’s what they are, and as the 21 clerics yesterday said in Saudi Arabia, they are in fact the order of Satan. Â…ThereÂ’s nothing in Islam that condones or suggests people should go out and rape women and sell off young girls or give them as gifts to jihadists and cut peopleÂ’s heads off and tie peopleÂ’s hands behind their backs and put...

Could the "Islamic" in "Islamic State" be a clue? Not for John Kerry. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, our clueless Secretary of State insisted that what drives ISIS is a "radical, extremist, cultish" philosophy, but not--perish the thought!--a "religious attitude." Kerry was of course echoing the analysis of that noted theologian, Barack Obama, who two weeks ago declared that ISIS is "not Islamic." In fairness, Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton have expressed similar sentiments. For a thorough debunking of the ISIS Islam-deniers, see here. View the video here.

In a stunning bi-partisan “Congressional Letter” from over 353 out of 435 U.S. congresspersons to US Secretary of State John Kerry, the 353 U.S. representatives issued a stark warning that, “As you wrote in the Washington Post earlier this summer, if Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful, “it’s not a hard proposition to prove. The only reasonable conclusion for its stonewalling of international investigators is that Tehran does indeed have much to hide.” The Congressional Letter’s signatories included almost all of both parties’ leaderships, and was greatly aided by Republican Congressman Peter J. Roskam (R-IL-06) of Illinois, a stalwart, and...

Vice president Joe Biden declared China a North American country in a speech at Boston's John F. Kennedy Forum at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday. Biden claimed that North America - "meaning Mexico, China and Canada" - will contribute two-thirds of the world's energy growth over the next two decades:

Last week, Vice President Biden referred to Singapore’s former long-serving prime minister Lee Kuan Yew as the “wisest man in the Orient.” Biden was criticized for saying “Orient,” which is a perfectly innocuous and rather charming word. Unfortunately, it appears that, at some point, someone decided it was racist, and instead of being corrected, he was indulged. It’s not clear why anyone thinks the words “Orient” and “Oriental” are racist. “Orient,” according to the OED, refers to “that region of the heavens in which the sun and other heavenly bodies rise”; conventionally, it means “east.” Strictly, an Oriental country is...

To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell, Joe Biden. Our Democratic Vice President is a self-proclaimed Catholic. Yet unlike former President John F. Kennedy, also a Catholic Democrat, Joseph R. Biden consistently exploits his political power to control his church. JFK respected the separation of church and state. JRB embraces blurred lines. For the sake of the common good, Biden should model Kennedy. He should also take a cue from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and conceal himself in a cloister instead of prying into our personal lives. Ironically, Biden has been spending a great deal of time with nuns—without getting himself...

Domestic abuse is an equal opportunity crime. Men, believe it or not, are not the only ones who abuse but if you’ve been paying attention over the last few weeks, one would get the impression that it’s a black problem.

WASHINGTON - Here are the dreary details on what's been happening in our nation's capital this week, but be forewarned, it isn't a pretty picture. The House has passed President Obama's unspecified plan to arm and train the moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State terrorists. But no sooner had the clerk of the House tallied the vote, Senate critics on both sides of the aisle were complaining that he doesn't have a battle plan or any strategy. And there were new, growing suggestions within his own administration that his pledge not to send ground troops back into Iraq is...