Posted on 09/03/2014 12:45:37 PM PDT by nickcarraway
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday denounced the beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff as an act of “medieval savagery,” and said the militants who killed him were not the true face of Islam.
“The real face of Islam is not what we saw yesterday, when the world bore witness again to the unfathomable brutality of ISIL terrorist murders,” Kerry said at a ceremony to honor the new special U.S. envoy to Muslim communities.
Kerry called the 31-year-old Sotloff “a driven and courageous journalist,” saying he was killed by a “coward hiding behind a mask” from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Also read: Muslim groups condemn killing of U.S. journalist
After having worked to try to bring Sotloff home safely, Kerry said his murder so soon after that of fellow reporter James Foley last month was “a punch to the gut.”
The United States would hunt down Sotloff’s killers, Kerry vowed, moments before a U.S. intelligence official said there was no credible information that suggested ISIS was plotting an attack on the U.S.
The top American diplomat was speaking just hours after U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to fight ISIS until it was a no longer a force in the Middle East.
“Those who have murdered James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria need to know that the United States will hold them accountable … no matter how long it takes,” Kerry said to applause at the State Department ceremony for new envoy Shaarik Zafar.
‘ISIS not invincible’
A U.S. official said Wednesday ISIS was not invincible and had been weakened by U.S. airstrikes.
“The face of Islam is not the butchers that killed Steven Sotloff. That’s [ISIS]. The face of Islam is not the nihilists who know only how to destroy, not to build. It’s not masked cowards whose actions are an ugly insult to the peaceful religion that they violate every single day with their barbarity,” Kerry insisted.
“The real face of Islam is a peaceful religion, based on the dignity of all human beings. It’s one where Muslim communities are leading the fight against poverty, it’s one where Muslim communities are providing basic health care and emergency assistance on the front lines of some of our most devastating humanitarian crises.”
Kerry also paid tribute to Sotloff, saying his “reporting was as empathetic as his killers are evil” and comparing him to legendary 20th-century war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
“He focused on the stories of average people trapped in war, and documented their day-in and day-out struggle for dignity,” Kerry said.
Sotloff, a 31-year-old Miami-area native who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, vanished a year ago in Syria and was not seen again until he appeared in the video that showed Foley’s beheading. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video with death unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the Islamic State.
In the video distributed Tuesday and titled “A Second Message to America,” Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before he is apparently beheaded by a fighter with the Islamic State, the extremist group that has conquered wide swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq and declared itself a caliphate.
Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. president vowed the United States would not forget the “terrible crime” against Sotloff and Foley.
“We will not be intimidated. Their horrific acts only unite us as a country and stiffen our resolve to take the fight against these terrorists,” Obama said.
“And those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget, and that our reach is long and that justice will be served.”
He also sought to clean up the damage from his statement last week that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with ISIS in Syria. Republicans quickly seized on the remark to argue the president lacks a coherent approach to fighting the extremist group, the Associated Press reported.
“It is very important from my perspective that when we send our pilots in to do a job, that we know that this is a mission that’s going to work, that we’re very clear on what our objectives are, what our targets are,” Obama said. “We’ve made the case to Congress and we’ve made the case to the American people, and we’ve got allies behind us so that it’s not just a one-off, but it’s something that over time is going to be effective.”
“Our objective is clear, and that is to degrade and destroy [ISIS] so that it’s no longer a threat – not just to Iraq, but also the region and to the United States,” he said.
If you condemn thievery you condemn Mohammed.
If you condemn rape you condemn Mohammed.
If you condemn pedophilia you condemn Mohammed.
If you condemn terrorism you condemn Mohammed.
If you condemn Mohammed you condemn Islam.
OK if you say so, sounds gibberish.
That’s his conclusion after decades of studying the Koran.
Kerry only repeated what GWB meant to say during his State of the Union speech in 2002 only a few months after the twin towers came down.
And everybody and his dog rose in wholehearted response that night.
There are still many in this country who believe in that brainless statement and Kerry may be one of them.
Obama certainly is.
They had better do something quick about the ragheads already here in the USA getting ready to attack.
The mohammedans should have been expelled from the USA after 9/11, guess a couple of hundred thousand innocent citizens will have to be killed by these degenerate subhuman animals before this problem is solved once and for all.
When are Kerry and his buddies going to stop this nonsense?
I guess maybe not until his head gets cut off.
Just when you thought it was a race between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden for the stupidest statement award, Kerry opens his mouth and steals the show. This man never ceases to disappoint.
Exactly. One group deserves this kind of public defense, and the other does not. And we both know which is which.
Then why did this President give Osama Bin Laden a taxpayer funded muslim funeral ceremony?
Phooey!
You won’t hear anyone saying it publicly, not even conservatives. Everyone’s greatest fear is to be called a bigot apparently, so nobody has the courage to speak the truth. As long as we are in denial about Islam, the horde will continue to infiltrate the US and other western countries and attempt to take over.
Islam should be banned as being incompatible with a free society, all mosques torn down, and Muslims deported. You won’t hear even Mark Steyn saying that.
But then again, someone may justify ISIS savagery by stating that it is customary of being muslim.
GO BUSH and the go is blind and stupid on this, too
If Kerry isn’t making pronouncements wearing the hat that CIA operative gave him in Cambodia, I ain’t interested.
Skerry needs to watch a beheading....No love of Jesus there.
Lunacy. The lousy Brit politicians are mewling the same thing. Absolute lunacy.
I think he said something similar about the people running Killing Fields not being representative of all good communists when he worked for the CIA in Cambodia.
The Nazis weren’t necessarily the face of Germany, but the majority of the German people supported Hitler or at least looked the other way when atrocities were committed. Most Muslims are not radical terrorists, but they either support the radicals or also look the other way.
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