Putin says Kerry lies, softens blow by adding “beautifully”
Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Relations Committee passes limited use of force resolution
Relations between the U.S. and Russia continue to spiral downwards over issues of war and peace, as Vladimir called John Kerry a liar:
In remarks that could raise tension further before he hosts President Barack Obama and other G20 leaders on Thursday, Putin also said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lied to Congress about the militant group al Qaeda’s role in the Syrian conflict.
“They lie beautifully, of course. I saw debates in Congress. A congressman asks Mr Kerry: ‘Is al Qaeda there?’ He says: ‘No, I am telling you responsibly that it is not’,” Putin said at a meeting of his human rights council in the Kremlin.
“Al Qaeda units are the main military echelon, and they know this,” he said, referring to the United States. “It was unpleasant and surprising for me – we talk to them, we proceed from the assumption that they are decent people. But he is lying and knows he is lying. It’s sad.”
Putin did not give any more details.
Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution Wednesday to grant President Obama the power to launch a military strike on Syria in response to its government’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
From the Washington Post:
Acting hours after Obama, during a visit to Sweden, said the credibility of Congress and the international community was also at stake, the committee voted 10 to 7, with one member voting “present,” to approve using force against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The resolution now goes to the full Senate. The House is separately considering a similar resolution.
The resolution limits the response to no longer than three months – 60 days, with a 30 day extension if needed – and it forbids the President from using ground troops.
Speaking in Stockholm, Sweden today, Obama said that it wasn’t him, but the world, that set a red line at the use of chemical weapons in Syria, according to NBC News.
Answering a question about his statement last year that Syrian use of chemical weapons would be a “red line,” Obama said the response was not about him.
“I didn’t set a red line — the world set a red line,” Obama said. “The international community’s credibility is on the line, and America and Congress’ credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.”
As Professor Jacobson posted earlier today in Two Red Lines (with contrasting videos), there is an international red line, but Obama also set a red line.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile remained critical of the US and warned against taking military action against Syria, but seemed to leave open the possibility of supporting a UN resolution if adequately convinced of the allegations against the Syrian government.
From the Associated Press (via NPR):
President Vladimir Putin warned the West against taking one-sided action in Syria but also said Russia “doesn’t exclude” supporting a U.N. resolution on punitive military strikes if it is proved that Damascus used poison gas on its own people.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press and Russia’s state Channel 1 television, Putin said Moscow has provided some components of the S-300 air defense missile system to Syria but has frozen further shipments. He suggested that Russia may sell the potent missile systems elsewhere if Western nations attack Syria without U.N. Security Council backing.
The interview late Tuesday night at Putin’s country residence outside the Russian capital was the only one he granted prior to the summit of G-20 nations in St. Petersburg, which opens Thursday. The summit was supposed to concentrate on the global economy but now looks likely to be dominated by the international crisis over allegations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in the country’s civil war.
Putin maintained his reluctance to believe that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical weapons attack, according to the AP/NPR.
Putin said it was “ludicrous” that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad — a staunch ally of Russia — would use chemical weapons at a time when it was holding sway against the rebels.
“From our viewpoint, it seems absolutely absurd that the armed forces — the regular armed forces, which are on the offensive today and in some areas have encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off — that in these conditions they would start using forbidden chemical weapons while realizing quite well that it could serve as a pretext for applying sanctions against them, including the use of force,” he said.
But the Russian President said he remained hopeful he and Obama would have serious discussions about Syria, as well as other issues, while in St. Petersburg, saying “I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems,” according to the AP/NPR.
Obama indicated that he is hopeful of the same, and said that he will engage Putin in such discussions.
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Comments
The movie’s not over, yet. But, how, exactly does Kerry come out of this?
Does Kerry have a “walk away” position? If bombs don’t drop, he keeps his job? If bombs do drop he keeps his job?
Are we at war, yet?
Oh. And, when it’s “over, over there” … will Assad be signing the paperwork?
Kerry’s ‘walk away’ ? The same one he always uses – complete disregard for the truth, and fabrication.
If that doesn’t work, WTF does he care ? He is John FORBES Kerry (Forbes fortune), married to the Heinz fortune.
Why is it the president of Russia has a better handle on this than our own guys?
I am not supposed to be agreeing with the Russians, really!
I never thought the day would come where I found a Russian dictator more credible than our own Secretary of State.
It is a sad day indeed.
The Russian president is more did le than our own. Pravda is more credible than our LSM though both do the same thing: propaganda.
God bless him, but I just read a tweet from my rep in the house, Kenny Marchant, R -24th Districk, TX, that he is going to vote no.
I just sent him a thank you a few minutes ago.
I urge everyone to contact their representative in the house and encourage them to vote no too.
Go Putin.
Part of me can’t believe I feel this, and another part just longs for someone — I don’t care who — to stick it to these liars. Of course Kerry is lying. Just like Benghazi, six months from now the truth about Syria will trickle in and everything these evil clowns claimed will be proved false, and the media will say nothing, and it will be just another forgotten scandal with a body count.
My guess is that what it comes time to write the history of WWIII, Sec. J. F. Kerry’s name will be right up right behind Barack Hussein Obama as to the cause of that disaster. That history will explain how the miscalculations by the USA led to a direct conflict between the US, Syria, Russia, China, and North Korea, with the Euro’s sitting on the sidelines until Russia placed them all under its kind protections.
The UN’s replacement, the Dominant Powers Council, led by Russia, became the primary world governing force, after the USA surrendered to the demand of Al Qaeda’s Caliphate.
Years later, the USA was broken into 7-different and competing countries, none of which have a military force to speak of.
B. H. Obama’s decision to seek war was later considered to have been poorly thought out and at best a weak adventure to support his tottering ego. Pity!
France, typically, is already retreating.
It’s interesting… years ago, I would have just written Putin off as a loudmouth, former KGB thug (which he still is) but thanks to the utter scum the progressives put into office here in the USA, He’s got more credibility than Kerry. Gee, thanks Democrats!
Pravda outs out more honest reporting about what’s happening in America in one day than all the MSM puts out in one year.
Once again, foreigners doing the jobs that Americans just won’t do.
My response to Putin’s comments are similar to others’ here: Putin is credible while the US sinks in the truth department, most particularly under this administration. More and more I find myself on Vlad’s side. Russia’s not perfect, by any means, but our ships of state seem to be sailing in opposite directions, with Russia increasingly gaining the moral high ground against America’s postmodern decadence and propensity to assign moral equivalence to the most basic of society’s once “ordered” norms.
Why is the Obama administration so anxious to get involved in a no win situation in Syria. Which side is not made up of homicidal maniacs. Does Obama really want to do something that could help al Qaeda poison gas? Why is the Republican leadership in congress willing to provide cover for another Obama radical Muslim loving scheme? When did asylum inmates (or the traitors) outnumber the patriotic Americans in Washington?
Kerry, as he always has been and will be, is irrelevant.
This is Putin tweaking Obama. He knows anything Kerry or Hagel say is carefully vetted ahead of time by the control freaks in the White House (probably Jarrett), their lips move but it is Obama speaking.
And Putin not only has no fear of Obama, he openly scorns and disdains him. For this, we can hardly blame him, for no US President in memory has been more worthy of scorn and disdain.
Of course, in the process of acknowledging his accuracy in assessing President Allaboutme McStompypants, we should not forget that Putin definitely does not have the best interests of the USA or of the free world in mind or at heart.
The bigger picture is that while politicians lie constantly, at least some of them know they are doing so. In this case we have a shared belief in a failed ideology which renders reality irrelevant. Something like this happened before WWII in Europe. The shadow of WWI made facing reality literally impossible for many.
Let’s all just play Risk and no one gets hurt. And, the stock market doesn’t get all wobbly.
While I don’t necessarily believe what Putin says, even more I don’t believe what our “leadership” says. This is a sad state of affairs.
If it were possible to intervene to assist the (relatively) moderate Free Syria forces, while weakening Assad and not assisting the radical Islamist forces, I’d be in favor of it. I don’t see that this is what our administration is proposing, however, or even that it sees the difference among these parties.
Basically, I don’t trust Obama/Hagel/Kerry to do something that is right and sensible.
Obama is attempting to rush the issue of response before everyone figures out who did the actual dirty deed. This is much the same manner they pulled with Global Warming, rushing to judgment and reacting to get the most self aggrandizing PR at the expense of the truth and the public.
al Nursa perpetrated the chemical attack and that is not the PR outcome Obama is willing to accept. The PR works better for Obama if the world believes Assad ordered the attack.
Obama in this issue is attempting to distract people from his foreign policy failures and once again the defiance of a dictator who refused to leave because King Obama told him so. This is also why Obama seems to be on the wrong side of the Egyptian ouster of Morsi. We can’t have our dictates countermanded. That would be bad PR for King Canute.
In the stereotypical words of Obama identifying the wrong perp, “I don’t have all the facts but the world, the GOP and the Russians acted stupidly.”
Kerry lies well. Putin knows it, because he knows who taught Kerry in the first place.
Now for those who question the idea the Rebels possess chemical weapons, I hate to burst your bubble (no not really, I love ripping off the self imposed blind fold of willful blindness):
Video: Syrian Rebels Fire Gas Canister At Hospital With “Allah’s Permission”…
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/04/video-syrian-rebels-fire-gas-canister-at-hospital-with-allahs-permission/
New footage from September 3, 2013 shows militants from the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) using blue canisters/cylinders filled with an unknown gas mounted on top of shells fired on Syrian Army targets in different areas of Aleppo that are still under the control of the Syrian military.
Assad not looking so guilty now. Is he?
So what’s the rationale for defending al Nursa aka the FSA John Kerry? Here they are firing chemical weapons at a hospital… You call this the act of moderates? Either Kerry is smoking some serious Crack or he is a liar who has no respect for the public.
As an ardent anti-communist I never thought I’d take the side of the Russian president. But between this and banning homosexuals from adopting children, this guy’s alright.
They just need to ban heterosexuals from committing elective abortions of their children and Russia will emerge as the new “shining city upon the hill”. A society cannot treat a human life as a commodity and hope to remain viable for very long.
America, unfortunately, is following a path to dysfunctional convergence. There is an effort to normalize dysfunctional behavior on an unprecedented scale. Well, perhaps not unprecedented. There were many societies where men and women progressed to become incapable of self-moderating, responsible behavior, and a quite a few where they simply ran amuck. At least until their society collapsed and was recycled by somewhat saner people.
On Jan. 11, 1991, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts took the Senate floor to make a clear, impassioned speech against passage of a resolution authorizing the first President Bush to use force to eject Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
“Are we supposed to go to war simply because one man – the president – makes a series of unilateral decisions that put us in a box, a box that makes war, to a greater degree, inevitable?” Mr. Kerry asked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/campaign/27journey.html?_r=0
What a sad state of affairs, when Americans find an old KGB agent more believable than our own Secretary of State. But the truth is a hard thing to overlook – unless, of course, you’re a politician…