OPINION:
President Obama’s “red line” in Syria has turned into a stream of blood. His Secretary of State, John Kerry, called the horrendous murder of hundreds of people using weapons of mass destruction just a “moral obscenity.”
These wimpy words and unfulfilled promises give the world the impression that America is weak. We are better than that.
On Monday, Mr. Kerry finally made a statement about the horrifying chemical weapons used against Syrians that killed at least 300, likely more. “The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders, by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity.”
Moral obscenity?
That is the strongest language the diplomat’s speechwriters could come up with to describe this horror?
Here are some terms that Mr. Kerry could have used to better describe the situation in Syria: Crime against humanity, mass murder or killing with weapons of mass destruction.
SEE ALSO: Attack on Syria likely to trigger terrorists acts against U.S., Israel
Those terms would show the world that America is not afraid to tell the truth and stand up for justice.
More broadly, the secretary of state’s sudden moral outrage is too little, too late for all those dead and displaced from this bloody civil war.
“Kerry’s absolute moral outrage is oddly timed. The idea that people killed by their government last year or the year before wasn’t morally equivalent to the chemical attack last week is perplexing,” Richard Grenell, who was spokesman at the United Nations for all eight years of the Bush administration told me in an interview Tueday.
“One hundred thousand people have been killed. One million refugees have been created. But the 1,300 people killed by chemical weapons is morally unacceptable?”
Mr. Genell added that, “I guess if you don’t have 16 U.N. resolutions on Syria to point to, you go to the State Department press corps and give a speech in the press room, and then walk out without taking questions in a moral outrage.”
Mr. Obama waited too long to stand up to the President Assad.
SEE ALSO: Syria to Secretary of State John Kerry: You’re lying
The red line — chemical warfare — has now been used at least twice on innocent people, blowing a huge hole in the laws of civilized society.
The grieving families all over Syria view what has happened is a whole lot worse than a “moral obscenity.”
We can only hope that it will not be too late for America to regain the respect of the global community after this president leaves office.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.