“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that” — that is, about cartoons of Muhammad. Kerry doesn’t acknowledge that Obama had already given them that legitimacy, in saying “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
“Kerry in Paris: Charlie Hebdo Attack Had ‘Rationale’ to ‘Aggrieve One Particular Sense of Wrong,’” by Bridget Johnson, PJ Media, November 17, 2015:
Secretary of State John Kerry told employees at the U.S. Embassy in Paris this morning that Friday’s attacks were more senseless than the Charlie Hebdo assault because there was some “rationale” for slaughtering the staff of the magazine that drew Mohammad caricatures.
Kerry began by thanking the French locals who staff the U.S. Embassy. “We could not do our work here without you, and I know it’s particularly difficult right now, but it’s always difficult because you are working, carrying with you whatever baggage comes with the country you work for, and in our case, there’s very little because of our friendship with France,” he said. “But nevertheless, we are deeply appreciative for your commitment to helping us to help people to share the values and the interests that we are all working to protect.”
“In the last days, obviously, that has been particularly put to the test. There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration.”
Kerry continued, “It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, ‘Here we are.’ And for what? What’s the platform? What’s the grievance? That we’re not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it’s indiscriminate. They kill Shia. They kill Yezidis. They kill Christians. They kill Druze. They kill Ismaili. They kill anybody who isn’t them and doesn’t pledge to be that. And they carry with them the greatest public display of misogyny that I’ve ever seen, not to mention a false claim regarding Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism — I mean, you name it.”…