John Kerry Is Getting Relentlessly Mocked For Saying Syria Strikes Will Be 'Unbelievably Small'

[FarCenter]

Making the case for intervention in Syria to a war-weary American public, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the strike will be "unbelievably small" — a comment that has already earned him relentless mocking in its immediate aftermath.
"We’re not going to war. We will not have people at risk in that way," Kerry said during a press conference in London with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, according to a transcript released by the State Department.

"We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war.

"That is exactly what we’re talking about doing – unbelievably small, limited kind of effort."

Kerry's comments are a microcosm of the poor job the Obama administration has done trying to explain the rationale for intervention. On one hand, they realize they are dealing with a "war-weary" public skeptical of engaging in another Middle East conflict.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/john-kerry-syria-unbelievably-small-intervention-war-assad-2013-9

[MannyGoldstein]

1. This is becoming the Monty Python skit from Hell. nt

[monmouth3]

5. It really is...n/t

[KG]

12. just a wafer-thin mint.

[JBoy]

13. It will be a "wafer thin mint" of an attack.

[warrant46]

21. "Unbelievably Small Response"----It's a very bad use of the language

"Unbelievably Small Response" Its like saying the Hiroshima bomb was so much more miniscule than the Castle Bravo test

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

When Bravo was detonated, it formed a fireball almost four and a half miles (roughly 7 km) across within a second. This fireball was visible on Kwajalein atoll over 250 miles (400 km) away. The explosion left a crater 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in diameter and 250 feet (76 m) in depth.

In terms of TNT tonnage equivalence, Castle Bravo was about 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[cali]

2. Baghdad Johnny is an embarrassment

He's a parody of himself.

He's an arrogant lying asshole.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. John Kerry is like a deer in the headlights, he has no idea how people see him after Iraq and he

actually thinks he is a respected and trusted person.

[malaise]

4. Kerry is a disaster

seriously

[ProSense]

6. Kerry is being "mocked" because people oppose the administration's position.

That is all. Anything Kerry or Obama says is subject to being mocked because people don't approve of the administration's position.

Kerry said: "unbelievably small, limited kind of effort."

He obviously was refering to the scale of the operation, but that isn't going to stop people from twisting his words.

[cthulu2016]

9. I "twisted his words" to mean "unbelievably small, limited kind of effort."

There's no twisting involved.

It it laughable on its face. No embellishment needed.

[cali]

14. He's being mocked because of the ludicrous rhetoric he's employing

[n2doc]

16. +1 n/t

[ProSense]

22. No, he's being mocked by opportunistic people.

I don't agree that referencing past events related to World Wars in relation to a chemical attack is inappropriate. It's more appropriate in relation to gassing people, than it is to the NSA debate.

Alan Grayson: IT'S NOT OKAY WITH ME - "We are not North Koreans. & We don’t live in Nazi Germany."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023028119

[VanillaRhapsody]

7. and what if Kerry is describing are

Agent Defeat Weapons?

[leftstreet]

8. It's Kerry who needs an intervention

[JustAnotherGen]

10. I'm thinking

They just want Assad to hand over the weapons and now that Putin is onboard with that - it doesn't get more unbelievably small and limited than that.

At the end of the day - they can't have those chemical weapons anymore.

Then they can go back to Civil Warring all they want as long as they keep it to themselves.

[LibAsHell]

11. Who the fuck are we to hold anyone accountable?

It's so arrogant it drives me absolutely insane.

Did anyone hold us accountable for Iraq, especially when we used white phosphorous in Fallujah?

How about any of the other military conflicts we started?

John Kerry is dead to me.

[jsr]

15. He needs to think before he talks.

[cali]

17. He needs to shut the fuck up. Even better would be his resignation.

[ProSense]

20. Utterly silly. n/t

[pinboy3niner]

18. It most indubitably will be itsy-bitsy, teenie weenie

People will hardly even notice that the casualties...

will be not only merely dead
They will be really, most sincerely dead!

[bhikkhu]

19. Perhaps he has seen the plans

and is describing them truthfully?

[LittleBlue]

23. Kerry is incompetent

When he can't just sit in the senate and cast votes, when he's forced into a leadership role (Syria, presidential elections), he looks like a man who made it a looong way on his family's name.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Is he planning on putting a cherry-bomb in Assad's mailbox?