Secretary Kerry and the Obama Administration’s Refusal to Stop Genocide

It is disastrous, calamitous, and shocking.

Thousands of Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities have been persecuted, killed and terrorized by the Islamic State (ISIS). Hundreds of young girls continue to be kidnapped, raped and sold as sex slaves. Thousands of other individuals have watched silently as their loved ones have been systemically slaughtered because of their faith.  At the same time, Americans vainly hope for resolute leadership from the Obama Administration.

Rather than offer a forceful response to a spate of terror in Syria, Iraq, Orlando, Nice, and Paris, Attorney General Lynch suggested that the “most effective” response is expressions of peace and love. It appears that members of the Obama Administration live in the world of make believe, wherein they are prepared to offer jobs, economic opportunity, and love as the solution to ISIS jihadists who have sworn an oath of hatred and world domination.

Inaction and indecisiveness are reinforced by deflection. This pattern continues to afflict members of the Obama Administration. This week, Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in Dhaka, Bangladesh, feebly proposed: “Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover [terror attacks] quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on.”

That is the most ghastly pronouncement of willful blindness that I’ve ever heard.

Reality is quite different. Rather than doing “us all a service” by not covering terror and genocide, the media, in reality, would be performing a service for the Obama Administration by deflecting attention from its own inaction in fighting the scourge of terror.

Inaction persists.

It has been more than 5 months since Secretary Kerry declared that atrocities being carried out by ISIS against Christian, Yazidis and other minorities constitutes “genocide.” Responding to pressure from the legislative branch and from the ACLJ and others, Secretary Kerry has stated that the perpetrators must be held accountable. He has also stated that naming these crimes is important but what is essential is to stop them.

So the question becomes, what action, if any, has the Obama Administration taken to stop genocide? Has the Obama Administration sought support for immediate and decisive action from the United Nations or, alternatively has the Administration unleashed the United States’ military to launch an unremitting campaign to destroy the world’s leading terror group?

Instead of naming the genocidal enemy as radical Islamic terror and instead of eradicating the Islamic State, it appears that the Obama Administration is currently more focused on (1) hiding the details of apparent ransom payments to the number one state sponsor of terror, Iran, (2) scrubbing the evidence of its deletion of a State Department video indicating that secret bilateral negotiations with Iran had commenced much earlier than the Administration claimed, and (3) pushing back at suggestions that it agreed to a secret deal with Iran that enabled the Islamic Republic of Iran to dodge restrictions included as part of last year’s nuclear deal.

Taken together, a clear pattern of hiding evidence emerges:  Just like the Obama Administration sought to keep the American people in the dark about its bilateral negotiations with Iran, it appears that Secretary Kerry and the Obama Administration prefer to hide their failure to take decisive action to stop genocide.

While Secretary Kerry wants the news media to keep silent about the genocidal slaughter caused by ISIS terrorists because that would make the Administration’s job easier and because silence would allow the Administration’s continuing failure to either name the enemy and or take action to end genocide to escape scrutiny, this week the ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit in order to establish what, if anything, the Obama Administration is doing in response to the genocide being waged by ISIS.

In July, the ACLJ sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request to the State Department asking for records that would indicate what if any action the Obama Administration is taking to stop, to respond to, or to provide relief to the victims of the genocide in Syria and Iraq. Regrettably, the State Department has ignored our request.

As a consequence, the ACLJ has gone to court to seek information that would show what the Obama Administration has done to confront ISIS, bring the perpetrators to justice, and protect Christians and other victims of the Islamic State’s genocidal campaign.

If the Administration has already taken forceful action to stop genocide, why would it keep such information secret? On the other hand, if it has done nothing, this means thousands of other Christians and members of other religious minorities remain in the cross-hairs of ISIS terrorists.

Just as the ACLJ has filed a lawsuit against the State Department to uncover information relating to the State Department’s decision to delete questions by Fox News reporter James Rosen regarding the Administration’s commencement of secret negotiations with Iran, the ACLJ will forcefully pursue its new lawsuit and demand that the Obama Administration answer questions regarding its failure to stop genocide. The ACLJ Government Accountability Office will continue to lead this effort.

Secretary Kerry is dangerously wrong. We don’t need less attention on the terrorist threats we face; we need more attention and more action to stop this historic evil.

The time for timidity and indecisiveness is over. The time for action is now.