The New York Times has obtained a recording of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voicing his frustration over the Syrian civil war:
Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly exasperated, not least at his own government. Over and over again, he complained to a small group of Syrian civilians that his diplomacy had not been backed by a serious threat of military force, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.
"I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration who have all argued for use of force, and I lost the argument."
The 40-minute discussion, on the sidelines of last week's United Nations General Assembly in New York, provides a glimpse of Mr. Kerry's frustration with his inability to end the Syrian crisis. He veered between voicing sympathy for the Syrians' frustration with United States policy and trying to justify it. The conversation took place days after a brief cease-fire he had spearheaded crumbled, and as his Russian counterpart rejected outright his new proposal to stop the bombing of Aleppo. Those setbacks were followed by days of crippling Russian and Syrian airstrikes in Aleppo that the World Health Organization said Wednesday had killed 338 people, including 100 children.
At the meeting last week, Mr. Kerry was trying to explain that the United States has no legal justification for attacking Mr. Assad's government, whereas Russia was invited in by the government.
"The problem is the Russians don't care about international law, and we do." [...] "We're trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand it's frustrating. You have nobody more frustrated than we are."
Also at Reuters.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:09AM
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/syria-peace-talks/kerry-audio-shows-frustration-inability-stop-syria-bloodshed-n657791 [nbcnews.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/01/politics/kerry-audio-recording-syria/ [cnn.com]
So... half a conspiracy?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:52AM
>> This is a treasonous level of deceit.
> So... half a conspiracy?
Breaking news *breaks*. The NYT obtained a transcript (they even get cold called with these things); it just hit Reuters; already a couple of originally listed orgs have picked up on it.
Note that this does NOT mean that news org agglomerates are not nigh treasonous. Note the lack of coverage of the prison strikes in the US at present, and portrayal of BLM/Occupy/etc. all the way back to the 60s movements as examples of exclusion and spin, respectively.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:03AM
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
UPI
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/09/30/Audio-tape-shows-Kerry-frustrated-about-Syria-as-Aleppo-nears-collapse/7091475273404/ [upi.com]
VOA (official U.S. propaganda outlet)
http://www.voanews.com/a/nyt-kerry-syria/3532763.html [voanews.com]
Radio Free Europe (official U.S. propaganda outlet)
http://www.rferl.org/a/syria-aleppo-fighting-rages-air-strikes/28025773.html [rferl.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:07AM
Correction, RFE/RL isn't an official propaganda outlet, but it's funded by the U.S. government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @03:16AM
Neither one of them have the stories on the front page, in the US section, or even the politics section. It's great that they actually reported it, but sucks that no one can find it.
"Ex-reporter says Trump called me the c-word" is clearly a front page #1 story still.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @03:17AM
Once again, some idiot thinks his own ignorance of the truth is proof of conspiracy.
Good of him to name his lord and dominator Trump just in case anyone might think he's coming from a place of informed comment.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday October 02 2016, @10:59AM
Still, they didn't report it quite as said. The line:
“The problem is the Russians don’t care about international law, and we do.”
was actually spoken as:
“The problem is the Russians don’t care about international law, and we do (E&OE)."