Mark Toner and John Kirby are very happy men today. Their humiliating performances regarding the question of Syria are now no longer the most embarrassing moments for a State Department Spokesman over the last decade.
Shortly after Mark Toner couldn’t answer whether or not ISIS was “the greater evil” when compared to the secular government of Bashar al-Assad, John Kirby, perhaps one of the most arrogant of all State Department spokesmen, was crushed by a reporter who responded to his calls for evidence with actual evidence. After Kirby was forced to look at pictures that disproved the State Department’s line on “activists” and “on the ground” reporting from the American media based on terrorist Twitter accounts, Kirby was forced to back up and admit that “people will have to decide for themselves what they’re going to find credible and what they’re not going to find credible.”
But while Toner gave up his title to Kirby quickly, it appeared Kirby was going to keep the championship belt of humiliation for eternity. That is, until Stuart Jones, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, appeared on the scene.
During the campaign, his presidency, and even on a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump repeatedly accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and pointed out that Iran is not a democracy. He stated that the Iranian people are oppressed by the Iranian “regime” which he characterized as being one of religious extremism. Trump’s hypocrisy was noted but, of course, not adequately called out in the pages and blog posts of the corporate media.
So when a reported actually dared to ask a real question of Jones, the Assistant Secretary was literally speechless. In fact, Jones was so speechless for so long that he even made Obama without a teleprompter look good. Some viewers even thought the video froze at one point because Jones himself appeared frozen, gazing ahead with an empty stare, a deer in the headlights, his mouth gaping wide open. The question was simple enough. Could Jones “characterize Saudi Arabia’s commitment to democracy and does the administration believe that democracy is a buffer or barrier against extremism?”
As soon as the question was uttered, you could almost see the wheels turning in Jones’ head and hear him thinking to himself, “Oh my God. How do I answer this question without looking foolish? Let me think. No. That will get me fired. No, that’s stupid. This guy’s figured it out. Oh my God. I already look foolish. What do I do? Somebody help!”
The result was perhaps the longest 17 seconds for a State Department official since Hillary Clinton was forced to evade prosecution and obstruct justice by deleting her incriminating emails from her private server. Eventually, however, Jones returned to functioning robot mode, prattled on for a minute about making “significant progress” with GCC partners on “measures” and “mechanisms” that did not answer the question, launched into another attack on Iran, and was so utterly inarticulate that it rivaled a Q&A with the current head of state.
Enjoy the video of yet another State Department fail below:
Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World Depends On The Outcome. Turbeville has published over 1000 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.
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” … does the administration believe that democracy is a buffer or barrier against extremism?”
I hope they do not. It can be disproved easily that democracy is no buffer against extremism. All you need to do is look to fanatical fundamentalist Christians here in America. There’s also that group called the triple K’s, they seem pretty extreme at times. As I’ve been recently schooled too, no more does America have an armed forces, rather we use mercenaries on hire from the banks. That as well bears light as rather extreme.
All democracy in the case of America seems to have been was a tool to create the illusion that people retained power. Well, we see that illusion for what is today, an illusion used to manufacture consent. The Republic of America in unison needs to stand up and wake from its napping, deny further consent until things start being fixed as we need and desire. Hell, the crooks no longer honor our contract. They even say it’s “only paper”.
Funny how that “paper” puts them into cushy office jobs doing nothing and getting paid handsomely for it.
Hmmm
You are absolutely correct Ben in stating that Democracy is no buffer against extremism. Witness the fanatical far right wing militant Jewish Zionists in Israel who quite literally introduced modern day terrorist tactics to the world. Tactics which they now employ daily against Muslims in both Israel and Palestine…..
Hmmm
Obviously bashing Christians on this website is perfectly acceptable. But telling the truth about zionists in israel gets your post deleted. Sadly, it is activistpost.com that has its bigotry, hatred, hypocrisy and duplicity on full display here. My post contained none of those evils. But then it is hardly surprising considering that facts and the self-evident truths derived from them have always been the enemy of zionism. My post essentially does little more than replace “Christians” with “zionists” which begs the question: since you did not delete the initial post, why was its rebuttal deleted? When you stop to consider that “zionism” is nothing more than political ideology, while Christianity is obviously a deep and widely held religious belief structure, the act of censorship in this case grows darker still…..
A wonderful quote by Henry Charles Bukowski perfectly describes what is transpiring here today as well as those responsible for it:
” Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from
others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total
facts of our existence.”
Here is my post they deleted in its entirety:
“You are absolutely correct Ben in stating that Democracy is no buffer against extremism. Witness the fanatical far right wing militant Jewish Zionists in Israel who quite literally introduced modern day terrorist tactics to the world. Tactics which they now employ daily against Muslims in both Israel andPalestine…..”
” … self-evident truths … ”
One of those self evident truths, at least in my case & perception, there are always human beings who are induced or driven to all kinds of desperation, willingness to commit atrocities for benefit of any cause. I used Christians as they were “handy” for myself.
Grew up attending a blend of Baptist & Mennonite churches and Bible study weeks, journeys to help others, help myself. Once I became an adult, I broke faith with Mennonite by serving in the armed forces even though briefly. Mennonites do not fight or engage in “Man’s” conflicts, God settles all in His time and manner. Having broken that vow, I could not be Mennonite.
It was a Mennonite preacher though what told me to continue asking questions, even if no one could answer. I have asked quite a few, or more so. I am a settled Apathetic Agnostic. I do not know if there is or isn’t any god much less the God of Abraham. I do not care to know either. We seem to do fine either way. Yet we still got those fanatics. Shameful we cannot pen them all in an enclosed spaced and let them all do what they will to one another and leave us moderate folk be.
Life is too important and too much a joke at times to bother over some cause one can get a dozen of on any street corner for a dime. If that reads as me “bashing” I do apologize, that was not intended as I cannot “bash” any one group more than another or even less. I could have said anyone that believes in Elvis sandwiches as sacred artifacts of the PB&J god Talos from Borneo 12 in the Degaba star system Alpha. It doesn’t matter who I would have said, it is true of humanity all over the board.
Two pauses later, his minder called him in….
No amount of polished, ‘boyish’ sanitation covers the stench, scope and sheer criminality of TRUMP’s Saudi ‘anti-extremist alliance’ deception. He exponentially re-defines ‘hypocrisy.’ Alongside perfidious albion and Uncle BiBi, is balls deep in the creation of terrorism as ‘proxy’ army, mercenary in the neoconazionist resource wars – mass-murderers hyping ‘arms contracts’ as ’employment opportunities’ to the dystopian homelands. Jones gets the ‘mickey mouse’ award for today.
Iran was a thriving democracy when Churchill and Allen Dulles decided to turn it into a puppet state monarchy so that BP and Exxon could steal Iranian oil. Iran is again a democracy, but this time American and British banks are no longer able to overthrow it as they are used to doing in their own countries.