{"id":43632,"date":"2015-05-05T20:24:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T03:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43632"},"modified":"2015-05-05T20:24:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T03:24:25","slug":"great-news-secretary-kerry-admits-it-was-a-war-on-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/05\/05\/great-news-secretary-kerry-admits-it-was-a-war-on-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Great News! Secretary Kerry admits it was a war on terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hassina Leelarathna Los Angeles, CA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

May 3, 2015 \u2014\u00a0Speaking at a meeting in Colombo earlier today, Secretary John Kerry clearly reversed his earlier stance on the Sri Lankan conflict, referring to it not as a 30-year war on the Tamils\u201d but as a necessary\u201d war on a ruthless terrorist group.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Mr. Kerry told an audience at the Taj Samudra Hotel in Colombo.<\/p>\n

Let me be very clear about this: It is sometimes necessary to go to war, despite the pain it brings. For all of my country\u2019s disagreements with the previous government in Sri Lanka over how it fought the LTTE, we clearly understood the necessity of ridding this country of a murderous terrorist group and the fear that it sowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a major departure from his February 12 remarks and exactly what this petition has urged. Had we not pushed back, I\u2019m convinced that the distorted version would have eventually become an indelible part of the Sri Lankan narrative.<\/p>\n

Setting the record straight is also in Washington own interests, as I pointed out in an email to Mr. Ryan Essman of the Sri Lanka Desk:<\/p>\n

A retraction would undoubtedly put many minds at ease over Washington\u2019s Sri Lanka policy, vis-\u00e0-vis the growing perception that the US is intent on regime change\u201d with the ultimate goal of establishing a two-nation state. Such a clarification would be timely in view of Secretary Kerry\u2019s impending visit to Sri Lanka where he is expected to meet with leaders of the Tamil National Alliance, a political party with a track record of being an LTTE proxy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This petition was aimed not at influencing policy but at eliciting an acknowledgment of the undeniable culpability of the LTTE in the 30-year war.<\/p>\n

You helped make it happen.
\nThanks for all your support and encouragement.<\/p>\n

Hassina
\nhassinal@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hassina Leelarathna Los Angeles, CA May 3, 2015 \u2014\u00a0Speaking at a meeting in Colombo earlier today, Secretary John Kerry clearly reversed his earlier stance on the Sri Lankan conflict, referring to it not as a 30-year war on the Tamils\u201d but as a necessary\u201d war on a ruthless terrorist group. Here\u2019s what Mr. Kerry told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}