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President
Barack Obama and other US officials are receiving criticism for not attending
Saturday’s ‘Unity March’ in Paris. The rally included more than 40 world
leaders who showed solidarity with 17 victims of multiple attacks last week.
Based on RT.com monitored new, Jane
Hartley, the US ambassador to France, was reportedly the highest-ranking US official to
attend the rally. The event occurred four days after an assault on the offices
of Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris left 12 dead.
Despite
the ambassador’s presence, the absence of the Obama administration’s heavy
hitters rankled America’s conservative press.
“The
United States of America, Barack Obama, President, was inexcusably absent from
one of the most critical turning points in the war between radical Islam and
the West since 9/11, “wrote the editorial board of the New York
Daily News.
“No
Obama. No Joe Biden. No John Kerry from State. No Chuck Hagel or Ashton Carter
from Defense. Not even Eric Holder from Justice, who happened to have been in
Paris.”
Attorney
General Holder was in Paris at the time of the rally, but was scheduled to
attend top security meetings during the weekend, according to reports.
US
Sen. Marco Rubio, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination in 2016, said Sunday on ‘CBS This Morning’ that it was a “mistake” for the Obama
administration’s top officials to skip Paris.
"I
understand that when the president travels, he brings with him a security and
communications package which is intense. And I understand you drop that into
the middle of something like this, it could be disruptive,"
Rubio said. "There’s a
plethora of people they could have sent. I think in hindsight I hope that they
would have done it differently."
A
White House official told CNN that security requirements for President Obama
and Vice President Biden "can
be distracting,” while another official told the network that the
US has been involved on "essentially
a minute-by-minute basis" with French officials since the
attack. The White House also announced a counter-terrorism security conference
to be held next month.
President
Obama, meanwhile, visited the French Embassy in Washington on Thursday, according
to The Washington Post, signing a book of condolences while there.
"On
behalf of all Americans, I extend our deepest sympathy and solidarity to the
people of France following the terrible terrorist attack in Paris,"
Obama wrote. "As allies
across the centuries, we stand united with our French brothers to ensure that
justice is done and our way of life is defended. We go forward together knowing
that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for – ideals that light
the world. Vive la France!"
In
a column for FoxNews.com, Democratic strategist Doug Schoen summed up some of
the more biting invective aimed at the Obama administration, saying the
president "morally
abdicated his place as the leader of the free world." Not
attending the rally, Schoen wrote, "sent
a clear message to the world: Obama just doesn't care."
Obama
"is the only Western leader
who has refused to call this attack Islamic terrorism, even though President
Hollande has declared that France is it at war with radical Islam,”
he added.
US
Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed criticism of the absence of a top US
official on Saturday.
"I
really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit in the sense that our
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was there and marched, our
ambassador [to France Jane Hartley] was there and marched, many people from the
embassy were there and marched,” Kerry said Monday, according
to Fox News. Nuland attended a march in Washington, Fox noted.
Kerry
attended high-level meetings in India over the weekend.
"I
would have personally, very much wanted to have been there, but couldn't do so
because of the commitment that I had here and it is important to keep these
kinds of commitments," he said, according to
the Daily News, adding that the US-France alliance "is not about one day or one particular moment."
Kerry
did announce, though, that he would be in Paris later this week.
"That
is why I am going there on the way home and to make it crystal clear how
passionately we feel about the events that have taken place there. I don't
think he people of France have any doubt about America's understanding about
what happened, about our personal sense of loss and our deep commitment to the
people of France in this moment of trial."
French
President Francois Hollande led Saturday’s Unity March, linking arms with top
world leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, British Prime Minister
David Cameron, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
French
media estimated that up to three million attended solidarity marches in Paris
over the weekend. The march led by Hollande started at Place de la Republique
and headed towards Place de la Nation, approximately three kilometers away.
“Speaking
to some of the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who have descended on
Place de la Nation here in central Paris today, really two almost distinct sets
of sentiments and messages are being expressed,”
RT’s Harry Fear reported from Paris.
“On
the one hand, people want to very positively assert France’s motto and the
principles of free speech and free press – a very positive almost celebration
of these values and this coming out today for that – and also, on the other hand,
a more somber expression of the tragedy of this week and a mood of
commemoration among others particularly touched by this week’s, obviously
shocking, devastation.”
Twelve
people, including four notable cartoonists, were killed in the first attack on
Wednesday by suspected gunmen Cherif and Said Kouachi. The attacks have since
come to symbolize a non-violent fight for freedom of expression across France
and the world.
On
Thursday, a policewoman was gunned down in the French capital by a man named Amedy
Coulibaly. The man later took hostages in a kosher store in northeast Paris,
killing four people on January 9.
The Kouachi brothers and
Coulibaly were killed by French police in two separate operations on Friday.
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