Kirby, taking foreign affairs questions at the daily White House briefing, made the politically incorrect faux pas when Today News Africa’s Simon Ateba pressed him on the fact that most African victims of al Qaeda bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were not reimbursed.
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed Saturday in a US drone strike, “killed more than 200 people in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and right now, even though the US compensated US citizens who were victims of those bombings, the people in Kenya and Tanzania received nothing,” Ateba said.
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“What message do you have for them now?” the Cameroonian reporter asked, referring to the fact that $335 million paid by Sudan in 2020 in exchange for removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism went to Americans or locally employed embassy staff, who made up a small share of the 224 dead and more than 4,000 wounded.
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“I’d say the same thing I told Mr. [Peter] Doocy [of Fox News] here, that this is not just a good day for the United States of America. It’s a good day for the world,” Kirby responded at first.
“The families of the victims of those bombings were not compensated by the US. What message do you have?” Ateba pressed.
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“I don’t have any compensation policies here to speak to. Again, Mr. Zawahiri’s death is good for everybody worldwide,” Kirby repeated. “He was a killer. And it’s good that he’s no longer walking the face of the earth. It also means we will have to stay vigilant to this threat.”
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The exchange became a dispute when Ateba asked, “So are you saying that the lives of Kenyans and Tanzanians don’t matter?” “Wow, I got to take issue with that. I did not say that. And I don’t even know where you came from on that one. Of course, all lives matter,” Kirby said.
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“I didn’t say that, sir,” Kirby added shortly. “And I take exception to the tone and the implication in that question. Of course, their lives matter. Every life matters, particularly a life taken so violently as by the hands of a terrorist. If those live didn’t matter, sir, we wouldn’t have taken the action that we took this weekend. And if those lives didn’t matter, sir, we wouldn’t be staying vigilant to the threat going forward, which we will do.”
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The phrase “all lives matter” grew controversial during the Black Lives Matter movement, with activists denouncing politicians of both political parties, including 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Vice President Mike Pence, for using the term.
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