WHY DID SEC. KERRY LIE?

When he was in the Senate, John Kerry was on the Foreign Relations Committee so I think it's safe to assume he knows the truth so what was the point of this lie?

The truth about criminal jurisdiction over US troops in Afghanistan
by Chris Jenks
October 19, 2013 6:00AM ET
ALJAZEERA AMERICA

Here is what Kerry said:

"We have great respect for Afghan sovereignty. And we will respect it, completely … But where we have forces in any part of the world … in Japan, in Korea, in Europe … wherever our forces are found, they operate under the same standard. We are not singling out Afghanistan for any separate standard. We are defending exactly what the constitutional laws of the United States require."

Returning to the U.S., Kerry repeated his misstatement, claiming that there is "the question of who maintains jurisdiction over those Americans who would be (in Afghanistan after 2014). Needless to say, we are adamant it has to be the United States of America. That’s the way it is everywhere else in the world." This led The Washington Post to award Kerry "three Pinocchios," for statements containing "significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions."

The secretary may, in fact, have doomed the very security agreement he was in Afghanistan to save. His comments are also strategically counterproductive on a larger scale: They perpetuate the myth that the U.S. does not "allow" the courts of another country to prosecute U.S. service members for their criminal actions in that country.

The criminal jurisdiction sections of security agreements between the U.S. and other countries vary. But for a foreign country in which a large number of American service members are stationed, such as Japan, South Korea and Germany, that country has primary jurisdiction over U.S. service members in the vast majority of cases.