Those words were just said by Secretary of State John Kerry during his opening statement before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s hearing on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Syria. I guess that depends what his definition of “is” is. To me, firing multiple cruise missiles at another nation is, indeed, war.
And as the members of Code Pink are demonstrating in the screen grab above, we’ll all have blood on our hands too. As my mother always tried to impress upon me, “Two wrongs do not make a right.”
This morning, I spoke about yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, and the “hell has frozen over” scenario that ensued as I realized that I actually agreed with Rand Paul. Even a stopped clock is wrong twice a day, but Kerry is dead wrong here…
I went back to watch the John Kerry of 1971 who testified at the Winter Soldier hearings as a representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, eloquently explaining that our actions were wrong. I urge you to watch his testimony as a reminder of who he used to be.
I find it hard to reconcile the fact that that man, 43 years later, is calling for us to bomb a country that has done nothing to us.
Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel joined me in the second hour of the show to recap yesterday’s hearing and talk more about what we do know.. and what we don’t know.
Tomorrow, we’ll recap today’s hearing – and Congressman Alan Grayson, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs committee will join us to tell us what, if anything, he learned. In the meantime, sign on to his Don’t Attack Syria petition.
Also on the show today, I spoke with Ben Pollara, campaign director of United for Care, the organization that’s working to garner enough signatures to get a Medical Marijuana constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2014. If you’d like to sign the petition, gather signatures, or volunteer for the effort, visit unitedforcare.org.
As I mentioned during the interview, there are two great educational resources for information about medical marijuana. First is Sanjay Gupta’s Weed, that ran on CNN a few weeks ago:
And then, watch Should Grandma Smoke Pot?, produced by Robert Platshorn for The Silver Tour, and narrated by yours truly…
