From Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/20139575642496863.html
If Congress approves military action in Syria, they will fail to represent the people who elected them.
It was September 19, 2002, and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was scheduled to address the Senate Armed Services Committee about why it was necessary to invade a country that never attacked us: Iraq.
I was so concerned about the pending war that I flew to Washington DC from my home in San Francisco. It was the first congressional hearing I had ever witnessed. My heart was pounding as my colleague Diane Wilson and I pulled out banners that read “UN inspectors, not US war”, and proceeded to ask Rumsfeld our own questions: how many innocent Iraqis would die, how many US soldiers, how many of our tax dollars would be poured into this war of choice, and how much money would Halliburton make from the war. We were hauled out of the room by the Capitol police.
Fast forward to September 3, 2013, and I found myself in a hearing with Secretary of State John Kerry telling members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee why it was necessary to invade a country that never attacked us: Syria. By now I’m a pro, having attended countless hearings over the last decade. My CODEPINK colleagues and I came prepared. We took out signs that read “Syria Needs a Ceasefire, Not War” and “No US Attack on Syria”, and we rubbed red paint on our hands to signify that the blood of Syrians would be on the administration’s hands if it went ahead with the attack.
Kerry responded to my intervention by evoking his youth. “You know, the first time I testified before this committee when I was 27 years old, I had feelings very similar to that protester,” he said, referring to when he spoke out against the Vietnam War in 1971 as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. “And I would just say that is exactly why it is so important that we are all here having this debate, talking about these things before the country, and that the Congress itself will act representing the American people.”
But what does it mean to represent the American people? In the case of Iraq, the US public had been whipped up by the government and the media to believe that Saddam Hussein played a key role in the 9/11 attacks. That’s why a clear majority – 60 percent – supported the Iraq invasion. This time, the public is what some call “war-weary” – but I would call “war-wise”. This time, 60 percent of Americans have not bought the government and media hype and are instead opposed to this intervention.
In the congressional vote for the Iraq war, almost all the Republicans lined up to support the war, along with 40 percent of the Democrats. But now that the war is not pushed by a rough-and-tumble Texas Republican but by a more refined, sweet-talking, Nobel Peace Prize-winning Democrat, it’s unclear how the votes will shake out. Many of the traditional anti-war Democrats have become pro-war, and we in CODEPINK find ourselves applauding the stand of Tea Party favourites like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul or small-government Republicans like Michigan Congressman Justin Amash. Amash has been outspoken in his criticism of military action, holding town halls across his district to discuss the issue. He tweeted that 95 percent of those he met with opposed US military action in Syria.
