Some were surprised on Wednesday when John Kerry answered the first Code Pink outburst with an explanation of why the group should support the airstrikes against ISIS. Even more surprising was that compared to other hearings the radical group was relatively quiet during the Secretary of State's testimony compared to other testimony. The reason for for the calm is Kerry and Code Pink go way back.
In December of 2009 the crazies from Code Pink led an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Gaza Freedom March, they did so with an official endorsement of their efforts by the former Democratic Party Presidential Candidate.
Then the Senior Senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry provided a letter on Senate stationery to . The purpose of the letter was to help code pink and friends cross the border from Egypt to Gaza so they could participate in the pro-terrorist march. It said that his staff met with the Massachusetts delegation before they left, and his staff would be briefed about the trip upon their return.
Code Pink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin used Kerry’s letter at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt to pressure the Egyptian government to allow 1300 leftists passage into Gaza from Egypt. The leftists gathered in Cairo from around the world to mark the one-year anniversary of Israel’s defense against Hamas’ rocket and mortar attacks.
Images of the letters from Kerry and Carson were posted by the publisher of The Electronic Intifada, and by Ali Abunimah on his blog at at the time, Posterous.com.
Abunimah wrote that he, Benjamin and Kit Kettridge met for over an hour with “three officials, including Gina Cabrera, head of US citizen services, and Gregory D. LoGerfo, First Secretary in the Office of Economic and Political Affairs. The third official, whose name I did not note, identified himself as a ‘regional security’ official.”
Benjamin and Kettridge also met with “the embassy’s Deputy Director Matthew Tuellar, in command while Ambassador Scobey was on leave,” according to Abunimah.
(Margaret Scobey was a career Foreign Service officer who was appointed ambassador to Egypt by President George W. Bush in 2008.)
The text of Kerry’s letter was as follows
December 23, 2009Not once does Kerry mention terrorism in his letter. Clearly the Senator didn't understand the threat of terrorism then, nor he understand it now.
To Whom it May Concern:
I am writing to express my strong support for members of the humanitarian delegation from Massachusetts that will be traveling to Israel and the Palestinian Territories from December 27th to January 15th. The humanitarian delegation from Massachusetts is sponsoring this visit and they plan to meet with non-governmental organizations, assess the health care system and observe human rights and trade union conditions among Israelis and Palestinians.
I respectfully request that every courtesy be given the members of the delegation during their visit. My staff has met with members of the group and is impressed with their ability, dedication and commitment to the peace process. We look forward to seeing them again upon their return and hearing about their visit.
For any questions or concerns please feel to contact Christopher Wyman in my Boston office at 617 565-8522
Thank you for cooperation in this very important matter.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry
Part of the problem is that Kerry tends to look at terrorism as a crime rather than an act of war. In a 2004 appearance on Fox news, Kerry spoke about his book The New War: He said, "In that book, I wrote about how we needed to strengthen our ability to be able to fight international criminal crime, including terror." In another selection of the book, which he did not cite on Fox, the senator claimed, "The damage done by international crime is rarely as specific and dramatic as that of a terrorist attack, but in fact it is greater." Thus when he said in his book that Yassir Arafat was a role model for other terrorists, (because he has made a transformation from outlaw to statesman) it was in the context of jurisprudence, prisoners being able to be rehabilitated.
Kerry's vision of terror as a crime may partially account for his reluctance to call the ISIS operation a war.
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