“Senator” John Kerry Wouldn’t Have Invited His Younger Self to Testify at the Senate

John Kerry has not invited anti-war veterans group, IVAW, to testify in his hearings on Afghanistan.

By Jeremy Scahill

It was 38 years ago today that John Kerry sat before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and exposed, in graphic details, war crimes committed by the US in Vietnam, famously saying, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

If he were that same soldier today, he wouldn’t be invited to speak before that same committee, which, ironically, Kerry now chairs. Tomorrow, Kerry is holding hearings on Afghanistan featuring veterans. But he is not calling any anti-war vets to testify from Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group which despite its name also includes many Afghan war vets.

According to the Boston Globe:

Kerry himself, now an elder statesman and key ally of the president, has resisted drawing parallels with Vietnam.

“In Vietnam, there was no threat to the United States in any direct form whatsoever,” Kerry said in a recent telephone interview. “The consequence of not being in Vietnam was in no way to increase the danger to America. The exact opposite is true in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda. The threat is very real.”

Still, the witness list has frustrated those who believe Afghanistan is on its way to becoming the next Vietnam.

“I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t any outreach made to hear from veterans who are against the war in Afghanistan, given that he played a similar role in Vietnam,” said Perry O’Brien, a medic who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and belongs to Iraq Veterans Against the War.

In addition to four Afghan war veterans, Andrew Bacevich, a critic of US foreign policy who lost a son in Iraq will testify. “The significance of young John Kerry’s testimony at that time was that it seemed to capture something very essential about the Vietnam war,” Bacevich told the Globe. “I do believe that today, there is a fairly urgent need to pose the same essential questions.”

While veteran Rick Reyes has reportedly been critical of the war in Afghanistan (it would be great if he articulates the case against the war tomorrow), Kerry should be urged to include IVAW in this and other hearings.