https://youtube.com/watch?v=FUDPaMbQ2s8
Secretary of State John Kerry reluctantly got on board with the Obama administration’s message that we are at war, in a sense, with the Islamic State. In an interview that aired this morning on CBS’s Face the Nation, Kerry addressed the fact that his rejection of the term to describe the U.S. action against the Islamic State was at odds with subsequent statements from the administration.
“There’s frankly a kind of tortured debate going on about terminology,” Kerry said. “If people need to find a place to land, in terms of what we did in Iraq, originally, this is not a war, this is not combat troops on the ground, it’s not hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not that kind of mobilization.”
“But,” he continued, “in terms of al-Qaeda, which we have used the word ‘war’ with, yeah, we are at war with al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and in the same context, if you want to use it, yes we’re at war with ISIL in that sense. But I think it’s a waste of time to focus on that.”