Before and After the Bombing Starts: The Disconnect in 2 Pictures

The two photos aren’t side-by-side in the Getty edit. They are actually four pictures apart. What they represent, however — courtesy of John Kerry, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Code Pink — is a robust picture of the disconnect between before-and-after going to war. Or mini-war. It seems some variation of that Mike Tyson quote — about how everybody has a plan until that first punch in the face — is on a lot of minds these days.

These interventions all makes so much sense, until they don’t.

(photo 1: Jim Watson/AFP. caption: Code Pink protesters holds up their red painted hands as US Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the crisis in Syria on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, September 4, 2013. photo 2: Mark Wilson/Getty Images. caption: U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the topic of ‘The Authorization of Use of Force in Syria’ September 3, 2013 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Barack Obama is attempting to enlist the support of members of the U.S. Congress for military action against the Syrian government for using chemical weapons against its own people last month.)