The False Choice Between Military Action and Moral Complacency

The False Choice Between Military Action and Moral Complacency

The False Choice Between Military Action and Moral Complacency

Obama makes his case for intervention in Syria.

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Last night President Obama gave a speech outlining the administration’s policy towards Syria. Obama not only made the case for intervention, but also, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes notes, “attempted to articulate a vision of America’s role in the world.” The speech came just one day after Russian officials expressed support for a potential diplomatic solution that would require the Assad regime to relinquish all remaining chemical weapons caches, opening the door for an alternative to military action.

Hayes spoke with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Nation editor and publisher, and Joy Reid, managing editor of theGrio.com, about whether a war-weary public would accept Obama’s moral argument and the renewed possibility of a negotiated settlement.

—Jake Scobey-Thal

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

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