Page 2 - Evil Action News Today

Ben dominic from the heartland institute. eli lake from "newsweek" and the "daily beast." this idea youve drawn international red line, theres this prohibition on the use of weapons. respond to the argument, i made an argument earlier in the show, i still havent heard anyone convince me. saddam hussein used the weapons twice notably against the kurds and iran/iraq war. there were no punitive missile strikes. it was ghastly, disgusting, horrible, evil action. there were no international sanctions...

Situation with syria. russia has quite famously blocked any u.n. security council action. even the most basic condemning of the human rights, you know, violations of the regime. very basic stuff. theres an anecdote in bakers story in which the firm time that the presidents national security adviser goes to meet with putin, the first thing putin says to him is when are you going to start bombing syria? this was 18 months ago. you can imagine watching this unfold that from putins perspective, this...

Join today. i will seek authorization for the use of force from the american peoples representatives in congress. over the last several days, weve heard from members of congress who want their voices to be heard. i absolutely agree. >> the president said on saturday he would go to congress to decide whether to execute a punitive strike against syria. he immediately stepped into uncharted territory. space where liberal and conservative lawmakers will line up on the same side in the normally div...

Heartland institute. he co-founded "red state" a conservative blog. eli lake, senior national security reporter from "newsweek" and the "daily beast." explain this to me. i found the moment in the hearing today that was most interesting was several senators saying, if you think you have the authority to do this without coming to congress, why are you coming to congress? and if the vote doesnt go your way, isnt this a preposterous bit of theater? >> i think the vote is going to go their way. i th...

Punitively established international norm. >> by in large for the last 90 or 100 years, these weapons have not been used except in the iran/iraq war and by saddam hussein. i happen to be on the senate foreign relations committee staff when that happened. we tried to get the evidence and tried to get the administration at that time to take that action seriously. we failed on that effort. its not that it wasnt noted and it wasnt that there werent voices urging action at that time. >> even in the a...

>> military plan that has been developed by our joint chiefs and that i believe is appropriate is proportional. it is limited. it does not involve boots on the ground. this is not iraq, and this is not afghanistan. >> immediately after that private meeting, house speaker john boehner and democratic leader nancy pelosi were quick to announce their support of war authorization. >> the use of these weapons had to be responded to, and only the united states has the capability and the capacity to sto...

I mean, this is what im trying to get to, the devils advocate argument. the debate right now centers around the idea that taking action is less risky than not taking action. this way of framing the debate is actually extremely problematic and off. in many ways, first of all, this eliminates the possibility that there is another action. it absolves the u.s. from taking another action or another choice because the debate is being framed as action versus inaction. no, there is another course of act...

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Majority of democrats to vote for this resolution? >> i have no idea. were -- chris van hollen and i collaborated on writing this very excruciatingly, narrowly drafted to try to allow the president to have the authority hes seeking and codify what the president, himself, said is limited in terms of this action. it isnt designed to be an all-comprehensive approach to syria or the syrian crisis. its designed to address this tragic event with this remedy on a limited basis. >> congressman gerry con...