On the 13th anniversary of the september 11 attacks, president obama authorizes airstrikes in syria and more attacks in iraq and abroad escalation of a campaign against Islamic State forces. We will speak with former u. S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith and professor Vijay Prashad. Then, what would dr. Martin luther king do . Nations will not rise up against nations. Neither shall they study war anymore. And i dont know about you, i aint going to study war no more. We will speak with tavis smiley, author of the new book, death of a king the real story of dr. Martin luther king jr. s final year. More, coming up. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President obama has authorized u. S. Airstrikes for the first time in syria and their expansion in iraq against the militant group Islamic State. In a primetime address, obama vowed to hunt down Islamic State militants wherever they are. We will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are. That means i will not hesitate to take action against isil in syria as well as iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten america, you will find no safe haven. I want the American People to understand how this ever will be different from the wars in iraq and afghanistan. It will not involve american combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This Counterterrorism Campaign will be waged through a steady, rely less effort to take out isil wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partners forces on the ground. s plan includes over 500 million to arm and train syrian rebels. One group that has cast doubt on aiding the certain opposition is the family of steven sotloff, the american journalist whose videotaped beheading helped mobilize calls for u. S. Strikes. Speaking to cnn, family spokesperson said sotloff was sold off to isil by other syrian rebels. Sayor the first time we can steven was sold at the border. His name was on a list here been responsible for the bombing of a hospital. This was false. He was sold at the border . We believe the socalled moderate rebels that people or our administration wants us to support, one of them sold him between 25,000 to 50,000 to isis, and that is the reason he was captured. To coincide with obamas speech, the white house announced saudi arabia will host a Training Program for the to,ate Syrian Opposition isil. Saudi arabia is one of the largest sources of funding for jihadist groups. We will have more on president obamas reach and his plan to attack Islamic State forces after headlines. Dozens of people have been arrested in ferguson, missouri in a protest over the Police Shooting of michael brown. A crowd of over 100 gathered wednesday to block a state highway in a call for the replacement of st. Louis county attorney Robert Mcculloch in favor of a special prosecutor. [indiscernible] the demonstrators were blocked from entering the highway by a larger number of police in riot gear, who arrested about 35 people for failure to disperse. A handful of demonstrators threw objects at police. Organizers said a plan to stage more blockades until the officer who killed brown, darren wilson, is indicted. New figures show the ozone layer is restoring after years of depletion. The United Nations has stratospheric ozone is on pace to fully recover by the middle of the century. The United NationsEnvironment Programme credited the banning of certain chemicals from aerosol and refrigerants under the 1987 montreal protocol. The world avoided a major problem by getting rid of ozone to putting substances by the montreal protocol. Without this protocol, and all the actions we have taken across the globe, we would be seeing of your substantial global ozone depletion today. Weve seen evidence of a decline in ozone substances in the past decade and now starting to see increasing encouraging signs from ozone measurements that the ozone later is on track to recovery by the middle of this century. Without the montreal protocol, the uns has 2 million of your cases of skin cancer would have occurred each year by 2030. But this rare bit of environment all news has also come at a cost. Many comedies have replaced ozonedepleting chemicals with hydrofluorocarbons, hfcs, which worsen global warming. Were at a critical point where hfcs richard used in order to introduce the ozone depletion. What we did not anticipate at the time or what was not for seen is that if the huge dust use of hfcs come increasing at you begin tod extrapolate that, by the year 2050, you could have a major negative issue and challenge in terms of global warming. Bethe u. N. Says hfcs can phased out if new action is taken, top water action to tackle global warming. The World Meteorological organization said the official death toll from the Ebola Outbreak in west africa has topped 2300 with warnings of the significant jump in the coming days. A library and minister is warning the virus is devouring everything in its path. The coordinator in liberia said the numbers dont capture the actual toll. I cant say enough about just how grave this is, just how deep the needs are and just how great the challenge is going to be. The ebola numbers that we have 2000ially today are over suspected probable or confirmed cases and over 1200 deaths due to ebola in liberia. As the World Health Organization has warned us, these are not the true numbers. They dont capture the true toll of ebola. In the next few days, we should expect to be working with significantly higher numbers. The pentagon is building a 25 bed Field Hospital in liberia but it will only treat foreign healthcare care workers affected by the virus. A fourth ebola patient arrived in the u. S. This week to receive treatment at Emory University hospital in atlanta. These are the military says it has opened, no probes of two of its most publicized killings of Palestinian Civilians are in the summers assault on gaza. Investigators will examine the killing of four palestinian children on a gaza beach in a later attack that killed 14 people in a u. N. School, one of several that hit you in shelters. Over 2100 palestinians, more than 75 civilians, were killed in the israeli assault. Critics say israel is seeking to deflect international scrutiny, including the United NationsHuman Rights Council probe of potential cases before the International Criminal court. The news comes as these really government has quietly acknowledged hamas leaders had no role in the abduction of three straight teens that led to a massive raid in the west bank and the ensuing gaza assault. According to New York Times, dockets released by Israeli Police provide no evidence that the top leaders of hamas directed or had prior knowledge of the plot took. The three israeli use. These really newspaper haaretz reports Israeli Intelligence has concluded the objection was carried out by an independent cell. Hasreally Police Officer been charged with the beating of a palestinianamerican teenager that was caught on tape. Tariq abu khdeir was watching demonstrations in East Jerusalem when he was seized. The video shows him lying on the ground as the officers repeatedly beaten with batons. He was left with facial bruises and severely swollen eyes and lips. He was a cousin of mohammed abu khdeir, the Palestinian Team burned alive in a revenge attack for the killings of these really the israelis and the west bank. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of a palestinian man shot dead by Israeli Forces in an overnight raid. More2yearold is one of than two dozen palestinians killed by Israeli Forces in the west bank over the past two months. Bahrain continues to face calls to release more than a dozen dissidents and human rights activist jailed for criticizing the u. S. Backed monarchy. A human rights activist has been jailed for over a week after trying to enter the country. She says Customs Officials told her she no longer holds citizenship. She is been try to visit her ailing father, abdulhadi alkhawaja, who remains on a Hunger Strike behind bars. Hundreds of people have taken part in rallies inside bahrain since her detention. In a statement, Human Rights Watch said bahrain is a key u. S. Government ally, hosting the navys fifth fleet. A Law Enforcement official says the nfl was sent the video of ray rice knocking out his fianee in a casino elevator. The tapes released this week led to his indefinite suspension. Details of the case have been known for two months, but the nfl said the new tape forced it to act. Speaking to the associated press, an anonymous official said an nfl executive was sent a copy of the tape in april. The source could not confirm if anyone at the nfl watched the tape, but could confirm the league acknowledged its delivery. The office of nfl commissioner Roger Goodell has said other he nor any other official obtained or saw the video before this week. Abc news also reports rices team, the baltimore ravens, was made aware. Prices made aware that his lawyer had a video copy but no one followed up. Conductueller will conduc an independent investigation. Nfl players have an involved and 56 to mr. Violence cases under goodells tenure. Of the 56, the players have been suspended a combined 13 games. Convictedexecuted a double murderer by lethal injection. The eighth by the state this year. The killing of Willie Trottie came shortly by after the Supreme Court rejected his lastminute appeals. Attorneys had argued texas was using expired drugs to end his life and that he is received an adequate counsel at his original trial. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. In a prime time televised address last night, president barack obama announced he it authorized u. S. Airstrikes for the first time in syria and our expansion in iraq against the Islamic State. He vowed to hunt down militants from the Islamic State wherever they are. Obama also announced he is sending 475 more u. S. Military troops to iraq, bringing the total to 1600. He also called for congressional support to arm and train the Syrian Opposition. Obamas speech came on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. So tonight with the new Iraqi Government in place and consultations with our was abroad and congress at home, i can announce that america will lead a Broad Coalition to roll back this terrorist threat. Our objective is clear. We will degrade and ultimately destroy isil through a comprehensive and sustained cut her terrorism strategy. First, we will conduct a Systematic Campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi Government am a we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and he miniature emissions so that were hitting isil targets as a iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, i made it clear that we will hunt down terrorist who threaten our country wherever they are. That means i will not hesitate to take action against isil in syria as well as iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten america, you will find no safe haven. Second, we will increase our support to forces fighting these terrorists on the ground. In june i deployed several hundred a mac and Service Members to iraq to assess how we can best support Iraqi Security forces. Now that those teams have completed their work and iraq has formed a government, we will send an additional 475 Service Members to iraq. As ive said before, these American Forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged into another ground war in iraq. But they are needed to support iraqi and Kurdish Forces with training, intelligence, and equipment. We will also support iraqs efforts to stand up National Guard units doubt sunni communities secure their own freedom from isils control. Across the border in syria, we ramped up military assistance to the Syrian Opposition. Tonight i call on congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. The fight against isil, we cannot rely on the aside regime that terrorizes its own people in a regime that will never regain legitimacy. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition in the best counterweight against extremist like i saw isil. Draw, we will continue to on a substantial counterterrorism bs to prevent isil attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding and prove our intelligence, strengthen our defenses, counter its warped ideology, and stem the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the middle east. And in two weeks, i will chair a meeting at the Un Security Council to further mobilize the International Community around this effort. Fourth, we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization. This includes sunni and shia muslims who are at grave risk as well as tens of thousands of christians and other religious minorities. We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands. This is our strategy. And in each of these four parts of our strategy, and at will be joined a Broad Coalition of partners. To talk more about president obamas speech, were joined by two guests, Peter Galbraiths former he is invested or to croatia, has worked on issues involving iraq since 1980s and is a former advisor to the Kurdistan Regional government. He testified before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs committee on wednesday. Currently a senior diplomatic fellow at the center for arms control and nonproliferation. His books include, the end of iraq how american incompetence created a war without end. He joins us from washington, d. C. In massachusetts, were joined by Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College and author of several books, including arab spring, Libyan Winter and must recently, the poorer nations a possible history of the global south. Is also ahad columnist for frontline where hes been writing extensively about the Islamic State. His latest piece is headlined, what president obama should not do about isis. Lets begin with you, ambassador. Your response to president obamas speech last night . He outlined a strategy, and i think the strategy has a good prospect of a coalition the goal of degrading isis. But i dont think it is capable of destroying isis. So lets look at the parts of it. Effective when our forces on the ground. And that really is the dilemma. Inside iraq and syria, there are three main forces that you could be supporting. Their secret a stand peshmerga which suffered setbacks in august, but the units have been able to retake territory but theyre not going to go significantly beyond kurdistan. More or less, the every taken that territory. The rest of iraq, there is the iraqi army, which has largely disappeared since the beginning of the year. We spent billions rolling it up and the end result was the weapons we provided ended up in hands. The president is talking about supporting local forces. It could be effective in theory and the sunni areas, but it is going to be hard to get them set up given that isis is there. And also that they would have to work with the government that sunnis absolutely dont trust. In syria, the problem with supporting the Syrian Opposition is that we dont really have a good feel for who all these people are. They really have no prospect of defeating assad. We dont know if we can rely on them to fight isis. The Kurdish Military have been fighting isis for well more than a year. , i want to askd her reaction to the president s speech and his new policy and also this whole idea of asking congress to finance the reach raining once again, the creation of a new iraqi army after the last one the United States spent billions on training has basically disintegrated. Well, i found the speech interesting becau