False Choice Between Military Action and Moral Complacency

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The Nation ‏@thenation 45m
The False Choice Between Military Action and Moral Complacency http://tnat.in/oMgZ4 (Christopher Hayes)


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.


watch: http://www.thenation.com/blog/176122/false-choice-between-military-action-and-moral-complacency

[nashville_brook]

1. chris hayes also had the most informative comments directly after the speech

he observed...there's only 2 lawful ways to attack syria: as direct self-defense (if they had attacked us), or as part of a UN security council coalition with consent.

There's *legal* means for this. Use the legal pathway. What's so difficult about that?

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2. I remember when we used to say

. . . Bush was making the laws up as he went along.

[nashville_brook]

6. me too. sad. very sad.

[DirkGently]

3. Bingo.

We're talking out of both sides of our mouths again.

We say we're upholding international norms, but the same norms say a U.S. strike is illegal.

Which side of the law are we on -- both?

Neither?

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7. that's why they used the term 'norms' instead of 'laws'

. . .to cover for whatever international law they might trample on their way to bomb Syria.

[DirkGently]

8. Yes. Lots of silly wordplay in defense of double standards.

"It's not a violation of international law when WE do it."

Exactly the kind of entitled, credibility annihilating bullshit I thought we'd shown the door in 2008.

[MNBrewer]

4. We've seen that false choice presented daily here since the President announced his intention to

strike militarily.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Excellent. Internationalism vs Isolationism. Diplomacy vs war.

This is not a U.S. vs the world problem or U.S. vs Syria problem. This can of worms opens only from the inside and what needs to happen is a regional solution made by the antagonists in the region. The UN should facilitate it and the big powers should only help the UN facilitate it.