Moyers & Company: Andrew Bacevich on Taking Action in Syria

[marmar]

http://vimeo.com/73935815


Andrew Bacevich on Taking Action in Syria
September 6, 2013


With the probability of American intervention, Syria is everywhere in the news. Phil Donahue, filling in for Bill Moyers, speaks with historian and Vietnam veteran Andrew Bacevich about America’s role in the world and the possible repercussions of our actions in the Middle East. Given what we know about what’s going on in Syria, is a U.S. response justified? And if we take action, where and when does it stop? Is a military response justified and if we take action, where does it stop?

“If you think back to 1980,” Bacevich tells Donahue, “and just sort of tick off the number of military enterprises that we have been engaged in that part of the world, large and small, you know, Beirut, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia — and on and on, and ask yourself, ‘What have we got done? What have we achieved? Is the region becoming more stable? Is it becoming more Democratic? Are we enhancing America’s standing in the eyes of the people of the Islamic world?’ ‘The answers are, ‘No, no, and no.’ So why, Mr. President, do you think that initiating yet another war in this protracted enterprise is going to produce a different outcome?”

A graduate of West Point and Vietnam veteran, Andrew Bacevich served for 23 years in the military before becoming a professor at Boston University. His new book, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country, asks whether our reliance on a professional military rather than a citizen’s army has lured us into a morass of endless war — a trap that threatens not only our global reputation but democracy itself.


http://billmoyers.com/segment/andrew-bacevich-on-taking-action-in-syria/

[Bigmack]

1. Bacevich is a true hero. nt

[rurallib]

2. incredibly perceptive analysis

Should be mandatory for presidents and SOSs