position as the sexual assault prevention and response branch chief pending the conclusion of the investigation. he served in this position since february 2013. jims wilkerson was convicted last year and reinstated into the air force after spending a year in jail. and captain matthew herrera found guilty by a jury of five air force officers of sexually assaulting lieutenant and then granted clemency. jackie speier of california has repeatedly criticized the military for how it handles sexual assault cases. congress has known about this problem in the military for 25 years. we had lots of hearings, lots of reports, but are we willing to step up and do the right thing by taking it out of the chain of command so that the victims really have the freedom to report these crimes and feel that they are not going to be marginalized and labeled and then dismissed from the military? and on fop of all of this,
problem with this, under fiery centrally for a decision to throw out convictions like that of james wilkerson who was convicted last year and reinstated into the air force after spending a year in jail. and captain matthew herrera found guilty by a jury of five air force officers of sexually assaulting lieutenant and then granted clemency. jackie speier of california has repeatedly criticized the military for how it handles sexual assault cases. congress has known about this problem in the military for 25 years. we had lots of hearings, lots of reports, but are we willing to step up and do the right thing by taking it out of the chain of command so that the victims really have the freedom to report these crimes and feel that they are not going to be marginalized and labeled and then dismissed from the military? and on top of all of this, tomorrow, tomorrow, the pentagon will release the annual report of sexual assaults in the
0 house s conversations as they watch israel undertake these two strikes this weekend, which there had been one previously in january, so this is not exactly completely new, but it does look like an escalation and the syrian response has been escalated. what are those conversations in the white house like? well, just the israeli strikes, in a way they re not about syria as much as they are about lebanon, about hezbollah, the big arm group which sits on the israeli border. syria is the transit point for all the weapons that hezbollah gets from iran. so israel is rightly concerned and they have been concerned for years now as everybody gets ready for that war between israel and lebanon, they re concerned about the kinds of weapons that hezbollah is getting. and so they re just taking care of business. it is basically what they do. they are taking care of business in a way that means air strikes in another country, which, again, if the shoe were on the other foot, if we were setting a
0 officials believe iran has already been doing. but the fact they re now willing to go public is an important sign of the potential for this conflict to continue to spread. in another sign of the conflict s potential to expand, even bizarrely made it its way on to social media today, as syrian hackers supported the government forces reportedly took over the onion s twitter account briefly, resulting in tweets which have been deleted were weird and offensive. here is one example, u.n. retracts report of syrian chemical weapon use, lab tests confirm it is jihadi body odor. as the syrian conflict expands and seems poised to spread across the borders, the internal political pressure on president obama to do something, to get involved, to intervene in some way, is growing in a very, very palpable way. the whole situation is becoming more and more expansive and unfortunately the red line that the president of the united states written was apparently written in disappearing ink. the obama
0 suggestions that the opposition could have or did use chemical weapons. we find it highly likely that any chemical weapon used that has taken place in syria was done by the assad regime. and that remains our position. the only thing about the syrian civil war that is clear right now is that it is escalating. the potential for spillover gets higher, and the pressure for this country to join in as the war spreads is building. regardless of what the consequences of intervention might actually be. joining me at the table, ayman mohyeldin, rula jebreal, and dexter filkins. great to have you all here. dexter, let me begin with you. phenomenal piece of reporting, your reporting has been really excellent out of the region. what is going through the white house s conversations as they watch israel undertake these two have three kind of groups fighting today in syria, the people that want democracy who are the minority, the free syrian army, and within the free syrian army, hard corps islami