himself. and having this as immediate action was necessary, then punting it to congress. number three, you have the issue with the military being hit repeatedly with cuts to their resources. something this administration has been very aggressive on. i know. but they re turning around and asking them to do more with less. and every time i talk to my command team at ft. campbell, we talk about the diligence that they are going through daily to try to do more with less. but at a point you have to say we know we have a crisis, and it is immoral what has happened in syria, but requiring our military men and women to do more with less and repeatedly cutting their budget is something that you can say is immoral also. speaking of morality, congressman mcdermott, you re a medical doctor as well. what did you make of the new york times cover today in the
a two-day war. i find that very inconsistent. is it a two-day war? is it a 90-day war? and secondly, how did this measure, which supported a humanitarian response to the use of chemical weapons become this document i m holding in my hands was passed in the middle of the night last night, which supports all kinds of aid to the rebel groups like the one we just saw there. it puts us on the side of regime change basically. it s called speeding up the momentum, a new kind of language, a declaration of support for that. i mean, we re getting into this war. the first thing to say, chris, is the video is horrifying. i ve travelled with the rebels in syria, and i can tell you first that that is not a picture of most of the rebel fighters, commanders that i met. but there is no doubt in my mind that those people exist. i think the dilemma the united states faces now is really an acute moral one. it s one that everybody should think through carefully.
every military plan, every battle plan should have a clearly defined mission and execution and a strategy. and the problem is the president has not come forward in a leadership role. he has tried to pivot on just about everything. okay. let s take a look at the secretary of state. here is what he said. here is his case for military action against syria. generally. it s an interview with my colleague chris hayes, which is going to have the full program coming up after this program at 8:00. let s listen to what he says. he gets into this issue of our role helping the rebels, getting into the war. not just punishing assad for chemical. here he is. if we don t do this, assad will have the message that he can use these weapons with impunity. we will have turned our back on the next batch of children, on the next batch of parents. we will have turned our back on the international norm. we will have lost credibility in the world. and i guarantee you if we turn our backs today, the picture
ever good for people on the left, especially when the leader of the liberal party, in this case president obama, is leading the fight. on the our next question, which comes to us from allie lippedsy from patterson, georgia. she asks chris, what are your thoughts on john mccain playing poker during a serious discussion to syria. i wish it was serious for him, the discussion with barack obama. i m less concerned about the attitude he showed in playing poker than i am he stuffed into the resolution all this stuff about aiding the rebels over there. we have watched the rebels and what they have done with the horrific pictures. i m not sure we should be out there cheerleading and blowing the bayoule for that side. it s one thing to punish assad. it s another thing to get into this war, which i m against. the next question comes from crist owens. kris, what is something i can do to make america better? up with thing you might do if you re in good shape and you have obeyed the law and you hav
defectors and others who have joined the ranks, and you have to look at those who are looking at this as an ideological struggle to advance islam, and more importantly to be part of a larger jihadist movement. and they re drawing on several others from across the region and across the world to join that fight. in making that distinction, you can understand the ideology between each one of these groups, what they re trying to achieve inside syria. and in that video, that video, believe it or not, is actually not the first time we ve seen these types of images. we have seen many disturbing images over the course of the last two years of summary executions, torture, and some very horrific pictures and images involving children, soldiers as well. so to assume that the rebels that are fighting to topple the regime of president bashar al assad are somehow beholden to universal human rights or that they re going to uphold human rights is extremely premature right now because these are rebels