To use the military, but we must always be fast if we even think genocide is a possibility. We should be fast with prudence. Thanks for watching tonight. Im al sharpton. Hardball starts right now. Genocide. This is hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in washington. Genocide. If there is one word in the language that should cut off partisan dribble this should be it. Once you see a religious or other group of human beings is in the process of being exterminated we need the to stop it. Is there another view of this, a
moral opposition, a case for not acting when you hear an or pi of ze lots is marching in and crucifyinger or beheading people because they dont like their religion . Let me hear it loud and clear that you are willing to let people be exterminated for being who they are. This is how im looking at the decision to strike at the isis militants marauding through iraq, killing all in their way. What disappoints me now is the incapability of the speaker of the house and others like john mccain to get behind the president and say we americans will not stand by in the face of genocide. Why does petty politics and potshots and the rest of the cheap stuff have to invade every conversation . Why cant we get together for a day or two to do what we agree is right, the morally necessary thing the do. Now to the question of whats to come. Tonight well look at where this is heading. The president has authorized limited bombing of isis to keep the militants from the consulate in erbil and from religious minorities trapped in northern
iraq. How long lit continue . Will it eliminate isis as a military threat and who will pick up the fight against isis once we stop. In other words, how do we avoid getting sucked into iraq for the long haul . Andrea mitchell is chief Foreign Affairs correspondent for nbc news and host of the Andrea Mitchell report on msnbc. Michael leiter is a terrorist expert for nbc news. EuGene Robinson is a columnist for the washington post. The u. S. Military started dropping bombs on isis today at 6 45 a. M. , washington time. There were two separate rounds according to the pentagon. The first targeted a mobile artillery piece being used to shell Kurdish Forces. A few hours later drones and u. S. Jets struck a mortar position outside erbil. Andrea, this seems like weve got a good bead on targets. We are not shooting at areas, groups or whatever. We have one vehicle at a time. This is precision bombing which raises the question. We have to go in low. Then the question is how vulnerable is American Forces in this limited humanitarian effort. What some suggested is its too precise, too targeted, too simple. Its a piece offer artillery here. A convoy here. That youre really not getting at the heart of isil. Not even at the isil terrorists surrounding the mountain top. Can you break their assault with these pinprick attacks . Will they stop marching on and killing . You can slow them. Through other support of the kurds you can provide kurds the ability to push back. No matter how much you do around erbil you cant roll isis back without a much larger campaign. Thats the big strategic question for the president going forward. Gene . Thats the question. Is the idea to contain isis and stop them right there so i they dont take erbil or oh go further, which i think these
attacks could do. Or is it to destroy this genocidal group thats taken over a huge swath of territory and provides a huge threat. Ultimately for the United States. Who are we talking to with these attacks. We are not trying to eliminate the enemy. We are trying to talk to them. Stop. We are shooting at them like a shot across the bow. Stop or well keep shooting. Thats the signal. At the same time we are told the Iraqi Air Force has been operational today. We have long what do you think of the air force . Not much. In fact, weeks ago when we first started talking about isiss advance into iraq they said, we cant get involved. Giving them hellfire missiles wont work. They cant run the planes. They could barely run a cessna. We are told the Iraqi Air Force is there. What does that amount to . Thats number one. Number two, whats turkey doing . Getting humanitarian supplies. Where is everybody else . David cameron said well do humanitarian efforts but the brits arent going to get back involved in military action in iraq. Same for france. Where is the rest of the world . The points from josh ernest. We are in there to protect u. S. Personnel. Especially in erbil. There are a couple hundred people there. Why didnt they evacuate . They started to downsize them today, by the way. We dont want to. The kufrds are our closest friends in iraq. They have backed us up for 20 years. Thats about the most secure place we have. An honest statement would have been we are not there to defend our personnel, we are there to defend the kurds with our personnel. Absolutely. We are not pulling out of kurdistan. This is not just humanitarian or purely defensive. Exactly. This is to sort of build a wall in front of the kurdish area. Back to my question. Certainly go no further. We were talking to kruschev. Who will say, you know, this u. S. Super power is to be dealt with. We are going to pull back. Is there such a person . I dont know if there is any such person to talk to. I dont think there is. One interesting question about our military personnel in erbil, are they providing spotting help to the air strikes because these were very, very precise strikes. Thats harder to do just from the air than it is when you have somebody on the ground pointing the laser. In truth, this goes back to my years as a naval aviator. These arent especially hard targets. They are largely in the open. You can do it from 25,000, 30,000 feet. They are guided bombs. The risk to american airmen is slim. You can always have accidents. What we have to do is increase the relationship with the with kurds. We have held back supporting with other weapons, spell jens because we want add unified iraq. We are blowing up carriers with those 500 ton bombs . Isnt that a. Thats what you use. The attacks have been small and pinprick. I think isis will take it. They still feel they are winning. I think they want to take casualties. Thats been part of the appeal. They are not afraid to die. The travel warning that went out warned americans in iraq about the potential for kidnapping. Also the terrorizing of the civilian populations. They are beginning to take americans out of erbil. They are still worried enough that they are downsizing. Im worried about the pilots. Maybe im a parent about this. Pilots . You dont want to get captured by this crowd. Today, secretary of state john kerry cited fear of genocide, as i said, as the reason for the action. Isils campaign against the innocent including the yazidi and the grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide. For anyone who needed a wakeup call this is it. Well, last night the president talked about the fear of genocide. Lets listen. We face a situation like we do on that mountain with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. When we have a mandate to help in this case a request from the iraqi government. When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a
massacre, i believe the United States of america cannot turn a blind eye. We can act, carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide. Thats what we are doing on the mountain. This week, one iraqi in the area cried to the world there is no one coming to help. Well, today, america is coming to help. Someone said the president is a realist with a conscience. He likes to stay out of the countries. Hes not a neocon with a grand agenda for u. S. Forces. He cant resist this. Is this an echo of rwanda where bill clinton said i should have done this or kosovo or the holocaust . Bill clinton told you and me after he left office my big p mistake was not responding to rwanda. You have Samantha Power and susan rice who were involved and care passionately about that issue in the white house and the u. N. The u. N. Has not said a word about this today. U. N. Security council not meeting, not talking about this, to my knowledge. They have talked about ukraine. They have other cry sis, gaza. This president said only on friday we cant be everywhere in the world. Saturday they saw what was happening on the ground. I interviewed brent mcguirk on iraq. He said saturday we saw isil moving with incredible proficiency, moving with command and control. Routing the peshmikas. They went into another gear. There is no joy in the white house i can perceive. They are hating it. What kind of debate was there, gene, do you know . Im not sure. Its basically do we do something or not. If we do, what is it . Im not under the impression that everyone is agreed on what it is we are doing. They shot down not doing
anything. Save the yazidis. Save the yazidis. Everyone agrees we want to prevent genocide. I dont have the sense there is a fullthroated agreement or even a fullthroated sense really of how far beyond that we go in terms of combatting. How many days ahead have they planned for, gene, do you know . I dont know. This goes beyond the yazidis and genocide. With all due respect to the yazidis and stopping genocide, we have lost 150,000 people already in the syrian civil war. And done nothing. People have been slaughtered in syria. Isis slaughtered tsunami slaugh came in. They realize they cant stand back any longer. This is the heartland of what could be kurdistan collapsing. If that happens, iraq breaks apart, jordan goes, lebanon goes. You see isis spreading like a
cancer throughout the whole region. I think this was the president having to make a decision he didnt want to make. We saw an animated conversation yesterday right before the decision was announced between the president and Dennis Mcdonough as he left for the bill signing. I wouldnt be surprised that there was some disagreement about the pitfalls here. Thats what a chief of staff does. Warn him. No, no. Thank you. Who could warn president obama . President obama circa five years ago. He can go back to his speeches and get the warning of what bad things can happen. And could still happen. I think he reached a point where he felt bad things happen when you dont intervene as well. Thats what they are facing now. Its not making the region better. Or invasion may have caused the instability that led to this. We could go back and blame somebody. I want to focus on
ironically, i dont want to talk politics right now. Thank you, Andrea Mitchell, Gene Robinson and michael leiter, for coming. Coming up here, we want to take ary newed look at the involvement in iraq from all the angles. What are the u. S. Military options now . Who are the enemies . Isis members who are bent onslaughtering in their path. President obama was elected in large part, as he says, because of opposition to the war in iraq. Hes the fourth straight American People to order military action in that country. Whats been the congressional reaction . Most of it is small minded and deeply politicized. Let me finish with what we are headed into in iraq. The urgent question of how we get out. This is hardball, the place for politics. Folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. Dad hes our broker. He helps looks after all our money. Kid do you pay him . Dad of course. Kid how much . Dad i dont know exactly. Kid what if youre not happy . Does he have to pay you back . Dad nope. Kid why not . Dad it doesnt work that way. Kid why not . Vo are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed . Wealth management at charles schwab
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military options in the battle against isis. Lets start by reviewing what action the u. S. Has taken so far today. This morning two u. S. Navy 18s took off from an Aircraft Carrier in the persian gulf. At 6 45 eastern time they struck isis military artillery positions near erbil. With 500pound laser guided bombs. A few hours later, shortly after 10 00 a. M. Eastern time a drone struck a mortar position killing isis fighters. Four f18 fighterers also from the u. S. S. George h. W. Bush struck a convoy of seven vehicles and a position near erbil. They made two passes dropping eight laser guided bombs. The target is an Insurgent Group straight from hell thats amassing frightening amounts of power in a vacuum that the United States helped create. For how long can we continue the
strikes . What are young pilots facing on the missions and what happens next . Retired army general barry mccalfry commanded the 24th Infantry Division and wes moore is a retired captain and combat veteran. Thank you for this. General, how did you begin to see the mission from the beginning, what the limits are, what it can get done in a cowle of days. No question. There is a huge tragedy unfolding. A couple hundred thousand refugees in the last few weeks. Families isolated on a mountain top without nutrition or access to war. Its a tragedy. A shock to everybody to see the Kurdish Forces evaporate. Weve got a problem. We have to support are the kurds. I argued strongly we should have been providing them significant military equipment a year, two years ago. We are trying to artificially hold together an iraqi state
thats already come apart. My concern is except for navy air, thank god for navy carrier battle groups. We have very few forces in the region. You cant protect 1. 5 million refugees or supply them a humanitarian aid from the air. These are political gestures, not serious military operations. What happens when they are on the ground and youre isis and you have committed to your goal of killing everybody else. Why would a few pinprick attacks on some of your vehicles stop your advance. Stay with that question. Would they stop the advance . Of course not. Right next door in syria where isis has its preponderance of forces, 180,000 dead mostly perpetrated by shiite, christian and other minorities against a
sunni majority. All throughout this area, particularly syria, iraq, and parts of lebanon, this is now coming apart. Its a giant civil war, ethnic and religious minorities struggling. It will be solved through violence. Its hard to imagine modest uses of military power making much different. Captain, your view. Can a pinprick attack stop an army of zealots that doesnt duck. Theyre there for god and arent worried about getting killed. I wonder about a strike against people with unlimited ze lalotr. Your thoughts . We cant understand this in isolation. It is not just about Northern Iraq. Not even just about iraq. This is about things happening throughout the entire region. One thing we were told during captains training is one of the greatest oxymorons in the world is limited military operations. Inherently they cant be limited. Youre always stepping on the
doorstep of something that could be much larger. I think what we have seen particularly in the past week has uncovered two things. One is the lack of stability. This idea that there is no military solution that will be able to fix whats happening in iraq. We have had the past four president s that had military involvement in iraq. The second thing and this could be the most dangerous. There is no Iraqi National military. The Iraqi Military is very regional. You saw the way isil was able to cut through western iraq, cut through mosul like a hot knife through butter. The idea of a National Military iraqi response doesnt make sense. Well, thats point. I want to go back to your point about arming the kurds. We have an iraqi army against 7,000 isis forces. Yet they are running from them. What would stop them . What sort of mechanized force, military armor, what can we give
them what weapon would make them stand and fight . Its a group thats widely hated. When isis moved like a juggernaut, most of it was nonsense. There are a few thousand fighters. Sunni tribesmen rose up against a hated, shia dominated army and police force. The kurds, the president said an iraqi called whos going to help us. That was a kurd. They wont let the iraqi army back in kurdistan for the next hundred years. So the kurds are worthy of being supported. We need to give them the technology to defend themselves. Possibly wed support them with air power. Basically again a giant civil war, ten years of violence. I dont think the American People have political will to turn this around. Lets start with the pinprick, the purpose. One goal is to defend our facility in erbil. Can we do it with naval air alone, general . Then captain. Its nonsense. Its a giant city, the capital of kurdistan. If they wont defend their own capitol, all is lost. I think they will. It sounded like the tur