2014-10-09 14:32:30
Two months after the United States began airstrikes in Iraq that then expanded to Syria, the Islamic State remains in control of most of the territory it has seized — and now threatens to capture the Syrian town of Kobani, just six miles from the Turkish border. If Kobani were to fall to the Islamic State, the group would be in control of more than half of Syria’s border with Turkey. "If Kobani does fall, this will be a symptom of a massive military failure," says Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent. "And it’s not just in Syria that this is happening, [but] in Iraq as well."
As ISIS continues to make advances in the face of U.S.-led airstrikes, we are joined by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi journalist working with The Guardian who recently embedded with Shia militias around Baghdad fighting the Sunnis. "The war that ISIS is raging on the Iraqi government is a coalition of many different tiny little wars," Abdul-Ahad says. "Everyone has his own grievances against the central government of Iraq, yet ISIS has managed to include them all under a single umbrella." Abdul-Ahad argues that any attempt by the United States and its allies to fight the Islamic State as a monolithic organization is bound to fail. "By sending more weapons, sending more money, you’re just adding to the fuel of the war. You need a social contract with the Sunnis of Iraq." We are also joined by Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent. His new book is "The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising."
The new Hollywood film "Kill The Messenger" tells the story of Gary Webb, one of the most maligned figures in investigative journalism. Webb’s explosive 1996 investigative series "Dark Alliance" for the San Jose Mercury News revealed ties between the CIA, Nicaraguan contras and the crack cocaine trade ravaging African-American communities. The exposé provoked protests and congressional hearings, as well as a fierce reaction from the media establishment, which went to great lengths to discredit Webb’s reporting. We revisit Webb’s story with an extended clip from the documentary "Shadows of Liberty," and speak with Robert Parry, a veteran investigative journalist who advised Webb before he published the series.
War and Peace
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