Global Cop Complex

As Congress skipped town and avoided a vote on war, President Obama announced this week that the US was taking the lead in bombing jihadists in Iraq and Syria, opening what is being widely interpreted as another long and costly American military campaign in the Middle East.

This week, Bill Moyers discusses the latest on the conflict with Jonathan Landay, a veteran national security reporter for McClatchy Newspapers and Matthew Hoh, a former Marine and foreign service officer in Afghanistan.

“As much as President Obama wishes we weren’t the world’s policemen, perhaps we are,” Landay tells Moyers. “And there’s no escaping that curse.”

Hoh, who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over US strategic policy there, adds: “Is this really our model for the Middle East that we are going to bomb countries, continuously, take part in civil wars, sometimes supporting one side, maybe supporting the other, with no means or no real desire or effort to achieve a peace?”