welcome to al jazeera. i'm jonathan betz. here's the top stories this hour. a day of progress over international diplomacy in syria. russia and the u.s. reached a deal to rid the country of its chemical weapons. it took three days of talks in geneva. john kerry and his russian counterpart sergei lavrov have negotiated a plan. sear's entire arsenal is to be secured or destroyed by the middle of 2014. the pentagon says it will not change the position. a fifth person is presumed dead as the call for evacuations intensifying in flood-ravaged

kol colorado. the latest victim is a 60-year-old woman from the town of cedar grove. that's from the sheriff's office earlier today. it has yet to be confirmed. four people have died from the flash floods, and now the national guard is issuing this warning. leave now or prepare for a month without electricity. new jersey governor chris christie visited the site of seaside heights boardwalk fire today. he met with residents. dozens of businesses rebuilt after hurricane sandy destroyed th them. the president takes his case for a strike on syria directly to the american people. >> if we fail to act, the assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. this is not a world we should

accept. >> and the nation responds. an american tonight special town hall presentation. the syria debate with voices here at the knight studio at the museum in washington, d.c., across america, and around the world. >> hello and welcome to al jazeera america's special coverage of the syria debate. we're here at an "america tonight" town hall special coverage. joining me is antonio mora of "consider this." i'm joie chen. we're looking at the president's comments from all around the world and at our audience at the

museum. we want to begin with what the president had to say as he tried to make his case directly to the american people. he began by making some statements about his own interests and trying to keep peace around the world, but also acknowledged the importance of the u.s. military and its strength, and he made particular mention of what the military might be able to do in syria. >> some members of congress have said, there's no point in simply doing a pin-prick strike in syria. let me make something clear. the united states military doesn't do pin-pricks. even a limited strike will send a message to assad that no other nation can deliver. i don't think we should remove another dictator with force. we learned from iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next. a targeted strike can make assad or any other dictator think twice before using chemical weapons.

>> there are many fast-breaking developments on this story. joining us in the studio is "america tonight" correspondent sheila mcvicker who has closely followed the story. there is breaking news tonight. that is about what will happen next in terms of a resolution. >> there is a u.n. resolution put forward by the french that went to the security council tonight. that resolution gives syria 15 days to make a full and complete disclosure of all its chemical weapons. that including stockpiles of weapons it has, and it would also include precursors. >> what does that mean, full and complete disclosure? is thises -- has this been the sticking point? >> that is not the sticking point, but that's part of the process of signing up for the prohibition of chemical weapons. you say what you've got, and you let inspectors who verify that you said this is what you've got. they have to cross-check inventories and shipments, talk to scientists, try and figure

out exactly what we've got, when you made it, where it is. syria is already on the record today through their foreign minister as saying they are prepared to fully sign up to the chemical weapons treaty. >> so the rest of this is the concern about enforcement? >> it's a concern about disclosure openness and then following enforcement. we don't know if the french resolution includes the threat of force, which was a possibility discussed earlier today, and also what we don't know tonight is if the french resolution also includes punishment for those responsible for the events that took place on august 21st. that was also being discussed earlier today. interestingly when the president spoke earlier tonight, he made no mention, though he talked about the possibility of diplomatic developments and possibility of a u.n. security council resolution, he made no mention of punishment saying only disarmament and destruction.

>> we have a series of panels that will join us throughout the evening, and our great panelists right now is christopher dickey who has spent a lot of time in the middle east. carly solis and hillary man man leverett. she's the author of "going to tehran." one thing the president repeated over and over, chris, is the importance of not letting tyrants get away with using weapons of mass destruction. we have seen a long history of getting away with mass destruction goes back to saddam hussein and how he gassed kurds in iraq. there was by some accounts as many as 31 prior uses of chemical weapons in syria. why now? >> well, i think, first of all, you need to understand something. you can look at sad da -- saddam

hussein as one example. it's not just that they kill people and hurt something, especially something like sarin, it's odorless and colorless. you can't breathe and you're con vulsing. it has a horrible effect. when saddam hussein used them against the kurds in 1988 he killed maybe 5,000 people. three years later in 1991 he didn't have to use them to terrorize hundreds of thousands of people and drive them to the mountainsides of kurdistan. if assad is able to continue to use chemical weapons freely in syria, he will win this war. he will cleanse whole parts of country of his enemies and terrorize anyone that stands against him. that is what the administration cannot allow as far as the president's judgment is concerned. >> what the president really obscures for the american people is that the united states somehow has a clean record.

that we didn't actually help saddam hussein acquire the chemical weapons he used against his own people but to kill tens of thousands of iranians during that war. he leaves out the fact we used anyway palm in vietnam. the issue is here the reason why the president doesn't talk about that and puts us forward as a great benign power is because this isn't about chemical weapons. 100,000 people have died in syria. it's not about 1,000 people killed by a particular weapon. this is about the balance of power. this is about the reality that six months ago it dawned on the administration that when president obama had said assad has to go two years ago, that wasn't happening. the syrian government was winning, and with that hezbollah, iran, russia and china would win. what the president is doing now is not about to change the real balance of power in the region. it's to bring us to stalemate. more and more syrians will die. there won't be a resolution to

the conflict. >> i completely disagree that assad has none in the last six months. if you look at the last 30 days, 63 strategic victories for the free syrian army all across the country. assad used his militia to enter the city and there were only 750. >> we respectfully disagree about what's going on on the ground. in terms of what the president knows and what the intelligence community is saying and what general dempsey has said is the opposite. we're not on the ground. we don't have firsthand knowledge. >> i was on the ground actually. i was on the ground. i'm from syria just two weeks ago. >> the issue is what is the information that the u.s. president is acting on? what is general dempsey saying? general dempsey is saying that the situation on the ground was so perilous we couldn't tell one

opposition from the other to arm them. that's why the arms supply is slow. this is a strategic problem for the united states, and president obama failed to make the case. >> there was some information today about further conflict on the ground. >> yes, there was. for the first time since august 21st syrian air force jets were in the air over damascus attacking the rebel suburbs in damascus. there are reports of very heavy fighting in the south, most notably between the free syrian army and one of the al qaeda affiliates. now, sort of a side show war going on here between elements of the rebel forces, but that is contributing to the confusion and some of the doubts about who people are on the ground and who they actually represent. >> that's precisely my point. what the president is proposing -- >> one at a time. one at a time. >> hillary, i thought i was confusing you for the president. listening to the i'm totally confused. >> more than 99,000 souls have

lost their lives. 99,000 people have died. the focus on the chemical weapon is a side show and maybe even a pretext. we need to stop this conflict. >> at the same time isn't it important to get in there and send a message? we have iran right next door developing nuclear weapons. don't we have to call them to account? >> if you defy the president, you survive. president obama said assad has to go. you know what will happen with this deal? assad will stand and survive and be stronger like his father did when he killed over 35,000 people over 30 years ago. just like his father. he will survive and get stronger, and iran will be stronger and hezbollah will. russia is in the driver's seat. >> okay. we should do what? >> we should engage in serious diplomacy and not pretend that we have to deal with assad, the constituencies he represents

with iran and russia. >> we want to go now to beirut. we have a journalist working actively and has a voice quite recently from on the ground in the region. what are you seeing here? what developments can you report to us tonight? >> reporter: i listen to the president's speech as well. can you hear me? >> yes. >> hello? >> yes, we can hear you. please go ahead. >> listen to the president's speech this evening as well and i was checking on social media and other outlets to get a reaction, and the consensus is that basically although president obama referred repeated to those horrific videos of children gasping for breath, he selected moral outrage and he was interested in

the videos of other children being killed by mig jets and helicopter gun ships. it seemed like the issue wasn't the children per se but how they were killed. that seems to be a quick reaction from people who listen to the speech here. >> can you speak to that? you're nodding your head to that, and i think this really goes to what is the value? where do we put the value in terms of what death is the death that we pay attention to in the u.s.? >> dylan thomas said after the first death, there is no other. every death is important. when we talk about 100,000 dead in a war like this, it's a horrific thing. if you've ever been in a war, you know what bodies look like when they're blown apart, children's bodies. to say that chemical weapons are more horrible ipso facto --

>> the president did draw that line. >> because chemical weapons can be used like saddam used again the kurds, they're a game-changer in the r what. that's the real problem. if the idea is to go through diplomacy through a stalemate, which is a pretty cynical way to do things but it's the way diplomacy works, then you don't want assad to be able to use chemical weapons. if he's really going to take them off the table now through the russian initiative, then we go back to a situation where we can debate about what's going on on the ground, who is winning and who is not. are there stalemates? how is that going? if he's allowed to use those chemical weapons, he will win. >> let's talk about diplomacy here for a second. >> i need to go back to rahnia in beirut. can you talk about the impact in lebanon. you see the refugee population moving across from syria in this rapid growth of refugee

population there. >> reporter: absolutely. the statics are quite overwhelming, actually. every fourth person in lebanon is now a syrian. that's an indication of just how many syrians have fled across the border to try and find refuge here in a country what is polarized over the issue of syria. this country has long been divided on long pro and anti-syrian lines, and certainly the influx of refugees has not eased any of those tensions. if anything it added to it. that's just one state. there are millions of syrians displaced inside syria itself in addition to the millions who are outside of its borders and are trying to seek refuge and who have sought refuge in turkey, in jordan, in lebanon. the neighbors countries are buckling under the pressure of this immense weight of the syrian exodus from their war zone. >> our journalist in beirut has

been closely following syria's situation and the refugee population moving across there. antonio. >> we'll address that more as the show goes on, this terrible humanitarian catastrophe that's happening in syria and in the countries that border it. let's have some reaction and questions from the audience. peter. >> my name is peter. i'm from d.c. my question is this. it seems like what obama did was drag his feet tonight, and i guess he's doing that because there doesn't seem -- there is lots of extremist rebel groups, and hezbollah and there's not a good outcome as far as we can tell. why can't our diplomats influence this any better than they have? it's two and a half years. what's wrong with the state that the only way to act is with tomahawks. >> i worked in the state department for over ten years, and one of the problems you have is you don't control the message from the state department. you actually have a president who can use the bully pulpit. this president regarding assad like he did with libya and

gaddafi came out without clearance to say assad has to go, like he did with gaddafi. gaddafi has to go, which puts the united states on the trajectory towards war and implementing the president's promise. the problem here is it has been two years, and each time we've intervened in each of these conflicts in the middle east, we become less and less effectual. we're less able to achieve what we wanted to from iraq to libya to now syria. this is a strategic crisis for the united states, and it has put russia in the driver's seat internationally. this is something that obama completely glosses over. i work also with ambassador lavrov, the russian foreign minister when he was an ambassador to the u.n. he doesn't speak recklessly. the fact the russians have put out from their prior investigation that they have reason to believe the rebels fired the gas, they're not putting it out there because they're playing around. they're boxing us in, and we

don't see the door slam as we're pushed out of the middle east. >> the nice thing is today we actually had the head of forensic investigation, somebody who oversaw the investigations that the russians are saying. he came with 33 eyewitness reports, the police reports. he came with them to say that an actual assad airplane fired a missile prior to the chemical attack. >> i'm just saying don't -- we underestimate lavrov and putin. >> let's talk about realities on the ground that's taking place. we had assad use chemical weapons at 30 different locations prior to the last attack. we said let the evidence show. let the u.n. inspectors go and investigate. let them move freely around the country. when this last attack happened, the u.n. inspectors lived in a hotel about 30 minutes away where this attack took place. if assad is serious about finding the truth, let them the

npors go there in the first three hours. he left them stuck in the hotel for five days. >> that's just not true. >> remember, the u.n. inspectors -- >> that is not true. >> in addition, the protocol between the u.n. and the assad regime, you only answer whether chemical weapons were used or not. you are not allowed to answer the more important question. >> they're trying to undermine the u.n. like the bush administration because the u.n. investigators find two important things. one they can look at delivery devices and see what's there -- >> all right. let sheila go here. >> one at a time. >> we brought the inspectors and said here are the tlifry devices. please take them with you. we can't do it. >> i'm going to get up and separate the two of you. >> this is fun, huh?

>> let's come out here to the audience. this is a question about military intervention. are you a college student? >> yes, i'm a sophomore at george washington university. i have a question for the panel about u.s. intervention. knowing that the strike has such low approval, i believe it's around 25%, is it plausible that obama did not actually plan on striking syria but actually instead felt that he wanted to intimidate assad into relinquishing the chemical weapons, which would allow the u.s. to retain the threat of credibility he talked about in his speech and stick to his red line and maintain his credibility? >> all right. >> the only reason we see this movement now, even the russians interested is because of this

credible threat of force. the russians, they were shipping two to four shipments of weapons to assad regime per week. >> they still will. >> they did stop. >> actually they -- >> what is the message that russia sent to syria? let's have chris take the mike. what is the message that russia sent to syria about this? >> i think russia is telling syria it's time to back off on the chemical weapons. the don't do this. you can probably hang on even without the chemical weapons. if you push this, there's going to be military action. i think to answer the lady's question, i don't -- i wish that the administration were so smart and so calculating that it had played its cards exactly right. that's why we've come to this pass, but i don't think anything we learned over the last few weeks suggests that that's the case. the president was, as hillary said, boxed in by his own rhetoric into a situation where he had to do something once there's 1400 people killed in

front of the eyes of the world with chemical weapons. he started looking around for something to do. he looked for the minimal military response. we still don't see what the strategy is that the military response is to deliver. he pushed for that and hoped for the best. the truth is the president haven the had a very coherent policy on syria ever. >> the consequences is if you deal with the chemical weapons problem, it leaves assad in more control. he will next move in as sheila pointed out to mop up the opposition. this is not the beginning of a new life for syrians. >> we have to take a break here. we'll come back on the other side of the commercial and talk more. chris, i want to address hillary's broader point about the effectiveness of u.s. military strikes in the middle east. we'll be right back.

millions who need assistance now. we appreciate you spending time with us tonight. up next is the golden age of hollywood going golden but elsewhere. why l.a.'s mayor has declared a state of emergency for the entertainment industry there. next.

[[voiceover]] no doubt about it,

continuing our conversation here. as we promised, we had to hear from the voices all across the nation and indeed around the

world. going now to michigan. that is the part of the country where we have the greatest population of syrian-americans. standing by is sarah hoye with an audience she's found. sarah. >> good evening, joie. i'm outside suburban detroit with a group of people who are syrian-american. you heard the president tonight. how are you feeling? do you like what he has to say, or should the u.s. stay out of syria? >> overall i'm pleased he wants to postpone any military intervention. personally i think the united states should stay out of syria for now. i'm happy if he postpones any kind of intervention. >> let's go to you. you're an attorney and heard the president speak tonight. how do you feel? what should we do? >> i sympathize with the president. i feel he's caught in a very difficult situation, but i have

to grieve for the syrian people that suffer through another stall tactic by the assad regime. hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions have been displaced. it's a country that's been destroyed, and now they have to wait another 15 days to realize assad is not a man of his world. we're not only having people react to obama tonight, but the people in the room have deep connections with syria itself. i'll start with a young man right here. he has volunteered his time working with helps put together medical supplies to send to syria. he also has a very touching story himself that he lost his father a year ago. >> i lost my father in revolution. i've come to know exactly how it is to lose someone over there. it's not just something you see on tv anymore. you have this personal connection with atroscities being committed there. this chemical weapon thing is way beyond the attack. this is human life that is not expendable as the news and

people make it. something needs to happen to save the syrian lives. working with these facilities i know exactly how bad it is on the ground. people don't have medicine and have chronic conditions. people are stuck in basements and dying and just bleeding out. something needs to be done. >> speaking of those personal stories and seeing things up close, doctor, you had returned recently from syria. tell us a little bit what you saw. >> it is really facing reality instead of just watching it on the news or on youtube. then you connect it with the real stories and people. we went to a medical mission in jordan. we went to visit injured people. then i had another mission where we went actually a little bit inside syria and we saw the refugees on the borders and medical facilities. we evaluated and we saw patients and evaluated facilities. it's really heart-breaking. there's pictures that i cannot really take out of my mind, and i'm really sad because these are

missed from discussions tonight in most panels. seeing a 6-year-old who lost both of his legs die in front of you after a random shelling in a civilian area, that makes the chemical weapon -- i understand it's very sad, but only 1% to 2% of the people died in syria by chemical weapons. the displaced syrians on the borders, what's sad also is we notice that the refugees' state is in terrible condition outside syria and across the border they're in better condition. the syrian government banned the u.n. from cross-border help from u.n. relief agencies, which broke my heart. you see crowded families in one tent that have nothing to support them. there's more. i remember the story of a woman in a hospital in jordan.

most of her face was burned, a 13-year-old girl. a beautiful girl, and i was talking to another american physician with me, somebody whispered in my head and told me -- in my ear and said she lost her brother and sister in the shelling in their town when they left darah. i was talking to him and whispering to him she lost a brother and sister. and then she said no -- i english i was talking to him. no, i lost two of my sisters. she was understanding us in english. she probably lost a lot of her potential just being caught, and there's no discussions of civilian protection and medical personnel protection. this is really sad at this point. >> i know we have to go here soon, joie. one more voice here. stay with me. speaking of loss of life, we have a woman here who lost a brother and it's coming up on the two-year anniversary.

how heart-breaking is it to be at this point today? >> it breaks me heart every time i remember him. every time i remember how he died. his fault was he was volunteering with the red cross. he was on the ambulance saving an injured person at the checkpoint for the regime, and they tricked them and they -- the officer waved to him to keep going in the ambulance with the driver. then they opened fire all over from four directions from the top and the three other directions on the ambulance. so my brother just tried to -- jumped over the patient and threw his body over him just to save his life. >> so in saving his life, he lost his own? >> yeah. >> joie, there are more stories like that and there are people in favor of assad and also the regime and one standing with

barack. we have one more voice right here. you don't want military intervention? >> no. i really just think it would make the situation worse. i don't think that it would help america, you know what i mean? i don't think it would help our soldiers or help anything over here or over there honestly. i think that's the last thing we should do. we should use diplomacy. >> here you have it here from detroit. joie, back to you. >> sarah, i'll take it. it's antonio in washington. it's terrible to hear those stories. 100 thousand -- 100,000 dead and another 5 million displaced. we will keep hearing these stories from syria, and we'll have more analysis coming up. [[voiceover]] every day, events sweep across our country. and with them, a storm of views. how can you fully understand the impact unless you've heard angles you hadn't considered?

antonio mora brings you smart conversation that challenges the status quo with unexpected opinions and a fresh outlook. including yours. sachin asked the indian media not to put too much pleasure pressure on the teenager. >> my son started his career. it's a humble request if he can live his life like a normal 14-year-old without thinking of anything other than falling in love with the sport. (applause) >> some footsteps to follow in. more on the website. check it out. all the details. get in touch with us on twitter and facebook. plenty more from me later, but that is the sport for now. >> thank you.

stay with us on al jazeera. another full bulletin of news is ahead with julie mcdonald, who will be in london for us. for now, goodbye. and welcome back to our "america tonight" town hall. we're continuing our discussion about syria and the crisis there and what the united states should do about it, if anything. joining us now on the panel is congressman steve horstford from nevada as well as colonel cedric layton who retired from the u.s. air force. we appreciate you both being here. congressman, i want to start with you and talk about it. you have a significant military population within your community, and we know that the president tonight made a

particular statement, a shout-out on pin-pricks and what the military can do. what did you hear in the president's comments that might or might not sway your community and your own vote because you didn't make a decision? >> as you indicate, i was undecided. i remain undecided on the strike itself, but i am very pleased and optimistic and i commend the president for delaying a vote to allow the new approach with syria turning over the chemical weapons and signing onto the chemical weapons convention language. ultimately that's the larger objective of securing and eliminating chemical weapons we should strive to achieve. >> colonel, that is a different task, isn't it? >> it is. when you look at it from a diplomatic standpoint that is, of course, the preferred solution even for military people. you don't want to go in there and actually have to destroy the chemical weapons because it is very difficult to do so if you

don't have boots on the ground. everybody says, we don't want to have boots on the ground in syria. at least not american boots. so you have to look at it in a very multi-faceted approach because when you have these chemical weapons, they are very difficult to destroy. pin-prick strikes are not going to work exactly against the munitions themselves, because you risk spreading the sarin gas or any other nerve agents like vx or anything like that. that becomes very, very dangerous because you don't have the munitions available yet to do that. now, in the future there will probably be some mu natinitions can handle that kind of attack. we're not there in terms of weaponry and developing that weapon system. that limits u.s. options in this case. >> how do you reconcile president obama saying it would not be a pin-prick strike with secretary kerry saying the strike would be unbelievably

small? >> it's impossible to reconcile those two. the reason is when the military goes in and actually undertaking a mission of this type, they can be precise, but you cannot be small if you want to be effective. you can be precise by going after a specific target set, but you cannot go after a target set that is unimportant. so what you're trying to do is you're trying to achieve the greatest effect for the smallest expenditure of munitions. that's, i think, what they're trying to refer to. the language that was used is such that it is logically incompatible. >> we have a question from the audience from arianna who is from venezuela and is a student at george washington university. >> thank you. i definitely agree that some action must be taken to stop the atroscities in syria. my question is regarding this proposed unilateral attacks from the u.s. and how the world would view it. the president mentioned that

that our reputation and credibility is at stake here, so to what extent is this attack -- to what extent will it improve our reputation in the international community? >> well, i'm hopeful that the alternative will be achieved, which is to allow syria to turn over the chemical weapons and to turn it over to the international community to allow the international community to go in and secure those facilities so that we can avoid a strike from occurring. what the president talked about tonight is that in the event they do not agree or we are not able to get that in place in a near term, then the strike is still on the table. that strike would be limited but focused. my understanding based on some of the briefings i've been in is it would target some of the military installations specifically, and that would,

you know, degrade the capacity of the assad regime from using chemical weapons any further against their own people. >> one of the difficulties i think that you see when you look at u.s. military action, the president has tried very hard to avoid a unilateral action on the part of the u.s. from a military perspective. he looks at, for example, the experience with the iraq war as being a negative experience for the united states. i think most people around the world would probably agree with that. the problem that you have, though, is that sometimes in order to achieve national objectives, you have to have the capacity to go it alone. what i read from the president's statements and from the various efforts that other members of the administration are undertaking is an effort to make it clear that we want to do diplomatic actions and conduct diplomatic efforts, but we are ready to do other things,

military things in this case, to go after the targets that we believe are important to go after to actually eliminate the problem on an international basis. from an international perspective, we have to be very careful with that, because there's always the risk of a negative approach. so i think what they want to do is exhaust every option before we get to that point. >> out here in the audience with us is one of our contributors from earlier in the program merlin martin, also a columnist and great contributor on all of these issues. can you talk a little bit about the president's credibility and legacy through the course. is syria going to be the thing that he's remembered for? >> you look at polling data. his numbers have dropped when it comes to foreign policy. that was always a strength for the last five years. i don't necessarily believe syria is somehow the defining point when it comes to his legacy, because if you look at it from a military standpoint,

you look at what's happened in iraq and troops coming home and a clear declaration when the troops will come home from afghanistan. i think this is being overlooked. he's putting congress on the spot to say, look, you could have put this all on me. i could have made the decision. he's forcing them to have this dialogue as well. a lot of members of congress have upset they have to defend a decision or make this decision because it could be very easy for him to make a decision. they could sit there and say, oh, great call or bad call that had no consequence. now they have some skin in the game, so i think members of congress probably are happy with the russian situation as opposed to just the president. >> what do you think, congressman? >> i'm pleased that the president chose to come to congress, because it made it more of an open, transparent, and deliberative process it would have been otherwise. the fact we're even having this debate tonight is because the president chose to come to congress. are there some members who, you know, would have preferred not to be in this position? yes. but those are the same members

who don't see a partnership between congress and the presidency in leading this country. we have three branches of government, and we have to work together to make these very difficult decisions. i'm a new member, and this is a tough decision. >> you are a democrat? >> i am a democrat. while i support the president and i trust his leadership, i still have to make an independent judgment based on my constituents and the best interests, as i see it, for the united states as well. >> one of the big questions about what the best interests of the united states are was raised earlier by hillary mann, and she brought up the issue of the decreasing effectiveness of american strikes in the middle east. chris, i promised i would address that question to you. libya is the latest example by many accounts, the situation in libya is far worse than it was under gaddafi. we saw american diplomats die in benghazi. >> it's terrible what happened in benghazi a year ago, but i

don't think you could argue things are so much worse in libya. gaddafi killed 200, 300 americans just in one terrorist incident over lockerbie in 1988. i think this was an evil man. it was good to get him out. there are no american troops on the ground. we're not occupying that country. we're not going to be sucked into something like iraq or afghanistan. >> it's become a chaotic country. >> let it be chaotic with libyans being chaotic with libyans and not americans. what hillary was saying -- this i would agree with her about. essentially that the bush administration, when it went into iraq and occupied that country for eight incredibly bloody years, spending 2 approximately $5 billion every week for the privilege of being there and dying there, took the united states, which was a country with enormous power to

do good with a minimal use of force and essentially sucked it dry. bled it dry. that's what we see today. we are almost powerfless to act on the international stage right now, and you could see it in congress. you could see it in the public. it's because of the experience of iraq. it's as simple as that. the other issue is do pin-prick strikes help? do they work? no. i've spent most of my career going to the places we were about to hit with some bloody pin-prick strike and watching the bombs fall around me. they almost do no good. when president obama proposed to do this, i thought, oh, no. don't just do something. stand there. back off. think of this again, and if you ask me for my opinion, i think the russians have saved his ass.

i think he was ill-prepared going into this confrontation and this crisis. i don't think he had the diplomatic backing. he clearly doesn't have the congressional backing and he doesn't have the backing of the american people because they're exhausted by the experience of iraq. >> do you think his speech tonight will make a difference? >> i don't think it will make any difference. i don't think it's going to make any difference at all, but time can make a difference. if we go through the diplomatic process that's being outlined now that sheila was talking about, 15 days of trying to get some kind of coherent resolution, with the american people seized on the issue and seeing who is standing on which side, it's not just coming out of the blue at them, then maybe there will be more support for some kind of action. i still think that a pin-prick or whatever the hell we call it is not a good idea. at least the environment will change. >> we'll have much more from our panelists coming up next.

that's all i have an real money. victoria azarenko ç]

welcome back to "america tonight" continuing houn hall. our hash tag for all of this is syriatownhall on twitter. she's been talking and listening

in on the social media community. we've heard from the congressman and from others about the challenge for members of congress as they listen to the president and as they try to make a decision. what are they saying on twitter? >> what's fascinating is senator rand paul, for example, who is slated to make a video tonight after president obama's speech actually tweeted out, president obama's speech didn't convince me. he didn't end up recording that speech, but he sent out this tweet. what's fascinating is if you look at a lot of other congressional leaders sending out the tweets in the wake of speech, a lot are saying what they were saying before. it tells you that this speech didn't necessarily change what a lot of them have thought. >> a lot of guests said this was not an event that was able to change the minds of the american public or of congress. >> for example senators lindsey graham and john mccain, some of the most outspoken on more force in syria released a joint statement together saying they regretted the president had not

authorized more lethal aid for moderate opposition forces. lindsey graham went on to tweet, president's moral case for action was passionate and compelling, however, the national security consequences were vague and left a lot on the table. i want to share a thought from minnesota congressman keith ellisson. he's been supporting the idea of intervention for a while, and said president obama's delays a vote to allow for diplomacy. would we talk about the deal without the threat of action? that question is one we heard raised here tonight, and we're seeing among a lot of different leaders online as well. >> the international community you are seeing on twitter? >> absolutely. syrian americans are weighing in and one writer is from aleppo, from syria, and she just tweeted that she was disappointed. she expressed some despair and she tweeted stabbed in the back by assad and now by america. others have expressed from the show that we've been doing when

we've been seeking out syrian voices that they're conflicted. some fear that a strike would have retaliatory effects on them. you see that as well online. >> conflicted there. conflicted as we are in the united states. our social media contact, azmat khan joining us with that view. thanks. >> we have a new panel that's going to address the humanitarian catastrophe going on in syria and in the surrounding countries. first, i've got amir doko, he's a human rights activist from syria. he was imprisoned twice by the assad government. carolyn miles is the c.e.o. of save the children. she's been in jordan and iraq to see what's happening with refugees here. and zara who is the present of the syrian medical society. his parents and his sister are still back in iraq. carolyn, i want to start with you and what you've seen,

because we have heard of the 1.1 million children now who are refugees. that doesn't even count the ones that are displaced within syria. how bad is the humanitarian situation at the refugee camps on the bordering countries? >> well, this is, i would say, the worst humanitarian disaster that we have seen for decades. it is really a horrible situation for families, and i think we've talked a little bit tonight about the issue. the numbers are staggering, 100,000 people have died, about 11,000 of those people are children, innocent children. so while the chemical weapons piece is important, the scale of the humanitarian disaster is really huge. what's happening in refugee camps, first of all, you have literally thousands of people, 5,000 a day still leaving syria, so there are still huge numbers of people going into these refugee camps. zatari where i was most recently is really not a camp anymore. it's a small city. it's the fourth or fifth largest

city in jordan at this point. 125,000 people. just to give you a sense of how people are dealing with this, i met a young 15-year-old boy when i was last there. we were talking about the future, and he said to me -- he's 15 years old. he had been to high school in syria, had been a good student. he said, i don't think about the future anymore. i don't have a future. and that is what we really have to worry about. >> amir, your future has turned out to be very different than what you expected. you were imprisoned twice by the assad regime and just got to the united states a year ago. you feel that the united states should have been intervened long ago. what do you think about what's going on now with the diplomatic efforts? >> i was subject to assad's oppression for the past 30 years of my life. i was in prison twice by assad, once in 2003 and once last year in 2012.

i was held captive in different prisons. i stayed three days on one foot in one of assad's prisons locked there with 125 other persons, other syrians in a 10 x 10 foot room. literally, there were bodies over each other. i couldn't even have space to put the other foot on the ground. i was actually -- i ran away from syria illegally through the border to jordan, and then i worked with the refugees there. i actually stayed in the refugee camp for a week where i stayed for the whole week without anybody asking me, do you have a place to sleep? do you have food or water? we actually stayed in that camp for the whole day without any kind of water just to wash our

hands or any toilet water. it was horrible conditions. i've seen the refugees suffering in jordan. i worked actually with humanitarian relief organizations helping them, but the magnitude of the crisis is beyond imagination. >> amer, that's so difficult. you continue to look for your brothers as well. >> i have two brothers detained by the assad regime for more than a year now, and we don't know where my brothers are at. they just invaded our family's house. they took my brothers, and we don't know where they're at and what happened to them. we don't have access to any lawyers or anybody who can help us determine where my brother's at. >> out here in the audience is carly from new jersey joining us. you have a question. >> yeah. there's so many civilians in

this crisis in syria. how much is obama taking these people into consideration as he plans to confiscate these chemical weapons? >> there was some discussion in the previous panel about who won, whether it's putin or obama or assad. i think all of us, especially in the military community, believe that the losers are the syrian people. i was hoping that president obama -- he mentioned the word "genocide," because what's happening in syrian is genocide. one-third of the population is displaced whether internally or outside of the country. that's the equivalent of 120 million americans being displaced. 120,000 syrians have been killed. by the way, 99.5% of them were killed by conventional weapons, by ballistic missiles and cluster bombs and barrel bombs. we forget that. we forget the children. 10,000 children have been killed not because of chemical weapons but because of conventional

weapons. the syrian regime is the first regime on eartha uses ballistic missiles against its people. we have destruction of cities and neighborhoods and the fabric of the city and society. this is what is very painful. syria has lost as a country, and the syrian people have lost. i was hoping that president obama addresses more of the humanitarian situation and what can be done to relieve the suffering of the syrian people inside and outside. i was hoping he would use this chance, the opening where the russian ares open for compromise so we can help the syrian people in the north and the south. this did not happen. >> i know your parents and your sister are still back there. your sister's house in homs was destroyed. how often are you in contact with them, and what are you hearing? have things gotten worse as we near this threat of military action by the united states? there seems mob more refugees and more people being displaced. >> i speak with them every few

days if the phone line is still open. they're very anxious and scared. last time i spoke with them, they said they were stocking up with food and first aid items. my sister had to move from her apartment because it was destroyed from the city in homs. my parents also moved from their neighborhood because it was shelled by a tank. this is the situation of most syrians, unfortunately. most syrians in the city of homs are displaced either inside the city or outside, and this is nonsustainable. when we speak with the refugee agencies in jordan and turkey, they tell us how long we can accommodate more syrians coming. there's a limit to what turkey and lebanon can offer to the refugees. that is not sustainable. the united nations agencies are also struggling to get support for the refugee situation. >> secretary kerry just today did make the comment that -- and acknowledgment that the united states maybe has not done enough but more than others have done.

do you see an indication that will move forward? >> i think this point about it is really the countries surrounding syria that have borne the brunt of this. again, jordan has 125,000 in a camp. they have another 300,000 people living in their country. lebanon, one of every four lebanese are now lebanon citizens that are syrian. so i think we have to do more. we have been talking a lot today about the american reaction to chemical weapons, but there is something that every american can do in terms of doing something about the humanitarian situation. i think that is a -- we weren't thinking about that. this doesn't have to be about military action. it can be about more humanitarian action, and it is, you know, the millions of syrian citizens that are paying the price for this war. >> sheila, a final thought? >> one of the problems, i think, for everybody is they were thinking about president obama's words and his response and his

threat of military action for the chemical weapons attack was the failure to address the central problems of the syrian conflict. more than 100,000 dead, millions internally displaced and millions more outside the country living in refugee camps and stiemometimes on the street. refugee agencies struggle to provide for them the neighboring countries really buckling under the weight of the pressure. all of those problems remain no what happens on the question of chemical weapons. >> unfortunately, we have to go. i'd like to thank you and thank amer and sheila and all the panelists for this terrific discussion tonight. i'd like to thank our audience for being here tonight and contributing to our discussion. thank you very much. >> we do appreciate all of our audience online as well joining in at syria town hall on twitter and all of you for contributing to our discussion, our first town hall of "america tonight." thanks very much for being with

us.