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. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. genocide. this is "hardball." good evening. i'm 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 don't 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 i'm 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 can't 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 what's to come. tonight we'll 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 we've 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 it's too precise, too targeted, too simple. it's a piece offer artillery here. a convoy here. that you're 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 can't roll isis back without a much larger campaign. that's the big strategic question for the president going forward. >> gene? >> that's the question. is the idea to contain isis and stop them right there so i they don't take erbil or oh go further, which i think these

attacks could do. or is it to destroy this genocidal group that's 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 we'll keep shooting. >> that's 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 isis's advance into iraq they said, we can't get involved. giving them hellfire missiles won't work. they can't run the planes. they could barely run a cessna. we are told the iraqi air force is there. what does that amount to?

that's number one. number two, what's turkey doing? getting humanitarian supplies. where is everybody else? david cameron said we'll do humanitarian efforts but the brits aren't 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 didn't they evacuate? >> they started to downsize them today, by the way. >> we don't want to. the kufrds are our closest friends in iraq. they have backed us up for 20 years. that's 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 don't know if there is any such person to talk to. i don't 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. that's 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 aren't 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? isn't that a. >> that's 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. that's 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. >> i'm worried about the pilots.

maybe i'm a parent about this. pilots? you don't 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. >> isil's 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 wake-up call this is it. >> well, last night the president talked about the fear of genocide. let's 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. that's 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. he's not a neocon with a grand agenda for u.s. forces. he can't 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 can't 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? >> i'm not sure. it's basically do we do something or not. if we do, what is it? i'm 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 don't have the sense there is a full-throated agreement or even a full-throated 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 don't 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 can't 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 didn't 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 wouldn't be surprised that there was some disagreement about the pitfalls here. that's 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 don't intervene as well. that's what they are facing now. it's 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 don't 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. he's the fourth straight american people to order military action in that country. what's 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.

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military options in the battle against isis. let's 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 500-pound 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 f-18 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 that's 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. it's a tragedy. a shock to everybody to see the kurdish forces evaporate. we've 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

that's 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 can't 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 you're 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. it's a giant civil war, ethnic and religious minorities struggling. it will be solved through violence. it's hard to imagine modest uses of military power making much different. >> captain, your view. can a pinprick attack stop an army of zealots that doesn't duck. they're there for god and aren't worried about getting killed. i wonder about a strike against people with unlimited ze lalotr. your thoughts? >> we can't 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 captain's training is one of the greatest oxymorons in the world is limited military operations. inherently they can't be limited. you're 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 what's happening in iraq. we have had the past four presidents 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 doesn't make sense. >> well, that's 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? >> it's a group that's 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 who's going to help us. that was a kurd. they won't 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 we'd support them with air power. basically again a giant civil war, ten years of violence.

i don't think the american people have political will to turn this around. >> let's 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 . >> it's nonsense. it's a giant city, the capital of kurdistan. if they won't defend their own capitol, all is lost. i think they will. it sounded like the turner joy in vietnam or something. we are conducting carrier air strikes to protect the 200 people we just put in to a giant city? it's nonsense. >> captain -- >> if you want them to protect themselves give them the tools to do it. >> will the united states dr or is our statement that we'll use military face and naval air to defend erbil and our facility there something that will work? it seems that's one thing that will work here in coordination with the kurds.

>> think about it. when you talk about the application of military force, you think about how is the application of military force going to deter the enemy. how will it defer what you actually have to face? isis isn't making pinprick military attacks on civilians. they are not making strategic attacks on specific villages. i'm not sure how to understand that strategic pinprick military reaction to that is then going to counter what they are going to do in order to make a military action effective, you have to first understand your enemy and see how it's going to impact their actions. >> hear, hear. isis isn't into nuanced signalling. they are crucifying people, beheading them, trying to terrorize them. >> that's what i think. i agree. they are killers, not thinkers. thank you so much for coming on the program on friday night. up next, more on isis, the violent extremist group running through iraq.

you will hear the horror stories. hold your ears. this is a frightening group of people. who are they? can they be stopped by u.s. airstrikes or do they want to die for god? that's ahead. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ kevin ] this is connolly, cameron, zach, and clementine.

we have a serious hairball issue. we clean it up, turn around, and there it is again. it's scary. little bit in my eye. [ michelle ] underneath the kitchen table, underneath my work desk, we've got enough to knit a sweater. [ doorbell rings ] zach, what is that? the swiffer sweeper. the swiffer dusters. it's some sort of magic cloth that sucks in all the dog hair. it's quick and easy. pretty amazing that it picked it all up. i would totally take on another dog. [ kevin ] really? ♪

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buick, gmc or cadillac - with no limits. so every time you use it, you're not just shopping for goods. you're shopping for something great. learn more at buypowercard.com welcome back to "hardball"." what and who exactly are we fighting in iraq? as bobby gosh said they are a nightmarish vision from hell. he described who we are up against. >> they enjoy the act of slaughter. these are not religious people. these are are people who are insane. they have oil in their territory. they have seized weapons. some of them weapons we left for the iraqis. they have seized weapon prs the iraqis, syrians, the lebanese. these are nightmarish vision from hell of the likes we have not seen. >> that's not even the scariest part.

this might give you a sense of how the radical insurgent group known as isis operates. they catalog atrocities. as the financial times reported the military success and brutality of isis was recorded with the level of precision often reserved for company accounts. 10,000 operations in iraq. 1,000 assassinations. 4,000 hundreds of radical prisoners freed. this is a group al qaeda disavowed. they were a liability to the al qaeda brand they were so bad. the iraqi military forces and capturing critically important targets like the country's mosul dam. that's under their control now. this doesn't include the acts of horror that drove 40,000 christians, kurds and yazidis up to mount sinjar where they are surrounded by a group, ell bent

on converting or killing them. is this group over taking one of the last functions areas of iraq that we are now fighting from the group. brian cotolus is from the american center for progress. and one of their reporters with vice news has been embedded with isis. brian, how many are in the field now fighting for control of iraq and what do they want? >> if you add them up, iraq and syria, there is no border between iraq and syria. you have 10 to 15,000 estimates. a couple hundred from the united states and europe. >> those people from the united states, muslims come from that part of the world. >> there is a mix. people have converted. >> european backgrounds. >> yeah. >> how many of them are there? that actually joined this. >> a couple does frn the u.s. are most estimates. >> from middle eastern

background? >> it's a mix. some are americans that aren't middle eastern background. >> how many people joined the islamic cause not born muslim. >> we don't have precise figures. >> five, ten? >> a couple of dozen. >> it's a prost proselytizing organization. >> it's grounded in religion, but a distorted -- >> 15,000 in the field in iraq. what do they want in iraq? what are they doing in northern iraq? >> tapping into the grievance sunnis had against the shiite-led government in iraq. yes, they are the vanguard. there are ex-baathists. >> they don't crucify and behead people. >> they are part of the group. >> why do reasonable political people who are ethnically united against the new government over there supporting this barbarism.

>> ner not supporting it. >> they are living with it. >> but not fighting it because the group is so vicious and brutal. they actually strike fears in the hearts of many people in iraq and syria. >> sounds like the nazis. >> let's look at this. vice has no affiliation with us and nbc news. it has not verified the interview in this documentary. this interview is said to be with an isis fighter should give you a portrait of the mindset we are fighting.

what do you know about this "humiliated us in iraq." i don't remember that. is that part of the propaganda? that they have already beaten the united states in the field? >> i think they feel they did that in iraq. their world view is an expansionist, fundamentalist world view is what they are high on. we spent three weeks in syria and iraq. in the emerging caliphate, as they call it, trying to understand what motivates them, why they are doing it, how powerful they are. i think more interesting, what's it like to live under their control? we got a portrait that's chilling, terrifying and scary. >> when did they humiliate the united states? i don't know what they are talking about. >> they are referencing afghanistan, iraq. it's their narrative they are creating.

>> we left iraq in shiite hands, in malakis hands and walked out in the hands of a government adversarial to them. how do they see it as humiliating us? >> they have their own propaganda, view of the world they are telling everyone, their supporters. it chimes. they are viciously anti-american. it chimes. doesn't mathter whether it's correct. it's taken hold and it's spreading. it finds support in many parts of the region. earlier on people talked about it being a regional crisis. there is a real crisis now. this entity is spreading outwards to the turkish border, syria, jordan, lebanon. this is a real problem. >> let me ask you what you have learned. >> what we learned was we were in the base. we saw the weaponry looted from iraq. american weaponry paraded in the streets.

we saw indocket tri nation of children, boys as young as 9 by older men. one father asked his child if he would like to be a jihadist or a suicide bomber. the child said jihadist. they talk about the caliphate, the islamic state. we went in the prisons where people have been arrested for o possessing alcohol, waiting to be with whipped. it's a chilling portrait of what a society will look like run by hard line armed islamic militants. >> was your embed present during the crucifixions or beheadings? >> no. the film maker was escorted around by armed men. he went into the edge of iraq. he wasn't present at any of the brutality. as was mentioned before they publish it themselves. it's a very sophisticated operation. >> it's horrible beyond belief. we won't show it, but it's out

there. thank you, kevin. this situation. my complaint against the bush policy has been the idea that you can eliminate your enemy by killing them all. it shows us killing arabs and islamic people on international television. to me it breeds more. >> that's right. >> this is a catch 22. you kill them and they are replaced by more. if you don't, they kill your allies. >> there are no easy solutions. a key part is to get actor this is the region like jordan. >> last september. >> za are rkawi in 2006, the head of al qaeda. the jordan yans helped us get him. saudis and gulf states including kuwait. we saved kuwait. they have private financiers supporting groups like isis. working to cut off the funding and deal with the cancer. that's what it is. deal wit. cut it off. >> where was the u.n.? >> awol. i don't know what it's doing.

>> where is turkey? >> turkey is wringing its hands. they claim to be offering humanitarian assistance. it's unclear. that's what president obama is trying to do. get this region. >> once again we are the gurka army. we go in to run around and march for somebody else. we do it. thank you. up next, when he was running for president barack obama campaigned on getting the united states out of iraq. now he finds himself sucked back in. i wonder what he has to do now. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. r defending our country. thank you for your sacrifice and thank you for your bravery. thank you colonel. thank you daddy. military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa auto insurance can be one of them. if you're a current or former military member or their family, get an auto insurance quote

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i ran for office in part to end our war in iraq and welcome our troops home. that's what we have done.

i will not allow the united states to be dragged into fighting another war in iraq. as we support iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, american combat troops will not be returning to fight in raurk. -- iraq. >> welcome back to "hardball." as i have said it's much easier to get involved in a war than to get out of one. something president obama is keenly aware of. he's gone to great length s to end the war in iraq. there was no small amount of pain when he announced new involvement militarily in iraq. he emphasized he hopes in this case u.s. involvement in iraq will be of a limited nature. still, as peter baker of the new york times wrote, in sending war planes back into the skies of iraq thursday night president obama found himself exactly where he didn't want to be -- hoping to end the war in iraq he became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of american

ambition. kristen welker is at the white house now. first to you, kristen. if you could give us a sense of how this went tick-tock to a decision basically to get into it again. as we have done today militarily in iraq. >> chris, we are just getting our first sense of that tick-tock. i'm told by a senior administration official that on wednesday, after president obama wrapped up his news conference at the africa summit he was told by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey the crisis in iraq had reached a critical juncture, that isis was making gains, moving toward erbil. that's when the discussions began about how to respond. there was a high level meeting that night which included president obama. then that situation room meeting on thursday which occurred first thing thursday morning. president obama meeting with his national security team. i'm told in those meetings there was broad agreement that something needed to be done.

the united states needed to take action. the question was what would that action look like? one of the key concerns was about flying f-18 fighter jets. the reason is they fly low. they fly quickly. there were concerns though that flying those f-18 fighter jets would be putting u.s. military personnel at risk. ultimately though the decision was made that the need to take action outweighed the risks because of the humanitarian crisis and u.s. interests were threatened. also because of the strategic reasons you have been talking about, chris. the fact that erbil is a kurdish strong hold and losing it would be a disaster from the perspective of u.s. policy there. chris? >> tell me if i'm wrong. i looked for little things in the news. one was the release of the photo from the situation room. i wonder if they do it in order to show, a, the deliberate nature of the decision, how difficult it was, that it was a share ed decision with the military man dempsey there. i think that's him in the

foreground and tony blake and the national security aid aide in the back and susan rice there, the national security director. is that to show the gravity of the situation, the fact they released the photo. reminded me of the photo when we killed bin laden. >> right. optics are always important, chris. in these types of situations, even more so. i think you're right to under score that point. there was a desire to show that the president that his national security team were on top of the crisis. they were dealing with the crisis earlier today. we got video of president obama speaking to jordan's king abdullah. i'm told he'll make more phone calls to u.s. allies in the coming days to try to shore up support, not necessarily for the military mission, but to get more aid in terms of the humanitarian mission. in addition to all of those christian minorities stranded on the mountain, there are thousands who have been displaced by the crisis. he's going to be reaching out to

u.s. allies to get their support in terms of dealing with that. optics are always important, chris. i think that situation room picture we got, the video we got earlier today certainly is part of the white house's desire to show that the president is on top of of this. >> thanks, kristen. now to ron reagan. you know, grenada was a bite-sized war. how do you have a bite-sized war of a bigger war? you don't take one bite and pull back. that war is still going on testimony yeah, that's right. kristen pointed out a lot of risks here. it's one thing to say we'll have limited strikes, protect the humanitarian mission. that can go wrong in many ways. think about an f-18 going down, a pilot being captured. if those things happen we are in a different ball game. we don't want to be sucked into a war with isis in the middle east. that's for the iraqis, the

peshmerga of kurdistan. >> do they want to say let's watch the fight? >> i hope the peshmerga at least, they have been regarded as one of the best fighting forces in the region. i understood from the uh news report before i came in, you may know more that they may have actually freed 11,000 of those people driven from their villages now and overrun some of the isis positions. i don't know if that's legit or not. it would be a good sign if it were true. >> the kurdish army has been respected for a long time like the turkish army. any news that there was a successful military operation near erbil. in fact, in freeing people, allowing them to break out from captivity on the hill in sinjar. >> the white house hasn't given an update on the ground at this

hour, chris. i checked in moments ago. i can tell you their broader strategy in addition to firing the air strikes to increasing military support to the fighters. >> right. >> as ron pointed out, they are among the strongest fighters there in that territory. there was a fair amount of surprise by the fact that they were treated so quickly. and the hope is that those air strikes will give them time to basically reconvene, get stronger and rearm, chris? >> thank you for coming in on a friday night during a war, it looks like. ron reagan, i want to hear more next time. a little short tonight. up next, the reaction from congress to the air strikes in iraq. two coming here, one democrat, one republican. so we're all set? yyyup. with xfinity internet your family can use all their devices at once. works anywhere in the house. even in the garage. max what's going on? we're doing a tech startup. we're streamlining an algorithm.

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congressman dana rohrabacher, from california, who sits on the house foreign relations committee. gentlemen, thank you. let's start with congressman rohrabacher. your sense of this mission as it's been defined, are you supportive of this decision to try to hold off the isis forces from basically committing genocide to start with? >> well, obviously the president is to be commended for sending humanitarian support. the food, the water, to prevent people from starving or dying of thirst. and also, commendable to prevent them from being annihilated by people who are armed and they are unarmed people. but let's take a look, and a limited sense that he knows he has to use some american military support, but that should be very limited, and les remember that this crisis has been brought on because this president has not had a coherent policy in that part of the world. we end up not supplying our friends. we have withheld support from

the kurds for a long time, just like this administration is withholding aid from sissi in egypt that the egyptian government -- this crisis has been brought on by this administration. >> i accept that assessment. your assessment. what has been the rationale from the white house for not aiding the kurds sufficiently? do they want them to be part of the united government in baghdad? is that's what their argument was? >> you could hear it in the president's speech last night. his idea of how he's going to solve this is get everybody in the same room and agree to a government they can all agree on. that type of policy does not work. we should be supporting those elements that are pro-american, and if we would have supported the kurds, let them become a national entity, you would have had the sunnis and the shiites creating their national entity and that would have created stability. >> so, coincidentally, not bipartisan observation, but coincidentally, you're where biden is, let him split up, let him be three different countries. >> that's correct.

it's unfortunate this president has this idea that we're going to get everybody in a room and sing kumbaya and hold hands. >> fair enough. >> and that's going to create some kind of peace in that area. >> that's a good argument. >> they're suffering because we have not had a coherent policy of supporting those elements that are pro-american in that part of the world. >> john garamendi, your view of the whole thing in terms of trying to focus it on the situation, the humanitarian aid, you know, dana rohrabacher said we have to do something right now. it's the larger questions that haven't been figured out here. >> well, certainly true, but we have an immediate humanitarian crisis, potential for genocide, and the president is doing exactly what he should do and what i believe americans want him to do. that is to provide the humanitarian support in every way possible, and to prohibit or prevent any genocide that might be in the future. that's the appropriate way to go. >> can we do it with the pinprick attacks, knocking out a couple personnel carriers? we're dealing with zealots willing to die for god, determined to kill or be killed.

stop when we stop them with the sniper attack basically on them. it's not an all-out assault on them at all. >> well, the other option, put another 150,000 troops back into iraq, no way, no how. this is going to have to be worked out in that area by the people in that area. ster certainly the kurds have a great interest in seeing isis prevented from getting any closer, and involvement in their area. shiites likewise. the sir rounding countrying, jordan and the rest of them. all of them have a very severe threat, and, yes, we ought to get all of them in a room. kumbaya is not the right song. we better come together, together with those that have an interest in that area, and get to work on trying to prevent this radical group from taking over. that's what we have -- >> i was not talking about -- i was not talking about getting all of those other powers in the room. that, i agree with 16 100%. i'm talking about getting everybody in iraq in one room and suddenly then they're going

to find a consensus. >> congressman rohrabacher, do you think that the kurds will defend their city, defend irbil? will they fight for it in the next couple days? >> sure, they will. we need to make sure they have the ammunition which we have denied them. we have supported a pro-mull la regime in kabul, in baghdad. >> people hear your argument. i think people figure the argument out. i think we have to help the kurds. thank you, congressman john guer garamendi. and congressman dana ror bara r rohrabacher. a great speechwriter for ronald reagan. we'll be right back after this. from the pros. find more real possibilities at aarp.org/possibilities. machines will be sprayed to be made. and making something stronger... will mean making it lighter.

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that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. with the all "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening, from ari melber in for chris hayes with special coverage of now new operations in iraq. air strikes on multiple isis positions in northern iraq. this is the first direct u.s. military action in the country since 2011. now, in a moment we'll hear directly from a top obama administration official about theest plus reaction from senator chris murphy and former democratic party chair, howard dean. first, though, let me give you a rundown of what we have. shortly after 10:00 a.m. according to the pentagon, dropped missiles on an artillery position that isis was using near