reps of 30 other nations are in paris providing a united front in the global fight against isis. >> i can tell you right here and now that we have countries in this region, countries outside of this region, in addition to the united states, all of whom are prepared to engage in military assistance and actual strikes, if that is what it requires. >> addinging momentum to the international push, the beheading of british aid worker david haines at the hands of a fellow brit working for isis and threats to kill another brit, henning. >> we will hunt down those responsible and bring them to justice, no matter how long it takes. we cannot ignore this threat to our security and that of our allies. >> we're starting to learn details of what our allies are pledging in this fight. the uk and france are running recon missions over iraq. the aussies are sending 60 on ground troops. saudis will help train rebels with german arming them.

arab allies are letting u.s. fighter jets use their air bases. but turkey is still holding out, pledging its nato bases for humanitarian and logistical advice only. >> we want to make sure their commitment matches what's actually needed and that we're not duplicating efforts. >> neither iran nor syria, two nations with troops already on the ground fighting isis are allowed to join the coalition. richard engel says we're crazy if we think we can keep them out. >> they're living in a delusion. if the air strikes happen, assad is going to benefit. it's assad's forces and iran's forces who are going to move in and take that territory. so, we can say, assad is so awful we can't even have them at the same conference. he can't even sit at the same table but we can carry out air strikes for him and allow him to reconquer his country? that's a fundamental contradiction, one of many contradictions that will emerge the deeper they dig into this.

>> leading up to u.n. general assembly meetings this week in new york. this new nbc news poll showing americans support obama's decision to take on isis, even though they doubt we'll see mission accomplished. >> isil no longer threats our friends in the region, no longer threatens the united states. >> more on the poll coming up with a live report from the white house. and a look inside the militants' strategy from the man who advised both bush and obama on iraq security measures. first to london with christian carl, senior fellow, which co-publishes democracy lab with foreign policy. his latest piece on these militants is called "license to kill: never underestimate the power of rage." to that point there was a quote in "the new york times" from maliki's minister of reconciliation. he says the culture of iraqis

does not go for forgiveness. we go for revenge. i feel that sense of revenge against arab leaders and guest the wednesday is fueling isis more than religious ideology. >>. >> yes, i think you're right. i think that desire for revenge is a very powerful motivating force. the west underestimates that at its own peril. >> you talk about democracy's role in helping to aleve that in some places up. say rage and injustice exist everywhere. democracy don't claim to eliminate them. what they can aspire to do is offer practical solutions, preferably without people getting killed. the piece i was curious about is we tried the whole democracy building thing in iraq. it has not worked out so well. what are other ways we can get at the root cause of rage without trying to build democracies from scratch where

the institutions really don't exist and where you have very fractured societies. >> hey, that's a great question. i think one of the most effective approaches is one that secretary of state kerry and president obama have been advocating in the case of iraq, which is greater participation. one of the reasons we've had this process of radicalization in iraq is because the shia-dominated -- shy heigh shiito-dominated government has eliminated others from government. that's one thing that's driven them into the arms of isis. >> we've had a number of experts on the show talking about this. one thing they all seem to agree on is in order to defeat isis, you need more than air strikes. you need boots on the ground. the big question remains, if it's not our boots, whose boots are they and how do we persuade other nations if we're not willing to do the very same

thing? >> i think one of the ideas is that some of the boots on the ground should come from those in the region, particularly in iraq, the kurdish forces fighting isis right now. that's a very big question. i really don't think you can defeat a grub like isis without a coherent political strategy and without boots on the ground. this idea that air strikes are going to solve everything is a fantasy. >> right. and so let's extend that fantasy out. you have secretary of state kerry saying now, look, we can get air strikes from other nations in the region. that's what we're going to do. we played our own richard engel talking about the contradictions here because it redowns potentially to assad's benefit. in your view, what happens if it is several countries limited to air strikes and no real ground operation? >> i think what you could get then is a sort of halfway solution where you push isis back, degrade them, limit their

ability to conquer new territory but you don't defeat them. i think the real problem, to defeat isis in the way president obama has talked about, you really need to have a big force on the ground that will challenge them and go in after them. and at the moment, i don't see the political will to do that really from anyone. >> it's interesting you say you don't see the political will because surely they are beheading folks publicly to try to make it hard for nations like america and great britain and france to say no, to not go in and fight them. so, does beheading one and maybe soon another british citizen try to strengthen that coalition from our side? >> well, that's a good question. i'm here in london at the moment. it's been quite remarkable since the killing of the british hostage how intensely british public opinion seems to have been -- seems to have risen as a result of that. even as i listen to people talk about this on talk radio or

different shows, it's been very apparent there is no particular interest in seeing regiment of british troops land in syria to take on isis or land in iraq. i kind of think those days are over. what one does hear is a willingness to use special forces, special operations, perhaps to direct air strikes from the ground. i really haven't heard anyone say, we need to invade iraq the way we did at the site of the americans in 003 and go back in and re-establish an alliance that will gorchlg the country. that's not what i've heard at all. >> one thing i haven't heard that i would like to hear is people saying, hey, let's try to cut off their ability to sell oil. these folks are making upwards of $3 million or $4 million a day selling oil from oil fields they've stolen. we can know who they're selling oil to in iraq and syria and other places. probably in africa and maybe in asia. can't we stop them from selling

oil to folks who we know? >> well, richard engel mentioned some contradictions in this new coalition. he's absolutely right. there are going to be a lot of very serious contradictions and hair doctio paradoxes. one of the biggest is they sell their oil through turk y one of our major allies in the region, a fairly dependable ally, but they have basically given isis and other rebels in syria a lot of support by allowing them to do things like this. i think one of the thins washington is going to be watching carefully is will the turks shut that down because that's how isis is getting a lot of its financing at the moment. there aren't a lot of different ways for isis to get its oil to the markets. really turkey is it. if the turks can shut that down, that might actually help a lot. >> the importance of turkey in all of this. thank you for your time, christian carl. breaking news, nfl star adrian peterson is speaking out about the charge of injury to a child that is against him. in a new statement posted on twitter just minutes ago.

the running back wrishgts i want everyone to understand how sorry i feel about the hurt i have brought to my child. i never wanted to be a distraction to the vikings organization, the minnesota community or to my teammates. have i to live with the fact that when i disciplined my son the way i was disciplined as a child, i caused an injury that i never intended or thought would happen. the vikings head coach is also briefing on the team's decision to keep peterson on the field this hour. we'll have much more on the nfl later as "the cycle" continues. it's monday, september 15th. you can eat that on weight watchers? looks amazing. looks like my next dinner party. that's only 4 points? with weight watchers you can enjoy the food you really want. dine out on favorites... or cook up something new. i can do this every day. join for free and start losing weight now. learn how to eat healthier, while enjoying the foods you love.

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the white house is starting with a mixed bag regarding the fight against isis. more than two-thirds support the president's efforts in the strategy he outlined last wednesday. not so good, not even a third expect those efforts to be successful. there are hearings scheduled in both chambers to assess the isis threat. tonight the house rules committee. the cr will include a white house request for money to help train syrian rebel fighters. nbc's kristin welker is at the white house. certainly a lot on the line this week. what is the latest there? >> reporter: there is so much on the line that a senior administration official tells me president obama will be reaching out to individual lawmakers throughout the week to press them to pass that legislation that you just talked about, that piece of legislation, which

would include funding to arm and train the syrian opposition forces. of course, this is not something we see every day. president obama reaching out to lawmakers. but he began this process last week after he addressed the nation and mapped out his strategy for defeating isis. of course, something else we don't see regularly here in washington, you have a number of republican leaders saying that they are behind president obama on this. they believe passing this legislation, arming and training the syrian rebel army is the right thing to do. i was talking to my sources on capitol hill that believes the legislation is going to pass with bipartisan support. as you pointed out, the process begins today. in this town, of course, anything can happen. all of this is going on, while secretary of state john kerry continues his efforts to build a broad international coalition to defeat isis. they are asking for other countries to join in the air campaign and also for those regional countries to put troops

on the ground to try to defeat isis. a lot of military officials, though, are going to say it's going to be tough to achieve that without u.s. boots on the ground. the white house continues to insist that's not going to happen. here's what white house press secretary josh earnest had to say during his press conference a short time ago. >> i can say definitively the president has ruled out sending american boots on the ground to be engaged in a combat role in iraq and syria. the strategy the president has put forward to deal with the threat posed by isil in iraq and syria is different from the strategy put in place in advance of the last conflict in iraq. >> reporter: senior administration officials said over the weekend that the white house had gotten commitments from several arab countries to join in the air campaign. today during the daily briefing, earnest wouldn't name those countries specifically. back to you. >> thank you so much as always. let's turn now to the national journal and staff correspondent -- to train and

arm the syrian rebels. of course, republican leadership getting on board with something hasn't always meant a whole lot in the republican caucus. do you think that this time the republican caucus is going to fall in line with john boehner and the majority of them back this proposal? >> you know, it looks to me, just from my discussions with members of congress last week, into the weekend, they will back this eventually. there was a lot of skepticism and there was a lot of questions about procedure, about how exactly they're going to bring this up. as we noted, the rules committee is going to drop this language tonight and it looks like it's going to be voted on as early as wednesday. >> yeah. well, krystal mentioned that poll earlier in the segment. almost the same percentage of americans that say they support the president's fight against isis also lack of confidence we

will actually achieve our goals. isn't this a pretty clear indication that after 9/11, americans think about the war on terror rationally. they know the reality of the threat but they also know how difficult it is to achieve successes. it's not going to be a three-month mission. >> i think you're absolutely right. the fact is americans are war-weary after more than a decade of sinking blood and treasury into the middle east. and the fact that the region is as unstable today as it ever was. there's a lack of good options here. first of all, we don't know who the free syrian army is. whether arming them would be a good idea. there's a lot of geopolitical problems that come with bombing iraq and syria as well. and i think there's recognition of all those things in the american public. >> i'm glad to see americans are behind what obama wants to do, vis-a-vis isis. part of me says, so what? should the white house actually care what the public has to say, vis-a-vis military action?

this is an area where the differential between what the public actually knows and what the white house and the insiders actually know is more gigantic than anyone where else. wouldn't we like to see the white house make these military decisions based on intel and the national security briefings rather than polling and what the public knows? >> well, if they're doing it unilaterally, sure. but the fact is, they need -- they believe they need congressional authorization for this move to arm the syrian rebels. as we know, congress is very much swayed by public opinion. only a couple weeks ago there was absolutely zero willingness to do anything in isis, bombing, arming, any of that. ever since the polls changed, the polling numbers you mentioned earlier in the show, congress is now completely on board and, like i said, later on this week we're going to have that vote. >> i mean, a lot of the polls we look at ask people what they want to have happen.

sometimes it's more illuminating to see what people think about this. you did an interesting survey on this, asking simply, what countries have we been bombing lately? when you ask that, you only get 25% of people that realize we've been bombing somalia or pakistan. only 16% realize we've been bombing yemen. this a statement about our foreign policy. th people can't even keep track. i wonder what it matters when we ask them who else we should bomb when they don't realize how much we're already doing. >> good point. but americans know there's still a lot of fear. a lot of the questions about isis go to the fact that if we allow it to metastasize, they'll have the capability or build it up to strike us in the homeland. that's what member -- >> maybe. maybe that. that could be a strategic reason. or maybe people are angry they beheaded americans and maybe we

want something back. maybe that's not a good strategic reason. mrab we don't have a full plan worked out. we just want to hit back. >> fair point. i think the same polling showed about 95% of americans know who james foley is. that would make it the biggest news story of the summer it was clearly tied to the public executions of the two journalists. now a british humanitarian aid worker who was most recently beheaded. americans are angry. the problem is, like i said earlier, there's just not a great strategy and not a great answer. >> seems to be some public recognition of that. thank you so much. up next, is isis's strategy about to backfire? what is their strategy? we'll get into the minds of the terrorist with a former top adviser to both presidents obama and bush. and coming up, the vikings are right now defending their decision to put adrian peterson back on the field despite an indictment for injuring his child while disciplining his 4-year-old. the nfl on trial and more coming

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weave spoken extensively about the u.s. strategy against isis. counterterror expert and retired doug olivant lays out his four-point plan. he's now senior fellow at new america foundation after serving under both the bush and obama national security councils as their director for iraq. welcome back to the show, sir. it seems to me. >> good afternoon. >> -- that isis is beheading westerners publicly to make it politically untenable for us not to go to war, to not want to fight them. and they want the fight over there because it strengthens their message that, hey, come be with us to repel foreign invaders. is that how you read it? >> i'm not sure they really understood what they were getting into when they started beheading westerners. i'm not sure that isis wants us there. i think that isis may have made

some real tactical errors here. had they not conducted these beheadings and had they not conducted these humanitarian atrocities against the yazidis in the north, a war-weary american public might have been able to let this one go. instead, they really galvanized americans, as you were saying early. while i think americans are still war-weary, isis managed to raise the bar to the point where, as you're polling shows, americans are willing to move forward on this. >> just to give people a sense, according to the cia, isis now has 31,000 fighters. more fighters than actually many countries. if we can show a list of countries that have fewer fighters than isis. this puts it in perspective. talk about a huge wake-up call. this is not going up just against a terror group. this is a full-on army. >> it is, in many ways. they have advanced weaponry.

they have incredible discipline. the al qaeda in iraq that isis evolved from, that many american soldiers are familiar with having fought against it in the early part of the iraq war, we used to talk about them. they were great terrorists. they were great bomb makers, great kidnappers. if you could get them in a fire fight they would die because they were terrible infantry. the war in syria has changed that. now this group has incredible discipline. they're flush with cash, idealogically motivated, well armed, well equipped. they're a real threat in the region. i don't want to make them ten foot tall. they're not equivalent of a u.s. marine squad but effective, nonetheless. >> they're effective at using social media for global propaganda purposes. twitter and other social media flat forms seem to be wise on them, cracking down on accounts associated with isis. in june the main isis account had 5,000 plus followers. twitter us suspended all their

pages, making it much more difficult for them to freely disseminate their propaganda. how dependent on social media are they for bringing in all these new recruits? >> well, they're dependent on all of modern media. they use social media but just like any other campaign. if tomorrow we didn't let ford motor company, say, advertise on twitter, they would find other avenues to get to their customer base. they're not stupid. neither is isis. they have english language magazines they publish. i was, in fact, quoted in one. >> wow. >> if you've seen their videos, they're madison avenue production style. this isn't two guys in their basement putting a soundtrack on something. this is professionally done, western production values. they're very capable. >> yeah. and you've written about that and how they are distinct. you say that isis is a new and novel form of malignant terrorism, on behalf of a

self-proclaimed sovereign state. yet that analysis doesn't answer the strategic question of when we have to act and intercede. you can think of -- admitly different but other terrorist style organizations that have foot d footholds, hezbollah, what do you think is the pinpointed reason, the lever or the -- basically, what they've done that necessities u.s. action in a way that, for example, hamas has not? >> i think what necessities u.s. action is they've shown they're willing to threaten all our allies in the region. i think what really woke up u.s. policymakers was less the beheadings and less the atrocities. those are certainly things that concern us and certainly gavel niz the public. but it was the islamic state making that left turn and attacking up toward erbil. before that we could have just characterized this as a civil war inside these two countries. sunni groups rebelling against

ali aloite, against the kurds. this is something very, very different and now we're starting to see them probe the border of lebanon. we've heard them threaten jordan, threaten saudi arabia. even if you don't care about iraq and syria, we care about all the neighbors countries. we can't afford chaos in all of these countries simultaneously, which the islamic state threatens to do. >> they have to feel incredibly emboldened right now. they've taken tons of territory, getting in thousands of recruits, tons of money. if you are isis looking at the future, what is the thing you are most nervous, most afraid of? >> i think what they're most afraid of is exactly what is happening. the united states putting together a coalition of local partners and em poiring them by giving them more intelligence, more air power, by us coordinating their planning and making groups that wouldn't ordinarily work together, work together.

isis has brought this on themselves. i often use the analogy, you know, the old fairytale about the progress and the scorpion, you know, the progress -- the scorpion wants to cross the river. the frog thinks and says, as long as the scorpion is on my back. he's just going to drown in the river if he stings me. halfway across the river the scorpion stings his back the frog says, why did you do that? he says, that's my nature. isis is going to do what they do. they'll do things not to their immediate tactical benefit. >> love that story. thank you very much. up next, a different kind of crisis. ebola emergency. the president travels to cdc tomorrow for top-level briefing as one official says the outbreak is spiraling out of control. right now the minnesota vikings are on defense. explaining their division to play star running back adrian peterson. he's just one of four high-profile gender-violent

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for as low as $7.50. use sis is not the only crisis the president is confronting this week. tomorrow the president will travel to cdc headquarters in atlanta for update on spiraling ebola outbreak that has killed 2400 and sickened 5,000 in africa alone. this week the white house is pushing congress for an additional $88 million for drugs and personnel dispatch to the epicenter of the outbreak in west africa. todd moss, serving as deputy assistant secretary of state from 2007 to 2008. he's written a new novel called "the golden hour" that reveals as much about how washington works with african nation as it does about the life on the ground there. thank you for being with us. ebola sort of became an

afterthought after the '90s when we sort of figured out how to deal with it. we are now dealing with the worst ebola outbreak in history. it's more reminiscent of a movie than it is reality. how is this spiralled out of control so quickly? >> well, i think the ebola crisis highlights how some fragile countries that are close to u.s. allies are going to continue to need u.s. assistance. and also american lives, which seem far away from africa, we're much more interbetweened with africa than we think. it's not only for bad reasons. a lot is for positive things going on. >> what more can the united states do that we're not doing to help them? >> it's clear countries like liberia, a very close u.s. ally, are going to need a lot of quick assistance. they don't have the systems in place to contain it. they look to the united states for help and, frankly, we've been too slow in getting off the dime to help them. >> the continent of africa has grown immensely over the last few years. it's supposed to continue to

grow the next few decades from just over 1 billion now to almost 2.5 billion in the few decades. but they have not economically grown. there's an immense amount of poverty. are those two factors, the growing population, the widespread poverty, having a huge impact on this? >> you know, africa actually is a very positive economic story right now. more than half of the countries are growing at at least 5%. we would be happy to grow at 2% this year. they're growing 5%, 6%, some countries are growing nearly 10% a year. that is creating lots of economic opportunities for the united states. identify been working on africa the last 25 years. i've never seen the last two or three years where businesses now are fighting over themselves to try to find investment opportunities in africa. >> that is exciting. in addition to the ebola outbreak we see extreme ideology. there was news that police in

uganda say they explosives on a raid on al shabab. are there concern if these sorts of threats under tamed will undermine the bright future for africa? >> just as the economic picture is very bright, the flip side is that the security situation is looking problematic in some places. the horn of africa in the east, sahara desert are areas where extremist groups, where we've hit them in the middle east, they popped up in these other regions. that's another region we'll are more engaged in africa than ever before. >> with your experience, what is it like within the state department, if you are, say, an under-secretary for one of these regions that we often think of as neglected, if we have ideas and you want to get ahead of these problems? because i imagine the people working day to day could have told us about this stuff earlier, before it was a crisis, before it was in the news. we hear about africa being -- no offense to your prior position,

but lower priority of the state department. >> it's true that africa historically has been lower on the foreign policy ladder than, say, the middle east or asia. it had been rising. president clinton elevated africa. president bush elevated africa within the hierarchy. that fell off, surprisingly, under president obama. we're starting to see that come back because of the economic trends. companies want the u.s. involved and because of the new national security threats. we're seeing it come back up. day to day you're fighting in the trenches because there are a lot of issues on the president's plate. secretary of state is putting out a lot of fires. but we're the united states government. we can walk and chew gum at the same time. we can be active in asia and the middle east and support our national interests in africa. >> you know, you deal with africa for years, decades as you have. we talk about it as one place. but it is a gigantic continent. there are many, many countries, many different challenges. what's going on in southern africa is not what's going on in eastern africa, western africa. just to get americans to think

about it as many different places would be valuable. >> absolutely. i mean, it's kind of like saying, you know, there's problems in ferguson, missouri. therefore, i'm not going to go visit new york city. that would be crazy to an american. but, you know, i've heard of people canceling their trip to ken, yeah a saf farry in kenya because of ebola outbreak thousands of miles on the other side of the continent. there are still problems in africa, absolutely. but most of the continent is actually doing extremely well right now. >> i'm sure, todd, as someone who loves the continent of africa, it must be frustrating to you that the only time it seems like americans think about the country is when they're thinking about a terrorist threat or an ebola outbreak. what would you want folks to know about the africa that you know and love? >>. >> it's remarkable how quickly the narrative on africa is changing. i think just in the last couple of years, we're seeing a lot more people visit africa. i'm sure this ebola will put a little brakes on that temporarily. but the business community

interests, the national security community interests and really pop culture is starting to embrace africa in a way we haven't seen before. >> tell us about your novel. >> so, when i left -- >> i hear it's doing pretty well. >> thank you. it is doing well. i think it's doing great. right when i left the state department, i wanted to write a story about dysfunction in the u.s. government, in making foreign policy in the 21s century. these crises pop up all over the world. we seem to react slowly. we seem not to make good decisions. i started writing a nonfiction book and i thought, i could reach a wider audience with a thriller so i wrote "the golden hour". >> has hollywood called yet? >> we're talking with folks in california. we're hopeful. >> do you feel you can sort of tell the truth in a way more bluntly and more honestly in fiction since you're not directly attacking people than in some ways if you did a work of nonfiction? >> believe it or not, the reality is crazier than what you could imagine in fiction. >> i believe it.

>> but, you know, in thinking about the kinds of stories i'd want to tell, i wanted them to feel authentic, particularly to people in government that felt so frustrated with all the interagency fighting. but i thought doing it through fiction i could tell more stories, it would be authentic and also i wouldn't have to worry -- >> let's give you a "cycle" tip because we have a big author at the table. toure has done several books. he goes in on amazon as several different people and comments how great his book is. >> is that what's going on? >> i highly recommend that, that you are telling the world how great your book is. no, we could have a major conversation about how truth you can get into in fiction and nonfiction. entirely -- is "catcher in the rye" truthful? absolutely. >> that's my favorite book. i think it's sarin dip to us here on "the cycle" but one of the main characters is pop pa toure. >> that's my nickname. that's the funniest thing.

>> always comes back to toure. >> great to have you back. >> todd moss, thank you for being here. congratulations again on the book. up next, the vikings put adrian peterson back in the game. what they're saying about that decision this hour. that is next. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

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disciplining his 4-year-old son. he writes, quote, i'm not a perfect parent but i am, without a doubt, not a child abuser. i am someone that disciplined his child and didn't intend to cause him any injury. no one can understand -- and for the harm i caused him. he was not allowed to play in yesterday's game but vikings announced peterson will be back on the field and play next son. rick spielman defended the decision just moments ago. >> we're trying to do the right thing. this is a difficult path to navigate. regarding the judgment of how a parent disciplines his child. based on the extensive information that we have right now, and what we know about adrian not only as a person, but what he has also done for this community, we believe he deserves to play while the legal process plays out. >> also today, former baltimore ravens running back ray rice is expected to appeal his

indefinite suspension from the nfl. rice was released by his team and released hours after that tmz sports video was released of rice hitting his then-fiancee in an elevator. joining us columnist for bloomberg. how are you? >> good. >> we played a little bit. they also say, look, this is a matter of due process. we should allow the legal system to proceed so we can come to the most effective conclusions and then determine the appropriate course of action. what's wrong with that? >> this is a common tactic the league likes to take. the collective bargaining agreement in which they agreed with the players what their discipline should be and they wait for the criminal justice system to play out. the problem is the teams are not beholden to that. the team can make their own action and probably made the right decision when they sat him on sunday. adrian peterson should send a

thank you basket to new england patriots for giving the vikings the rubbing they got because that's probably why he'll be back on the field sunday. >> and to that part, part of the reason the story is getting the attention is because of what's going on, part of ray rice, and part is because a drdrian peter is a superstar, he's on the tickets, on the parking passes, they're getting a new stadium in part because he's such a tremendous player. how much of that goes into this decision? if he was some second-stringer they felt they didn't need in the game, do you think he'd be playing on sunday? >> absolutely not. i think especially given what the league is going through right now with ray rice, they probably would have made a smarter decision when it comes to that. but you're right, the vikings can't really bench the face of their organization. and, you know, let's not forget also adrian peterson pretty much drives what is a $70 billion fantasy football market here.

here's a fan favorite. and even the team said themselves, we know him as a person. this is something the ravens said about ray rice as well. somehow, we know the man and even all of this evidence is ab secured in that. >> you make it sound like he's too big to fail. teams at all levels from high school up to pros talk about having pride in the uniform and pride for the name on the front of the jersey. not just on the back of the jersey. they also talk about working with the community and being part of the community. it's the minnesota vikings, right, not the vikings of minnesota. can they really tell the community, who they are part of, he's supposed to be a brother of the community, that we are proud to put this person out there when we know what he's done? you wonder, too, if teams should have a different standard than the legal system you? talk about how they sort of stand behind the legal system. it almost becomes a sort of dodge the situation when he's admitted what he's done. we've seen photographs. we know what's happened here in a lot -- you know, the legal barrier to get to child abuse

will be much higher but the team, to invite the community and root for this guy, shouldn't that be a different standard? >> it should absolutely be a different standard. we've seen these photos. we know what he's done. we don't need a judge to tell us thatphotos. we know what he's done. we don't need a judge to tell us that he beat his child with a stick and caused these injuries. we're having the wrong conversations about this. this was not a spanking. it's really important to understand that. this was not a normal spanking. we can have conversations about what a normal spanking is. this absolutely went above and beyond that line and i can't believe that we're sitting here with people actually defending him. >> you hear charles barkley say that's what we do in the south. we don't get the culture of the south. i don't think that's what's going on here. >> that's a problematic thing that charles barkley said. he not only brought in the regional and cultural aspect but a racial aspect. to try and paint this as a black and white issue is damaging and

dangerous. >> a lot of black people take it as a point of pride that that's why our kids are better. it's insane. >> he said this is how i know to discipline my kids because this is how i was disciplined. he's basically saying if you read between the lines, this is what my parents did to me and i came out all right. it's an inability to see outside of his own experience that this was wrong and that he was the result of this wrong system of discipline. >> yeah. put the facts aside. the perception of this is really bad and it's really depressing. it seems like every week now you have another superstar that's getting in trouble for doing something terrible like the nfl lets these guys run wild without any sort of discipline. what's sad about this is the games have just started and we have a long way to go here, what does the nfl have to do to get ahead of this? there's a lot of talk about goodell having to step down. even fans are saying the only way to move forward is for him

to be removed. i think that's realistic? >> i don't think that would change anything frankly. the power that's rooted in these 32 owners goes far and above roger goodell. he actually has taken steps today they announced that he promoted a vice-president of i believe a special organization or something -- >> social responsibility. >> social responsibility, thank you. who is a woman and a woman who has been part of their community outreach efforts as well in addition to an advisory board with three women on it. i think that's fantastic. i've been advocating for that for a while. i'm a little skeptical as to the nfl's ability to police itself. so i guess we'll see what happens but i think it's at least a positive step that they're trying to involve more women in this conversation. >> thank you so much. it says here that you're doing a rant up next, from ray rice to isis, the image matters. stay tuned.

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another week, another video of a beheading by those media savvy savages at isis. another video the vast majority of us will never see. our government and media shield us from being able to see anything more than a slide. part of what's so shocking here is we're not used to seeing horrific things happen to american bodies overseas. for the first several years of the iraq war we weren't allowed to see flag-draped coffins so it seemed like a war without american deaths. we're blocked from seeing so much of the cost of war, of the evil of war as if we are too sensitive or squeamish or unable to handle the graphic truth. part of what makes isis so

barbaric is force is us to see how evil war can be, thus breaking the unstated modern contract that war should be conducted largely out of public view. our government seems to say let them see some of it but not the truly messy parts. we learned that in vietnam seeing so much erodes public support. kenneth jareki was in the gulf war who happened man a man frozen in the midst of dying. he said if i don't make pictures like this, people like my mother will think that what they see at war is what they see in movies. so he tookd a graphic photo. you see a man almost frozen in the midst of dying, charred beyond belief. the ap did not transmit his photo, judging it even too much for editors to see. the london observers published it and it ended up in a

traveling museum. but it was one of many images that are kept from us. it's so graphic i can't show it to you now. it's easier to galvanize support for war when the people don't know how bad it is. government censorship of war images, their sanitization of modern war, their ban on letting us see concern things only perpetuat perpetuates the government's ability to have us truly not know. if we're big enough to fight a war, we should be big enough to look at it. we saw the power of violent images in the ray rice situation, a detailed description of the incident got him a minimal suspension. seeing him be violent with her forced the nfl to act. more images are far worse and seeing them could have a powerful impact on all of us. censorship allows us to be numb,

to ignore the costs and the consequences. a soldier wrote, the real grotesqueness is the idea that's been sold to the american public that war can be sterle. susan soulen tag asked is there an antidote to the perennial sdruk seductiveness of horror. i'm afraid of true answer is to show the true horror of war. maybe that way we will know exactly what we are choosing to support or not to support. that does it for the cycle. now with alex wagner starts right now. 26 countries have signed onto the coalition against isis but with no specifics it is unclear what exactly that means. it's monday, september 15th and this is now. >> it's important to strike while the iron is hot here.

>> several arab powers -- >> strength in numbers -- >> a willingness to join with us in this. >> according many countries that don't see eye to eye. >> that terror group showing the brutal murder of a british hostage. >> they are drawing the west into this conflict piece by piece. >> this idea we'll never have boots on the ground to defeat them in syria is fantasy. >> the boots are the ground are inconvenient boots. >> if the u.s. is not going to put ground troops in syria, who will? >> congress is expected to vote as early as tomorrow to train and support the syrian rebels. >> in many ways bombing isis is the easy part. >> there are only bad choices left but the worst choice would be to do nothing. >> the hard question which is i still unanswered is what happens next? the broad coalition against isis in iraq eed