Left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald raised questions on Fox News Tuesday about the media’s insistence that President Donald Trump has to go to war with Syria over Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons.
WATCH:
Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out Tuesday night that he is being attacked for expressing skepticism that it would be useful or strategic for the United States to get involved in Syria. Greenwald joined The Daily Caller co-founder on his show to discuss why the media is trying to silence debate on the issue.
Greenwald noted that one of the few times the media praised Trump was when he struck Syria about a year ago after the last chemical attack attributed to the Assad regime. The Intercept reporter said their praise was an expression of the Washingtonian idea that it is “powerful” and “presidential” to attack other countries.
“That’s what U.S. presidents in their eyes do,” Greenwald explained. “They just drop bombs on other countries with no declaration of war and no reason why U.S. interests or the U.S. borders are at stake when it happens.”
Carlson agreed with that sentiment, but added that is is the job of journalists to push back against a “heedless rush toward anything.”
“Just about every name that you mentioned in the media who attacked you for raising questions about whether or not we ought to actually go and bomb another country are essentially neocons,” Greenwald argued, noting that the same people made arguments for war post-9/11.
“You’re just supposed to cheer when it comes time to drop bombs on other countries, not ask whether there’s evidence to justify it, not ask whether it will do any good, not ask whether it will kill any civilians, and if you do ask those questions it means you’re on the side of America’s enemies,” he asserted. “It’s an incredibly authoritarian tactic that gets used to suppress debate.”