Moyers & Company — Season 1, Episode 8: Moving Beyond War

Episode synopsis

Nine years after Baghdad erupted in “shock and awe,” we’re once again hearing in America the drumbeat for war in the Middle East. Now, the bull’s-eye is on Iran. But what we need more than a simple change of target is a complete change in perspective, says Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran-turned-scholar who’s become one of the most perceptive observers of America’s changing role in the world. This week, on an all-new Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers and Bacevich explore the futility of “endless” wars, and provide a reality check on the rhetoric of American exceptionalism. “Are we so unimaginative, so wedded to the reliance on military means that we cannot conceive of any way to reconcile our differences with groups and nations in the Islamic world, and therefore bring this conflict to an end?” Bacevich tells Moyers. Bacevich also answers the question of whether Iran is a direct threat to America with a definitive no.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1On Winner-Take-All Politics
• E2Crony Capitalism
• E3How Big Banks are Rewriting the Rules of Our Economy
• E4How Do Conservatives and Liberals See the World?
• E5Economic Malpractice and the Millennials
• E6Decoding the Campaigns
• E7Where Movies End and Politics Begins
• E9Standing Up For Democracy
• E10Gambling With Your Money
• E11An Optimist for Our Times
• E12The Case for Old-School Faith & Politics
• E13Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble