The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 09/05/13

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. So, Congress famously works at this very pretty building, the United States Capitol Building, right? It is straight down the National Mall from the Washington Monument. It`s around the corner from the White House. It has that iconic dome. This is where the floor of the House is. It`s where the floor of the Senate is. It is where some of the work of the U.S. Congress gets done. More of the work of the U.S. Congress gets done, though, not in that building, but instead at the various House office buildings and Senate office buildings. The Senate has three office buildings, and the most well-known of them is this guy. It`s a really big building. It`s really generic looking. It is right in the middle of all the action in downtown D.C. and lots of the work of the United States senate gets done there. And because the building is named after Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois who served in the 1950s and 1960s, his name is never far from anybody`s mind in Washington even today. The Dirksen Senate Office Building named for Everett Dirksen. You ever seen Everett Dirksen? I have always thought he was kind of amazing. Isn`t he? He`s kind of a cross, I`ve always thought, between Fred Schneider from early B52s and my favorite Muppet. Hi, Beaker. But in 1964, the amazing specimen of Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, he was the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. Republicans were in the minority in the Senate. Democrats were the majority there. Democrats also had the White House. In 1964, of course, the president was Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson had become president after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And although LBJ had long been vocally opposed to the expansion of the Vietnam War, even though he had campaigned for office saying he didn`t want to send American boys thousands of miles away to fight a war that Asian boys ought to be fighting for themselves. Even though he had campaigned that way and he had believed the war in Vietnam was a mistake, by 1964, once he was president, LBJ had become convinced despite everything he said before, the war in Vietnam really needed to be expanded. It should have a much greater U.S. involvement. And so, on August 4th, 1964, LBJ made that case to the public in the most dramatic way possible. In a live late night urgent broadcast, President Johnson told the country that the United States Navy had come under attack, in the Gulf of Tonkin just off the coast of Vietnam. President Johnson said there had been open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America and that the United States of America needed to respond to that aggression. It was a compelling case made in a very serious way. Now, in the long run it turned out we got snookered. It turns out the whole Gulf of Tonkin thing didn`t happen the way LBJ said it happened at all. When he said it back in August 1964, Congress fell in line. As soon as the president gave that speech, his own party in the Senate rallied to his side. The number two Democrat in the Senate came out almost immediately after LBJ`s speech and said he supported the president and supported what LBJ wanted to do in Vietnam. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FORMER SEN. HUBERT HUMPHREY (D), MINNESOTA: I, for one, want to say that I don`t think you can be a great power and assume the responsibilities that we do as a free nation for the cause of freedom and run every time somebody starts to draw a bead on you. I think what President Johnson demonstrated last night was the kind of calm, resolute, firmness and decisiveness which will command respect. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: That was Hubert Humphrey, obviously, a Democrat. The Democrats in the Senate lining up behind the president of their own party, President Johnson. But President Johnson, a Democratic president, also got down the line support from the Republican leadership in the Senate, most explicitly in the case of Everett Dirksen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FORMER SEN. EVERETT DIRKSEN (R), ILLINOIS: In the instances that are immediately before us, I think it`s got to be conceded there has been firm and decisive action. Now, who knows what lies ahead, what the dimensions of attack might be and where we go from there and what we do with our larger objectives in Southeast Asia? (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Everett Dirksen for the Republicans, Democrats, the Senate as well, everybody is full bore, no reservations, totally lined up, totally supportive of President Johnson`s plan to essentially triple down on the war in Vietnam. When the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on that Gulf of Tonkin resolution, it was unanimous. It`s 29-0. In the Senate, they had two committees meet together and take a vote. They put the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee together to consider the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. And again, there the vote was totally overwhelming. It was 31-1. Wait a second. Not unanimous before those Senate committees. Unanimous in the House. Not unanimous in the Senate. And then when they took the next step, when the Gulf of Tonkin resolution got out of committee, came up for a full vote on the Senate floor, again, that same guy who voted no in committee voted no again. And for the full floor vote he got a friend. One of the senators from Alaska joined him. So, yes, over in the House, the vote was unanimous on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. It was 416-0. But in the Senate, it was not unanimous. It was 88-2. And the man who stood up and said no, twice, in the Senate, against every prevailing wind in Washington, was an Oregon senator named Wayne Morse. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FORMER SEN. WAYNE MORSE (D), OREGON: Being in the minority never proves that you`re wrong. In fact, history is going to record that Senator Greening and I voted in the interest of the American people this morning when we voted against this resolution. And I`ve held the American people remember what this resolution really is. It`s a resolution which seeks to give the president of the United States the power to make war without a declaration of war. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Oregon Senator Wayne Morse. He was right about that. That was, that vote, right, was 88-2 and he was one of the 2. That vote was the closest that Congress ever got to a declaration of war in the Vietnam War, which cost 50,000 American lives and lasted more than eight years. And not for nothing -- what the Senate was voting on there was technically a response to this supposed incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, which proved in the end to be bullpucky. It was not what the president said it was. It did not happen the way they made up pretext. All of Congress went along with it, but not Oregon Senator Wayne Morse. And as Congress, again, today considers reports of a grave and terrible provocation in a far away place, as a potential justification for American military commitment, that otherwise would not take without that provocation, today, there`s no reason to believe that the claims about chemical weapons use in Syria are as shaky and even made up as reports from the Gulf of Tonkin back in 1964. But the point of the Wayne Morse place in history, the whole heroism of the Wayne Morse story is not actually that he was right. He had not magically disproved the Gulf of Tonkin thing when he said no. The heroism of the Wayne Morse example in history is that he did say no. And our history as a country shows despite the impression you might be getting from reading the beltway media these days, our history as a country shows that again and again, some people can say no even when everybody else says yes. When the war drums beat in Washington, again and again, people do say no. And sometimes they`re all alone when they say it. Sometimes it is Wayne Morse and Senator Greening from Alaska acting alone in 1964. Sometimes, it`s Barbara Lee, alone in 2001. Congresswoman Barbara Lee from California was the one vote in either House of Congress in 2001 two voted against what turned into our 13-year-long war in Afghanistan that we are still in now. In the first Iraq War, the Gulf War of 1991, we look back on now and think of as an easy call, right? One of the good wars. It was super clear what was going to happen there. This aggression will not stand, man. Well, you know what turns out? That was actually a close vote. It was close in the House and it was really close in the Senate. Among the senators who are still around now, who voted no against that, voted no against the first war in Iraq in 1991, were Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Carl Levin. Another man you might have heard from recently named John Kerry, then a senator from Massachusetts. Also a man who`s currently our vice president, Joe Biden. They all voted no on the first gulf war, 47 senators voted no. That does not mean they were always voting no on every use of force. Eight years later in 1999, Bill Clinton was p and wanted to go to war to stop the slaughter in Yugoslavia. Look at how those votes went. On March 23rd of that year, 1999, it was Joe Biden who introduced the resolution to authorize President Clinton to go send those forces to Kosovo. March 23rd, look at the timing here. March 23rd, the Senate votes yes. It was nowhere near unanimous. That was a close vote, too. Joe Biden put up the resolution. The Senate says yes. The very next day, the air strikes start because President Clinton did not wait around for the House to vote on it as well. By the time the House finally did vote on it a month later, they voted n-yes or y-no, or neither really. Look at the House vote which, again, was taken a month after the air strikes already started. House vote was 213-213. It was a direct tie. And that means that resolution did not pass in the House. President Clinton got authorization from the Senate. He did not get from the House. But by the time they took that vote not giving him authorization, air strikes were already under way. President Clinton`s State Department spokesman at the time wrote about that in "The New York Times" this week. He says, when you look back on that use of force, he would argue it`s a legitimate use of force even though it was, quote, "not strictly legal." Of course, the vote that looms largest right now in Washington, even though I think the administration would wish that it didn`t, the vote that looms largest right now is the one that was taken in late 2002 to authorize the second war in Iraq. And, yes, Congress did vote to authorize the use of military force in that war. But a lot of people voted no. Nearly 2/3 of the House Democrats said no to the Iraq war. There were 133 no votes in the House. In the Senate, there were 23 no votes, including a lot of senators who are still there now -- Senator Boxer, Senator Durbin, Leahy, Levin, Mikulski, Patti Murray, Jack Reed, Debbie Stabenow, also the man who holds the seat that used to be Wayne Morse`s seat, Ron Wyden of Oregon. He voted no on the Iraq war. And so, yes, Congress usually votes overall to authorize force when they get around to considering it, but people vote no. Voting no is a thing that happens. Even against the strongest possible prevailing winds. And right now in Washington, there are not the strongest prevailing winds in favor of the U.S. military intervening in Syria. Quite the contrary, lots of different places are doing sort of informal whip counts now where they`re trying to canvass members of the House and members of the Senate to get those members to say how they`re going to vote on Syria, when the full House and Senate have to make decision on these things. People are tracking the likely votes over the course of yesterday and today. And, again, these are unofficial tallies being done by different news organizations. And the debate is not done and there are briefings that are yet to be had, but if you at all have been watching the whip counts, the whip counts evolve over the last couple of days, shows that almost all of the movement is in the direction of not going. All of the momentum is in the direction of no. Most members of Congress say they are undecided, but when they are getting themselves out of the undecided column and they are deciding, they are deciding no by in large. And, you know, none of those counts as official until they officially count the official vote. But if you had to take a snap vote right now, if you have guessed the way this was going to two, if you had to predict it from here, it looks like Congress is going to vote it down. Congress is going to turn down this request to authorize the use of military force -- maybe in the Senate and probably in the House. And that will be added to the fascinating and pretty poorly remembered history of members of Congress saying no to war when they got the chance to say no. But it also becomes a totally unpredictable next chapter. Not for Congress, but for the presidency. If Congress says no, and right now it looks like Congress is going to say no, will those military strikes happen anyway? President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry keep asserting over and over again that they believe they have the right to go on their own even if Congress says no. Are they right? What would that mean? And how uncharted are those waters for us as a country? Joining us is NBC News presidential historian, Michael Beschloss. Mr. Beschloss, it`s great to see you. Thank you so much for being here. MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: My pleasure, Rachel. Can I add something else to the Wayne Morse tradition of members of Congress saying no? MADDOW: Please? BESCHLOSS: There was a congressman from my home state of Illinois in 1847 who spoke out against the Mexican-American War named Abraham Lincoln. And there had been as you well known and written about it was said by President Polk, there was an unprovoked attack by Mexicans on American territory. Lincoln said show me the spot where that happened. That`s how Lincoln first came to the American public. MADDOW: We -- it`s interesting, we remember presidents as associated with various wars. We don`t necessarily associate congressional action and congressional votes with wars with some exceptions. It seems to me from an originalist reading of the Constitution that Congress has the power to declare war. We don`t usually declare war anymore. Is there clarity, either in history or in law, about what it means for the congress to not authorize the use of military force? If the president asks them to and they say no, is that binding? BESCHLOSS: The Founders would be horrified because when they were writing the Constitution, one of the things they were worried most about was that this new office of the presidency that they were creating, it would become like the kings of Europe or the dictators where, you know, the old European leaders would generate wars that were not necessary and take the nation into these wars. Kill a lot of people. They didn`t want our president to do that sort of thing. They very specifically said it`s the Congress that should have the power to declare war. Yet you look through American history, 200 years, only five wars have been declared by Congress. I think we fought a few more than that. MADDOW: When you look at the ways that presidents have dealt with bulky Congresses, when they wanted to wage wars that Congress didn`t want them to wage, the things that spring to mind are the Boland amendment during the Reagan administration where Congress knew the president wanted to go to war in Central America or at least join some existing wars in Central America and the Congress wrote a law that would have prevented, at least in law, President Reagan from doing that. He violated that law and secretly got involved in Central America and the Iran/Contra affair. Are there examples of ways presidents have legally or illegally defied Congress` explicit views? BESCHLOSS: Yes, and not only in wars that we would necessarily disapprove of. You go back to 1941, Franklin Roosevelt was desperate to get the United States in a position where we might have to fight against Hitler and the imperial Japanese. This was an isolationist country, very isolationist Congress. And he got into pretty dicey situations in the North Atlantic where there were American vessels that were in pretty grave danger of getting hit by a German sub which would have been terrible, but Roosevelt would have known that would have provided a pretext to get the kind of involvement in World War II that he felt was necessary. MADDOW: How does the war in Iraq, in your view as a historian, how does the Iraq War and the decisions about the Iraq War loom over these decisions being debated by Congress right now? You can sort of see two sides trying to draw different allusions. The people who are saying no keep referencing Iraq. People saying yes keep referencing the Balkans and other ones that maybe put a nicer shine -- BESCHLOSS: Don`t identify with the failure. MADDOW: Yes, exactly. BESCHLOSS: Yes, that`s exactly right. For people who can only remember, who don`t know a lot of history, Iraq needless to say gives people a lot of reason to be skeptical about what they`re told about the reasons that we have to go to war, but you can find those all the way through American history. Mexican War, I mentioned, Spanish-American War, the sinking of the Maine. We were told we had to fight against Spain because of this terrible attack which very likely was not an attack. And you mentioned tonight Gulf of Tonkin resolution. So, all through history, there is a tendency of presidents straining to get a war from Congress that they want. Sometimes in retrospect for good reasons, as I think we both would say about FDR in World War II, but sometimes not. MADDOW: Do you think -- I`m asking you to speculate here -- do you think if President Obama is told no by Congress and he decides to go ahead anyway as he and John Kerry asserted they might, do you -- can you foresee what their historic allusion will be to say there`s precedent for that kind of action? Do you think -- BESCHLOSS: I would be very surprised if they do not mention Kosovo, Kosovo, Kosovo and say this was an effort where Congress did not approve the Kosovo operation. There were 78 days of bombing as part of the NATO operation. They finally won a peace treaty, ended the atrocities by the Serbs in Kosovo. So, that was a successful effort that they have every reason to try to identify this venture with. MADDOW: Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, it`s always great to have you here. Thanks, Michael. BESCHLOSS: Me, too. Thank you, Rachel. And happy fifth anniversary. MADDOW: Oh, thank you. That`s very nice of you to say. I`m all embarrassed. We`re almost five. All right. Two very big gets for our MSNBC lineup happened today. The really big one is that Secretary of State John Kerry made the case for intervention in Syria to our own Chris Hayes today. It was just an epic interview and really important. Another one was that we got an opposing argument from one of Secretary Kerry`s toughest critics who has something to say about this because he knows from what he speaks. He was the chief U.N. weapons inspector leading up to the Iraq war, Hans Blix. We`ve go that exclusively, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: While President Obama made the case for military intervention in Syria to world leaders at the G-20 meeting in Russia and he made that case to American lawmakers on the telephone today. Today, it was Secretary of State John Kerry who made that case to our own Chris Hayes here on MSNBC. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: You know, Senator Chuck Hagel, when he was senator, Senator Chuck Hagel, now secretary of defense, and when I was a senator, we opposed the president`s decision to go into Iraq, but we know full well how that evidence was used to persuade all of us that authority ought to be given. I can guarantee you I`m not imprisoned by my memories of or experience in Vietnam. I`m informed by it, and I`m not imprisoned by my memory of how that evidence was used, I`m informed by it. And so is Chuck Hagel. And we are informed sufficiently that we are absolutely committed to not putting any evidence in front of the American people that isn`t properly vetted, properly chased to grounds, and verified. From the moment that I have been sworn into office, I have been working with our allies, working with the opposition to define the ways in which we can guarantee that weapons are not going to the worst actors out there. The ways in which we can guarantee that the future of Syria will be a Democratic future. But also to guarantee that we are not presenting to the American people the same shoddy intelligence that was presented to the American people back in Iraq, that we do not make that mistake. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: The same shoddy intelligence that was presented to the American people back in Iraq. The debate about attacking Syria is in some part a debate about intelligence. What happened, who did it, and who says? The reason everybody says we can`t have a real international response despite Syria having violated a real international supposed norm, is because Russia and to a lesser extent China won`t go along. They say they are not convinced by the intelligence. At least by what has been presented thus far. Could they be convinced by the intelligence? And if they could, wouldn`t that change everything about the debate we`re having here now and the debate that`s happening around the world? We were able to interview an experienced hand in these matters today to get his input into this debate and his response to some of the arguments made by John Kerry. We asked former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix today about his view of Secretary of State Kerry`s case for war, about what the U.S. says about gathered intelligence. Watch this. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) HANS BLIX, U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: There`s always a suspicion that reports from national intelligence will be colored by the particular interests of the countries. And Secretary Kerry recognized this was eminently so in the case of the Iraq affair. I think, I have a lot of respect for national intelligence. I also found in the case of Iraq the question marks that they had added to their reports were changed into exclamation marks by the politicians. So they are somewhat cautious. I think the best is to combine the two -- the U.N. inspectors go there into the place, and they are invited. They do it entirely legally. The U.S. and other nations, they may use spies and they use bugging and intercepting of telephone calls. I remember well Colin Powell played an intercepted telephone call in Iraq, and, of course, it was phony. And we now also hear about the intercepted telephone calls, and I`ve seen the intelligence report as put out to the public and they simply state that they can conclude with high degree of confidence, et cetera, et cetera, but they don`t really go into the -- show the evidence because they don`t want to reveal anything about the sources. I think the U.N. is much more transparent. The international spaces are more transparent. So, the U.N. can go to places where spies cannot go. The U.N. doesn`t have any satellites of its own and they don`t have any interception. Both are needed. Both should be judged by the court which is the Security Council. I think that the world should await the report of the impartial and professional U.N. inspectors. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Should wait. The world should wait for the impartial and international U.N. inspectors. So, in other words, Hans Blix, without disrespecting American intelligence says he sees value in combining and presenting everything that can be known about the alleged chemical attack in Syria, and that is the only hope for any action in Syria that is an international action. Coming up, the idea of acting in Syria without the United States military. Please stay tuned. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: When the movie "Argo" won the Academy Award for best picture this year, the surprise presenter, the person who announced to the world that "Argo" had won was the first lady, Michelle Obama, dressed in her red carpet best. A beautiful strapless silvery gown for the Oscars. Now, memorize this picture. You can see her gown. You can see her head. You can see that she has arms and shoulders. Memorize what that looks like because when the news of Michelle Obama presenting this award was reported in the country that "Argo" was about, this is not what Michelle Obama looked like in that news coverage. No. Yes, see, in the Iranian news coverage of Michelle Obama presenting that best picture award, Iran drew sleeves on her. The semiofficial -- see -- yes. The semiofficial Iranian media decided it was not appropriate to show Michelle Obama`s arms so this picture is basically photo-shop. Today, something else amazing happened involving Iran and computers and what we might call the grasp on reality, except this time, it was really good news. This time it might even have been the best new thing in the world. And that very unexpected good news story is coming up in just a moment. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: What President Obama is asking Congress now amounts to a yes/no question. Should we use military force against Syria? Yes or no? A cruise missile strike or no cruise missile strike, yes or no? Part of the reason it is not at all clear that the White House is not going to get a yes on this one is because parts of Congress do not see this as a yes or no issue. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS) SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: One of the questions that I have asked is whether we`re looking at this issue too narrowly. This is not a choice between doing nothing and doing a military strike. There are other ways to put pressure internationally on the Assad regime to isolate him that might be more effective and would no involve the use of military action. SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D), MARYLAND: I think that what we heard today made a compelling forensic case, one, that nerve gas was used. And number two, that it was used by the Assad regime. The next step has to be, then, what is the way to both deter and degrade his ability to ever do it again? I have more questions about that. Does a military strike do that? Are other things required? SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: I`m not sure that he`s going to be deterred from using chemical weapons in the future in order to hold on to power simply because he`s afraid of two or three days` worth of missile strikes. SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: I would urge the president to continue to work diplomatically and step up our humanitarian efforts. I just know that there`s always this need to find that lever that the United States can press to try to make a situation better around the world, and I just think we have to have some very sober conversation about the limits of U.S. power. (END VIDEO CLIPS) MADDOW: I realize that the idea of Barbara Mikulski and Marco Rubio sharing the same video montage sounds like 2/3 of a bar joke. You can finds threads of the resistance to using force in Syria in both parties and across the political spectrum, in some cases articulated in the same ways. So, on the left, there`s Congresswoman Barbara Lee in California telling Greg Sargent, "They have been persuasive about the intelligence and the fact he must do something. They have not been persuasive that the only option right now is a military option." That is Barbara Lee on the left. On the right, there`s Congressman Randy Hultgren of Illinois on why he is leaning toward a no vote on authorizing military force. He says, "This is a tragedy that the international community must be fully engaged in and we must pursue all options to determine whether other actions can be taken to stop the bloodshed and pursue peace." In other words, just do it by some means other than military force. These are not lawmakers saying, no way, no how, we want there to be no response to Syria allegedly using chemical weapons. These are lawmakers saying that they want the United States to do something here. They want the U.S. to intervene, but not necessarily with something that explodes and flies off a ship. Isn`t there something else we can do besides bomb them? But what exactly can the United States do if not the bombs, if not the missiles? The list of concrete actual proposals is not all that long, but it is growing, and it turns out it`s growing in a nonpartisan, non left/right split kind of way. The ideas are coming from everywhere. So, there`s Chris Smith of New Jersey. He`s a Republican congressman. He says he will vote against the use of force. But his idea is instead he`s introducing a bill to have the U.S. take the lead on organizing a Syrian war crimes tribunal. Would a Syrian war crimes tribunal make the Syrian regime cut out what they`re doing? Don`t know, but that`s his idea. The former U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, says the world should put pressure on all the countries shipping weapons to either side in the Syrian civil war. He says the arm supplying countries have leverage with Syria and we have some leverage with them and should use that leverage to start essentially a multilateral arms embargo. That`s counsel from Hans Blix. The folks at Ezra Klein`s "Wonk Blog" combed through the policies that might affect the situation in Syria and suggested a series of steps for the U.S. specifically, including us just deciding to accept for refugees from the war. The countries that have already taken in nearly 2 million of Syria`s refugees are, themselves, making an urgent appeal just for aid from the rest of the world to help those other countries handle that millions of people inflow that they are dealing with essentially all on their own. The global think tank known as International Crisis Group is calling for no military intervention but instead put forward a six-step peace plan that starts with internationally brokered talks. A group called Peace Action is urging people to tell the White House, "I oppose military intervention and military support in Syria, but I support massive efforts for a political solution and continued humanitarian aid." So, what if we got massively more involved in Syria but in a way that was not military? The idea, the list of ideas for putting pressure on Syria is growing. I think it will get longer still international sanctions, freezing every last global asset of every member of the Syrian regime. There are a lot of things that could be done other than missiles and bombs. The question is whether any of it would work in any meaningful sense? Joining us now is Frank Jannuzi. He`s deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. They`ve been tracking situation in Syria with a help of a researcher on the ground in very difficult circumstances. And also with satellite images which have helped show the devastation in this case in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Their idea is that global attention might make the regime think twice when they`re mounting these attacks on their own people in their own country. In addition to his current work for Amnesty International, I should tell you that Mr. Jannuzi is a former policy adviser for Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Jannuzi, thanks very much for being with us tonight. I appreciate it. FRANK JANNUZI, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA: My pleasure. Good evening. MADDOW: How much room do you see as a former policy staffer in this field and as an advocate with amnesty, how much room to you see between military force and nothing? Are there other meaningful choices for intervening in Syria that aren`t military action? JANNUZI: There are important options that are available both to address the humanitarian crisis which is truly staggering in its scale. It`s a third of the Syrian population which has been displaced, as if 100 million Americans had been driven from their homes. But, also, options to pursue justice. And Amnesty International believes there must be no impunity for the terrible war crimes that have been committed not only in the most recent gas attack but really over the course of two years of internal conflict. Violations perpetrated by all the parties. MADDOW: Is it your position or Amnesty`s position that military intervention would make humanitarian aims and the aims of justice that you just described actually harder to achieve or do you just think that military intervention is irrelevant to those aims? JANNUZI: We haven`t taken a position. We won`t take a position for or against military intervention. But we feel strongly the focus should be on both addressing the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people and also on bringing those responsible for war crimes to justice. And the tools that are available include referral to the International Criminal Court. Some people complain that Russia or China are blocking this. Well, the U.S. could take it directly to the U.N. General Assembly, shine a spotlight on Russia`s complicity in shielding those responsible for war crimes from justice. The U.S. could also work to build an international coalition to impose targeted sanctions on the Syrian government, the folks who are most directly responsible for many of the war crimes. MADDOW: When you say sanctions, one thing -- the first thing I think is, well, that`s something that`s not military. We`re trying to open the box wider in terms of what`s considered to be a potential tool here. That seems good. On the other hand, I think of the suffering of the Syrian people 2 1/2 years into this difficult, terrible, widespread war, and I wonder about whether or not sanctions can be targeted narrowly enough that they wouldn`t hurt the Syrian people, instead of just people in the government you`re going after? JANNUZI: It`s a great observation. But to be very clear, I mean, what we`re talking about here are strictly targeted sanctions at the financial assets at the president of Syria and his clique, his family members and the generals who are responsible for much of the violence. The United States could also do something that perhaps we should have done already which is to look at our arms relationship with Russia. We actually do business with the same Russian arm firms which are, themselves, helping to fuel the conflict in Syria by continuing to provide weapons and support to the Syrian government. Perhaps the United States military itself should not be doing business with Russian military firms helping to fuel the violence. MADDOW: Can I ask you in a meta sense, these types of things you are proposing, have advocates and people concerned about the situation in Syria been asking the U.S. government to do these things and have been getting ignored or told no? Or has nobody been trying to advance an idea object American intervention here that wasn`t something military? JANNUZI: You know, I worked on Capitol Hill for 15 years and I think there`s a reluctance sometimes to focus on something that it becomes so large that you can`t ignore it. This is what happened with the chemical weapons attack. It`s focusing a congressional debate that really shouldn`t have happened two years ago. But now that we`re there, it`s not too late to make a difference. So these kinds of options, sanctions, International Criminal Court referral, these are ways that the international community can rally to the defense of the Syrian people and try to address their humanitarian needs. There also needs to be a much more robust response at the refugee camps. You know, there`s a refugee camp in Jordan. So many folks who are in desperate need of assistance. MADDOW: Frank Jannuzi, deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA --thank you for helping us understand your take on this. I really appreciate it. JANNUZI: Thank you. MADDOW: All right. Coming up, we have a visit to the Department of Corrections. It`s not what you think. And also, a best new thing in the world. Sorely need, right? Best new thing in the world coming up. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: So, MSNBC announced today there`s going to be a new show on this network on Friday nights at 10:00 Eastern, hosted by the actor Alec Baldwin. This is very exciting news here for lots of reasons. We are very much looking forward to Mr. Baldwin`s new show. But for anybody who watches this show on Friday nights, the most immediate change here will be that I will no longer be able to count down at the end of the Friday night show to the moment when I send you to prison, because the show "Lockup" is starting right after me with no commercial break and no barrier at all between dorky old me at my desk and some very intense footage from a correctional system somewhere. So, there will be no more "three, two, one, prison" on Friday night shows once Alec Baldwin`s new show starts. However, that does not mean that we don`t still sometimes have to visit the Department of Corrections ourselves. Here`s something I screwed up. Couple nights ago, I was cataloging the latest accounting that we have of the various cash and prizes that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his family have accepted from a Virginia businessman, a business whose company the governor and his wife seems to have gone out of their way to help with arranged meetings with state officials and product endorsements and appearances at their events, et cetera. Did the governor take official actions as a public official in exchange for money and expensive gifts? Federal prosecutors are now deciding whether charges to that effect should be brought against Governor Bob McDonnell so that case could be decided in court. Now, as you know the pile of stuff that the governor and his family have taken from this businessman since Bob McDonnell has been the governor of Virginia, includes this list, right? An engraved Rolex watch, and $15,000 chicken dinner, and a lake house vacation, a loan of a $190,000 Ferrari, and ton of cash, and all of this stuff. Well, two days ago, thanks to new reporting from "The Washington Post," we were able to add to the list of gifts, to Mr. McDonnell and his family, a happy graduation trip to Florida last Labor Day weekend for the governor`s daughter and a friend. Also that same weekend, a private flight and five nights of accommodation at a super swanky Cape Cod hotel for the governor and his wife. Also, $7,000 worth of golf and golf gear from elite Richmond area country clubs enjoyed by the governor and his sons and some gubernatorial staffers. All of this additional stuff, yes, from the same guy who made rain chicken dinners and Ferrari rides and engraved watches for Bob McDonnell. It turns out, though, that I must correct the record, because there is, it turns, still more. We already knew about gifts to Mr. McDonnell`s wife, included a $10,000 suede jacket and a Louis Vuitton hand bag and a couple of pairs of designer and designer dress. That multi-thousand dollar New York City shopping spree that produced all of those gifts, that was given to the governor`s wife in the spring of 2011. But here is the thing we did not know before, that at least $15,000 shopping spree in New York for the governor`s wife turns out to be separate and different from another $15,000 shopping trip in New York, also purchased for the governor`s wife by the same guy. What the diligent and detailed reporting that "The Washington Post" found that in addition to the multi-thousand dollar high fashion shopping spree in New York that produced the jacket and all the rest of it, the same very generous guy also bought at a charity auction a second high-fashion New York trip for the first lady that fall of that same year. There doesn`t seem to be any indication that the first lady took that trip, but it was purchased for her, for $15,000 at an auction, while her husband, the governor was reportedly in the room looking on, which makes it kind of hard for Governor McDonnell to argue that he had no idea that he and his family were raking in all of this largesse from this one guy, whose company he then later helped up. But again, I regret the error. It was not one, but two $15,000 high fashion New York City shopping trips purchased for the governor`s wife. It`s hard to keep track, right? The file of loot that Governor McDonnell and his family have raked since he has been governor is a high enough pile that it is hard to get to the top. It is getting hard to sort out exactly how many multiples of everything are in the pile. But still, I regret the error. And I will try to stay on top of every new revelation about every new thing it turns out Governor McDonnell took for himself and his family during his governorship. But hey, it`s lot. And they have never come clean about it all, even now. So who knows what will turn up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: OK, best new thing in the world today, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It lands on a different day of the Gregorian calendar every year. This year, it is now. It started at sundown and lasted for a couple of days. Because it is such an important holiday, Rosh Hashanah is the sort of holiday in which leaders tend to wish each other good tidings. Like President Obama, a good and sweet happy new year. Same goes from the British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, same deal, happy new year. This is the kind of thing you do as a world leader at Rosh Hashanah every year, almost everybody does it. With a few expected exceptions, for example, this time last year, it was Iran`s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who used this occasion of this happy New Year to deny the Holocaust. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was famous for that. He publicly denied that the Holocaust happened, again and again, including last year, publicly, about a week after the Jewish New Year. You stay classy. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the Holocaust denier, he probably still is. But he is no longer president of Iran, his term ended last month. And he was replaced by a new guy who was chosen by the Iranian people in their elections this past June, Hassan Rouhani, different guy, different president, very different guy, very different president, maybe. Look at this tweet yesterday from the new Iranian president who replaced Ahmadinejad. It is a happy Rosh Hashanah message, quote, "I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah." Really? Maybe. Probably. The semi-official Iranian news agency Fars ran a story denying that Iran`s new president could have said something like that on Twitter because they say he actually doesn`t have a Twitter account. Actually, they say he doesn`t have a tweeter account, but you know what they mean. I don`t know if they`re right about, that is the same news agency, of course, that drew sleeves unto First Lady Michelle Obama at the Oscars -- so do we believe them when they say their new president doesn`t tweet and so couldn`t have tweeted that nice thing to Jewish people? I am not inclined to believe the Fars news agency on anything. But here is the something unequivocal -- the big beef between Iran and the rest of world is the nuclear program, right? The new president says international talks about Iran`s nuclear program are going to be handled by this guy, the country`s new foreign minister. And the country`s new foreign minister really did definitively did send this tweet today, look, "Happy Rosh Hashanah, happy Jewish New Year", from the foreign minister of Iran. And here`s the part where this gets truly off the hook, the Iranian president seems to have said happy Jewish New York to the world. That may or may not be the real thing, right? Then the Iranian foreign minister says it, too. And you know who writes back to him once he says it? Nancy Pelosi`s daughter -- what? Yes, I know. Small world. Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi`s daughter, writes back to the foreign minister and says, "Thanks, the new year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran`s holocaust denial, sir." And then he writes back to her, this was his reply to Christine Pelosi. He says, "Iran never denied it. The man who did is now gone. Happy New York." He then later tweet this quote to call Ahmadinejad, the man who was perceived to be denying it. But still, two veteran journalists today said they confirm with the foreign minister that, yes, that really is his Twitter account and that really was him. So, this time last year, the president of Iran was denying the Holocaust for the Jewish New Year. This time this year, the government of Iran is sending their best happy Rosh Hashanah wishes. It is a big bad world out there, in which still sometimes, in small ways and unexpected places, you find green shoots, with best wishes for happy New Year than you were expecting -- the best new thing in the world today. That does it for us tonight. Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL". Have a great night. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END