Worldview6.20.11

Worldview6.20.11
Demonstrators in Damascus and across Syria have been protesting against President Bashar al-Assad's government for three months. Wikimedia Commons
Worldview6.20.11
Demonstrators in Damascus and across Syria have been protesting against President Bashar al-Assad's government for three months. Wikimedia Commons

Worldview6.20.11

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For 40 years, the Assad dynasty has ruled Syria. Their consolidation of power seems unlikely, considering they’re part of Syria’s Alawite minority, which makes up only about 12 percent of the population.  We’ll speak with Chicagoan Mohyeddin Kassar, chairman of the Syrian American Society, about how members of this Islamic sect rose among the ranks of Syria’s elite.  Also, U.S. and NATO military action in Libya has President Obama and Congress in legal and legislative tussles over the definition of “war.” Constitutional historian Louis Fisher walks us through the 1973 War Powers Resolution and discusses the legality of U.S. operations in Libya. And, more than 70 years ago, during the Sino-Japanese war, after the Japanese army captured the former Chinese capital of Nanjing, troops embarked on rape and murder on a massive scale. We’ll hear a first-hand account from the BBC’s program “Witness.”