It’s been more than a week since the Trump administration abruptly switched out of “America first” mode and into intervention mode by dropping 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airfield. As Chris Hedges and Alternet journalists Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton argue in this episode of “On Contact With Chris Hedges,” the American public has been lacking something very important before—and after—that strike.

Simply put, that would be context. More specifically, it comes down to crucial questions that are not being addressed publicly by members of the U.S. government or the mainstream media.

Take these questions, for example: What’s the relationship between the regime change in Libya, encouraged and enabled by the Obama administration in 2011, and the ongoing refugee crisis? Or between that crisis and Brexit? Who are the White Helmets? How are all these questions related to the current conflict in Syria, and the role of the U.S. in that conflict? What role do Iran and Saudi Arabia, in addition to Russia, play in Washington’s stance toward Syrian President Bashar Assad?

Hedges opens the discussion by pointing to the contextual vacuum that American media outlets and government officials aren’t in a hurry to fill. He notes how U.S.-backed campaigns for regime change “have a long history.”

Norton, who reports for Alternet’s Grayzone project with Blumenthal, remarks that there has been “no independent international corroboration” of the official Western account that the Syrian government was behind the alleged lethal gassing of Syrian civilians on April 4, which spurred Trump to order military action.

Blumenthal is blunt as he warns, “If Syria is finally smashed apart, we will see the release of the monster of all monsters.”

Below, watch Hedges and his guests connect the dots about “The Uncivil War,” as the episode is titled:

–Posted by Kasia Anderson