By using these facts and past references he not only

By using these facts and past references, he not only appealed to logos but to pathos also,

so that people understood and felt the effect of what could happen if the U.S. doesn’t
intervene. Bringing up these unfortunate historical events demonstrated a technique of
propaganda called transfer, in which Obama brought up the negative qualities of the
events to invoke an emotional response in people. There are not many statistics in the
speech, just some numbers and stories of what the Syrian government did. This was a
rhetorically strategic move because people more often act upon their emotions, not facts
that are fed to them. If the speech was heavier on the statistics side, it would not touch
people as much and they wouldn’t really feel anything.
With this speech, Obama really depended on the audience’s sense of pathos to get
his point across and rally behind him. He used descriptive terms and emphasized the pain
of innocents, especially children. When watching the speech, I noticed that when talking
about all the pain and deaths he paused after almost every line. I believe he did this so
that people would have more time to think about this and let the sadness set in. It also
seemed as if he was taking a break to think about how horrible everything was. Fear, fury,
sorrow, and hope were some of the emotions that came to me when reading and hearing
his speech. Obama does not convey a lot of emotion when giving speeches, but you can
still feel sad when hearing about all the horrible things that had been done. “Prevent
innocent civilians from being gassed to death […],” and “[…] children writing in pain
and going still on a cold hospital floor […]” are meant to make people step back and ask,
“What can I do?” These statements, along with all the facts about what else the Assad
regime has done, are meant to make people feel anger towards the Assad regime and want
to attack.

President Obama relied on people’s morality and ethical values when judging the
situation. He focused on what the American duty is and how we need to do what its right.