tv Consider This Al Jazeera September 6, 2013 1:00am-2:01am EDT
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>> welcome to al jazeera. i'm thomas drayton. let's get you cause up on the currently stories. president obama is still trying to get congress on board for a military strike on syria. the president's military advisors says he has been making phone calls while at the summit. vice president joe biden met with the group of lawmakers in the white house situation room. mr. biden inn is also working the phones trying to drum up support for military strike on syria. we now know what caused that massive fire in and around
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>> the bomb grows louder, the brutality of rebels and their terrorist connections. the humanitarian atrocities committed by president bashar al-assadout weigh the possibility that we could find ourselves supporting extremist groups. also what about muslims in america? the nypd has been secretly surveilling muslims in new york and around the world. have they gone too fo far or are they doing what they can to protect the city. and we know excess sugar leads to obesity, so where is there sugar quietly loaded in yogurt and flavored water. a lot of people are asking whom will we really help if we attack. at the g-20 summit in russia the president shook hands with vladimir putin
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. president obama would like to win support from g-20 nations besides turkey, france, and saudi arabia who said they would more or less fall in line. he needs more support from congress where there is skepticism about military strike and opposition. >> i've always been concerned about the opposition. we don't know who they are, what they are, and we don't know what their intent is in terms of a future government. >> some reports claim that syrian extremist groups linked to al-qaida . a claim that john kerry tried to shoot down before the house on wednesday. >> there is a real moderate opposition that exists. i just don't agree that the majority are al-qaida and the bad guys. that's not true. there are about 70 to 100,000
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oppositionists. somewhere 1 15% to 25% would ben one group in what we would deem to be bad guys. >> 15% to 25%. that's tens of thousands of al-qaida supporters or as secretary of state john kerry said, bad guys. we go to a syrian america who runs western media outreach for the free syrian army, the main moderate opposition rebels, he's also vice president for middle east operations support group for international ngo and then we have with us an author who has written extensively on the syrian opposition. there are a lot of americans who
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arwhofeel if we support the opposition we'll be supporting al-qaida. there are many who said they did not sign up to become al-qaid al-qaida's air force or navy. how many of them are made up of the moderate groups like you represent or the more militant groups, many of which with open ties to al-qaida. >> look, thank you for having me. this question is really at the forefront of the policy debate in washington whether or not the regime will support al-qaida. what i've seen being on the ground speaking to syrians on a regular basis really we've got to separate reality. what they tell me there is no place in syria for the extremist political and theological agenda
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that al-qaida and it's affiliates islamic state of iraq are trying to propagate. the good news here is that there are moderate elements in the army, and the umbrella group for which the overwhelming majority of the rebel fighters belong to. we've been seeing an increase in tension recently between the extremist groups and the moderate forces. so on one hand the extreme--there is this extremist concern in syria, though the message that many of the syrians and the rebel commanders that i've been speaking to that they've been trying to send to the west is empower us. we're the antidote to the extremists.
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the only way to push back, form a beach head by empowering, moderate nationalist forces. >> you've looked into all these groups. you studied at extensively some of those al-qaida groups do hold territory, and there is a whole number of groups that form this the varied rebels in syria. you have the free syrian army, and then the syrian liberation front. thwhy don't you give us a break down of who is who. >> sure, there are large number of groups that make up the syrian opposition. as secretary kerry mentioned there are 100,000 fighters in the opposition, but these span hundreds
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. the syrian liberation army are moderate islamists. the syrian islamic front is a syrian nationalists. and then more extremist groups like nusra affiliated with al-qaida and other extremist groups. between these groups you have a larger debate within syria, within the option the future of syria, the tactics that you use. you know, what kind of goals of this movement are. and you have groups like nusra who are an affiliated with eastern syria bumping up with iraq, and then northern syria, which is why they have so many news coverage, they use the brutal tactics. >> and they've been getting arms from their allies.
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we've been seeing shocking pictures throughout this terrible war. we saw new ones, front page of the "new york times." here we see a still that shows members of a militant group in the north of syria minutes before they executed seven soldiers from the regime who are lying there on the ground. a number of those soldiers appear to have been beaten before they were shot. and with incidents like that one, and you know, the al-qaida-backed groups that have had success on the battlefield, can you see where so many americans are reluctant to get involved with syria? >> first of all, i would like to make clear the supreme military council and syrian opposition coalition, the civilian opposition immediately and resolutely condemned this act by this independent group
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. those actions from condemned by the option. and by the free syrian army leadership. now it is a concern, it absolutely is, there are--there is going to be a level of uncertain. it's gorilla warfare. that said we have to look at the brutality of the regime. while these acts were on the front page of the "new york times" were condemned, contemptible, and the assad regime again itself has been at the forefront of atrocities committed in syria today. >> we certainly showed the pictures of the chemical weapons attack, and oubai, president obama has threatened the missile strikes to punish for the sarin gas attack near damascus, now it's being reported and considered tha that a larger atk
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could include bombers flown in from the u.s. in the strike force. is that what the syrian army and your allies want from president obama? >> the only way to end the slaughter and destruction in syria is to put a stop to assad's military regime. a decisive strike is necessary to neutralize his military, aforce who are pounding villages on a daily bases. if this does not happen, many believe that assad will use chemical weapons again if he feels emboldened. >> we've heard the extremist groups are not the majority. that's what you blinks and that's what oubai believes, but russian president vladimir putin
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rejected that, and he was pretty unpleasant saying it. he said al-qaida is the main military echelon. he's lying and knows he is lying. it's sad. that's talking he's talking about secretary state kerry. as nasty as that was, what do you think the actual strength of those extremist groups is? if they're well funded and well supplied in arms, there have been reports they have gained ground. >> well, it's more sort of the coordination of the national
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strategy that they have. one of the problems that they have in the opposition groups they've had they've been unsable to execute a larger national strategy. the groups affiliated with the syrian liberation front, they're out there to protect their homes. they're out there to protect their families. they're not really focused on a larger national strategy. the group of nusra has a very strong picture of what syria should look like. they have this larger messianic vision of what they want to be doing in syria. that visualization has helped them to advance the opposition in ways that the more moderate groups have not been able to, and they've had to sit back, because they're not coordinated that heavily with one another. >> let's talk about who is where, which group or alliance of groups dominates what part of the country. part of the problem is they're
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pretty separate in some cases. in other cases they're really mixed in with each other. >> most of the fighting is happening in the north, and then along the major cities, damascus and allepo. you're seeing jabhat al-nusra linking up with their compatriots in al-qaida and iraq. and then in the kurdish areas, they're seeking the kurdish than the the falling of assad rejeep. in allepo you have this mix of different groups and the
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alliances that are made, th these groups will work together. >> what happens afterwards if we do bomb, and assad falls, are we going to have a civil war where you have people in different parts of the country going after each other? >> we're looking at two civil wars, the one against assad, and then the war within the opposition, the different groups fighting over what a future syria would look like. that's one of the big concerns that i think western officials and analysts have, what that looks like, and the strength that a lot of these extremist groups have against the more moderate group such as the free syrian army. that's troubling, and that's what you might see in the breakdown of the syrian state where you have smaller states replace it. >> oubai, do you want to address that? >> let's look at the hard facts on the ground. the operator of damascus have
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made it clear and they're against al-qaida and the islamic state , the local councils in damascus and it's suburbs have said there is no room of the al-qaida state in a post assad syria. similarly goes to the north. the supreme military council subordinate battalions in the north there, is no love loss between them and aquite's affiliates in the north. as al-qaida expands its control there has been a level of push back, and that is absolutely something that has not necessarily been highlighted by many in the western media, and pundants.
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and you have leaders who have condemned foreign fighters and have spoken out against sectarian revenge killing, drawing the ire of the islamic state. and lastly and most importantly at the end of the day you have two competing visions for a post assad syria. one that is led by the supreme council, and the civilian opposition, and the transnational foreign fighters supported by al-qaida and the islamic state. this is where western policymakers must focus their efforts on what comes next. we do have the moderate opposition. they're willing to work with those who are willing to work with them. most importantly they will be at the forefront of insuring that syria does not fall into the hands of al-qaida. and lastly, if i may add, what putin's comments are disingenuous.
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it has been the syrian regime that has historically been in collusion with extremist groups, including al-qaida and iraq. the military regimes have a long, long standing of history with al-qaida and iraq and other groups. there is a level of dis di disingenuinety. >> we'll have to see what the western policymakers, their decisions over the next few days. oubai shahbanda, and ken sofer, thank you for coming on tonight. >> well, labeling mosques as terrorist organizations but with
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>> the average 5% higher than their less active pierce. that's according to germany's institute study of labor. those were not having any sex was making less than their more frisky couples. the study's author studied the hierarchy of needs that shows humans need basic needs food, water and sex to be satisfied before they can succeed in other aspects of their life. olympic athletics may want to rethink the abstaining before
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competing theory. the impact that sex has on self-esteem but to reference another reproductive question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? is it possible that successful people are likely to have more sex to begin with? studies show people who are more attractive are no more successfully and more likely to be having sex. attractive people will earn an average 3% to 4% more with someone with below average looks. that could mean $230,000 over a lifetime. even average looking workers could make more than a work thought to be unattractive. all this leads to the news that more than 300,000 attempts were made at england's house of parliaments to access pornographic website just this past year. it's unknown who was responsible, maybe they were just trying to get themselves in the mood to make 5% more on
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>> the recommended amount of sugar americans should have every day is 30 grams for women and 45 grams for men. yet the average american intake is 160 grams. that's about four times the recommended amount. no surprise then every year there are 1 point million americans diagnosed with diabetes. and it's predicted that 1 in 3 3 american adult also have diabetes. what can we do to take better care of our help, the author of the " sugar has 56 names: a shopper's guide." thank you for joining us. most americans are consuming all this sugar, but you're saying we're unaware of it because the sugar is hiding. when we look at the labels we recognize names like fructose
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and sucrose. you say there are 56 different names for sugar. is this why we're eating way too much of it without knowing it's there? >> there are many reasons why we're eating too much much it. the main reason we're eating too much of it is because the food industry wants us to. when they took the fat out of it, they had to make it taste palatable. because food without fat tastes like cardboard. there are many ways they're hiding what they're doing. on the labels they say total sugars, not added sugars. in 1990, the nutrition labeling and education act which gave us the food label, the nutrition to the food and drug administration and said if we told our customers how much sugar we put in our food our
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competitors could copy our recipes. and the fda said oh, okay. >> you bring up the low-fat thing and they might have more calories. >> absolutely. look at snackwells, which was worse for you, the fat or the sugar? answer, without question, the sugar is way worse. >> and again, many of these names fool people. they put agave, cane sugar, honey, maple sugar. people believe those are healt healthier than regular sugars. you don't believe that. you believe that sugars are all the same. >> it's not the vehicle be it's the payload that matters. payload is the sweet molecule that makes sugar worth eating, it's addictive fructose. it's not glucose. glucose is necessary for life.
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glucose is uninteresting. fructose, we go out and seek. this is why we're sugar addicted, and why we are consuming it with abandon. the bottom line is it's bad for us. it actually causes liver fat. it causes insulin resistence and it's the proximate cause of diabetes worldwide. there was a report that there are 114 million diabetessics in china because they've adopted the western diet for ease and for price. >> it's getting worse. we have 25.8 million americans that have it. and in your book you say we have assigned the safety of our food supply to the fda. it's their job to keep us from substances that might harm us, ie toxic foods. you consider sugar to be
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toxic. and it was written in the medical journal that nothing in the bio chemistry suggests that sugar is a toxin. and a leading researcher on the fructose in metabolism offered a book called "the sugar fix." he wrote we shouldn't tell people that sugar is toxic. what do you tell them? >> let's first talk about dr. johnson, who i have enormous respect for and he has tremendous work in this field. he made the statement we should cut our consumption back. everyone who is in this field, everyone believes that we need to cut our sugar consumption back, and i completely agree. a little is okay. and a lot is not. it's just like alcohol. now, there are 20% of americans who are alcoholic-addicted. the other 80% can consume small
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amounts, and have no problem whatsoever. for those people that's fine. and there's no problem. the question is what happens when you overdose? we know what the negative consequences of excess alcohol consumption are, so we regulate it because it's both toxic and addictive . sugar follows the i assume same criteria. the bottom line we as you said in the opening piece, we are consuming triple to quadruple the recommended amount, and that is what makes it a toxin. it is a toxin in high dose. >> we have a quick question from social media. let's go to hermela aragawi . >> what are foods that a lot of people might eat that have the added sugar that we might suspect?
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>> the slam dunk is yogurt. many people think yogurt is healthy. how many grams of sugar are in plain yogurt? seven, seven grams of sugar in a plane plain yogurt. how much in a pomegranate 19. are you okay with that? the bottom line is yogurt is occupying the health space. >> unfortunately, we've got to interrupt you because we're up against the end of the show. there are so many foods and drinks and juices that have enormous amounts of sugar and people should go to your book and read about it because there are hidden sugars in all sorts of food. we thank you for being on with us. the show is over. please go to our website and
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