me completely... >> of the lives that were lost in the desert >> this is the most dangerous part of your trip... >> an emotional finale you can't miss... >> we got be here to tell the story. >> the final journey borderland continues... only on al jazeera america >> u.s. officials sounding a louder alarm about the islamic state and the possibility of military strikes in syria. and has the russian invasion of ukraine begun? hello, i'm antonio mora, those stories and much more straight ahead. theist hit iraq with more air strikes trying to stop the march of the islamic state group.

>> the leadership here understand the beings issues of this group. >> we don't telegraph our purchase. >> could the cooperation with the bashar al-assad regime be on the table. >> times you have to cooperate with and share information with bad guys. >> hamas says it has executed spice for israel. >> russian convoys have crossed the border into ukraine. >> waited long enough. it was time to move. >> the pentagon says there will be consequences. kyiv calls it a direct invasion. >> a fingertip analysis to combat its food shortages. >> the healthy autistic like behavior. >> we hoped it might be treatable even after diagnosis. >> we begin, with questions

about how officials describe apocalyptic, beyond anything we have ever seen. the are beheading of james foley by islamic state militants constituted a jihaddist type movement dependence the united states. >> we have made clear time and time again, we are going to come after you if you come against americans. we are not going to be restricted by borders. >> while direct action in syria was possible, no decisions have been made and the president currently on vacation in martha's vineyard has not given further beyond iraq. or that sympathizers could be radicalized 50 group's online propaganda have worried u.s. and european governments for months. on friday the fbi and the department of homeland security sent a bulletin to law

enforcement officers around the country urging them to be vigilant for threats against the i.s. while there were no known threats it's clear that officials are taking i.s. very seriously. join us from the pentagon rear admiral john kirby, good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> hearing the chilling words from your boss, defense secretary chuck hagel, highway the white house says i.s. is holding three other americans, that after this horrible beheading of james foley, this is all scaring people in a way we probably haven't been scared since 9/11 but what are we going to do about it? there is uncertainty about what the strategy is. >> well, i don't think the purpose is certainly not to scare people. that's not the intent. and i don't think that you know americans need to be feared in that regard.

but this is seriously, this is a serious threat i.s.i.l. poses not just to iraq but the to the region. they have aspirations to attack western targets and we do have a strategy. the strategy is on multiple levels here. we certainly have a military component to it but there is a political component to it and there is a diplomatic component to it and we're frankly taking a regional approach here. the military piece is only a small piece and the military piece is not going to solve all the problem. the real threat that i.s.i.l. poses is through good governance. it is defeating the ideology. and once it defeats ideology of the region they will cease to be the threat they are. the assad regime has done nothing but approach the fear of

the people. >> when you speak of good governance isn't this a region that really has never seen good governance? >> well, this is a region that has certainly struggled with good governance, there is no question about that but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't pursue that as a goal. and we're gratified about what we see in iraq with the naming of a new prime minister and efforts to form a unity government. we think that's really the long term answer here. to the i.s.i.l. threat inside iraq. we're helping and wire we're going to help -- we're going to help from a military perspective, when and where we need to, that's not going to change, but ultimately it is not going to be a military solution. >> chuck hagel said i.s. is a threat like we've never seen before. there was very little urgency in the way the white house was dealing with i.s. or our diplomats, secretary kerry and

our soldiers secretary hagel ahead of where the white house is? >> no, there's no difference in views here. i think everyone shares the same sense of urgency and the say sense of purpose. and the vaim realit same realish to what i.s.i.l. poses. they are not like any terrorist network we've seen in the past, i think that's what shail secrey hagel was referring to. they have military prowess, they are interested in grabbing ground and holding it and possessing infrastructures to continue to resource themselves and that makes them different. that makes them unique. and everybody i think has the same sense here of how to move forward. >> to your point, general martin

dempsey, on thursday, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff addressed the elephant in the room which is what you brought up, the fact that i.s. controls all sorts of land and military bases in iraq. >> can they be addressed without defeating that part of the organization which exists inside the answer is no about. >> security council advisor ben rhodes said that the white house agrees with general dempsey, that i.s. may have to be attacked in syria and we should not be restricted by borders. are we going to see a large increase in the mission? >> we don't telegraph our purchase here in the pentagon. but everybody is of the same mind. we recognize the sanctuary they have in syria and the threat they pose to the entire region.

but what general dempsey also said is addressing the threat they pose in syria can't just be solved bying military means. there has to be an international approach. >> rhodes added that the president hasn't been presented with options to ramp up the u.s. response. how soon do you think that will happen? >> we are not on a specific timetable with respect to that, antonio. we in the pentagon are keenly focused on this challenge. we are planning organization that shouldn't surprise you, we are always thinking about options and thinking about alternatives. and when we need to present options and alternatives, up the chain of command, we certainly will do that. >> well how about helping the people in the region that have been our allies? we of course have rejected cooperation with bashar al-assad in syria. the administration though has been slow to help syrian rebels the more moderate ones.

the iraqi forces are getting there too slowly, complaints have been made. >> we are already conducting some of those efforts and i would take issue with the complaints that critics have been making. as far as the kurdish resupplying mission, the iraqi government has been resupplying kurdish organization, we have been helping in organizing that effort. including albania who just recently offered to pitch in and help here have jumped in to help with that effort and we are looking at perhaps doing it directly through the u.s. military. secretary hagel set up a task force to look at this, no decisions have been made but we're looking at that. you talked about syria and the moderate opposition, the united states has continued to support a moderate opposition in syria.

we have submitted a budget of $500 million to equip a moderate opposition. about good governance, assad and his regime is a big part of the problem here. they have created the conditions that has allowed i.s.i.l. to exist and flourish in syria. >> last question, the white house finally said on friday that the attack on james foley was a an a terrorist attack on e united states. at this point should we see this fight against i.s. as an action of self-defense for the united states? >> we've already in many ways considered this inside iraq as an act of self defense. the president gave us the authority to conduct air strikes in iraq to protect u.s. personnel and facilities to so that, we have also taken efforts

to help humanitarian disasters but we are already striking at i.s.i.l. inside iraq in the effort to protect u.s. personnel and facilities. >> rear admiral john kirby, as always it's a pleasure to have you with us. >> thank you, antonio gm to be with you. >> we are joined by neda bakos, a former central intelligence agency analyst, working on the relationship between iraq, al qaeda and 9/11. the chief targeting officer, ever you have criticized the criticism against i.s.i.s, the president earlier this year sarcastically referred to the group as junior varsity terrorists. why has it taken so long for the u.s. to see i.s. as the

significant threat it seems to say it is now? >> well, i.s. is actually a metamorphosis of zarqawi's organization. , a secondary organization compared to al qaeda central. so i think in some ways that sort of myth was holding for quite some time within the administration. now we have seen that i.s -- go ahead. >> no, go ahead that i.s. is a very serious threat. you posed a question on twitter this week, what if due oa deal assad stopped slaughtering his own people? warning sau assad that if he exd himself to attack from the united states, the white house has rejected out of hand cooperating with assad to defeat i.s. your reaction. >> you know i wouldn't be advocating partnering with assad to go after i.s. mainly because

he is part of the problem. he's created a vacuum that has allowed i.s.i.s. to grow to the strength they are today by largely ignoring them and allowing them to take over some of the territory while he focused on the moderate rebel gripes so i think that it would be dilutional to think that we could delusional to think that we could actually trust him. we have created a leverage to deal with him, i.s.i.s. is taking over territory much quicker than i think anybody has anticipated. it is estimated they actually hold territory that's possibly the size of the u.k. so if we are to go in and actually take action against i.s.i.s. i think it behooves us to at least start engaging with assad, in addition to the sanctions, and allowing us to go in and take care of the problem while negotiating with him a ceasefire, it is in everyone's best interest to end the civil war at this point.

>> now a man who was formerly ambassador to the region ryan corroboratinger, has advocated shifting the emphasis away from assad, the u.s. has to consider as bad as assad is, there is something worse. isn't there a danger and there's a history of it of blow-back when we end up helping these butcher dictators? >> yes. i mean and iraq is actually an example of that. we can learn from the lessons of the invasion of 2003. we're now discussing the rrebaathification of the area, o expect a legitimate presence in the area. they are the long term i don't think is in then's best interest

to let assad remain in power. >> if we do go into syria with bombing runs we become pretty much a defact to cooperator of assad, we become the enemy of his enemy. that puts us on the same side as hezbollah, assad and iran, which a weird place for the u.s. to be in. >> we're almost becoming part of the proxy war at this point. but nowp now we're seeing demonstrations of the supporters of the assad regime, saying they are not getting enough help from i.s.i.s. for the assad regime, there is actually populace report, and they don't feel their own government is actually doing enough. i think there's an opportunity here that we need to explore diplomatly. >> within syria, another former ambassador robert ford resigned,

he says that we can't help out assad because of his horrible behavior, his cooperation with al qaeda, and his position all along was to help the moderate rebels in syria. we just heard rear admiral john kirby say, the efforts are ongoing. is this too little too late, and assad falls, isn't there a danger that syria becomes a bigger vacuum that ends up getting filled by i.s. and not the moderates? >> right. i think we can't have enough of a coalition, they are up against a monumental effort at this point. so leaving the vacuum there, if assad is actually owfte ousted f power. >> really appreciate you joining us to give us your perspective.

thanks. >> thank you. >> and now for some more stories from around the world. .we girn in ferguson, missouri where the protests finally seem to be calming down. the national guard started leaving ferguson, friday, after the shooting of michael brown two weeks ago. with only a few isolated arrests over the past couple of days, police are hopeful that gatherings over the weekend will be peaceful. but police are worried that brown's funeral on monday will reignite the violence. nicholas maduro, has suggested fingerprinting, and preventing people from buying too much of a single item or diverting supplies to the black market.

>> translator: the establishment of the biometric system will be similar to how fingerprints were captured for the system of election. >> we end in washington, d.c, where the washington post has taken a stand over the name of washington's nfl team. the post will no longer use the name redskins, except when it is essential for clarity or effect, we will no longer use the slur ourselves. the editorial board has long urged the company to stop using the term. does not apply to sports coverage. the post hopes that dan schneider will take action. and that's some of what's happening around the world. coming up, nato claims russian

artillery is in ukraine and supporting russian separatists. has russia's invasion of ukraine begun? and later, hamas publicly executes people they claim are. israeli terrorists terrorists and our social media producer, hermela aregawi is here, what's trending? >> while you're watching let us know what you think, join the conversation on twitter @ajconsiderthis and on our facebook and google plus pages.

>> the crisis in ukraine against tidintensified on friday. ukrainian officials accused russia of staging a direct invasion after more than 200

trucks carrying what are supposed to be relief supplies for separatist held areas entered ukraine without permission. the ukrainianian military said no more than 35 trucks had been checked for military contraband. adding that russia should remove the convoy from ukraine >> if they don't they will face the consequences from our partners in the international community. >> in new york i'm joined by nina krucheva. author of the lost khrushchev. nina, good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> as i've said, russia has moved military trucks into

ukraine. >> all along the crisis without providing any proof of their allegation. >> so again, the russians denying that they're doing this. why would vladimir putin do something as blatant az moving russian artillery into ukraine. >> we didn't know it was moved this time or some other time that he was accused of doing this. because all this military equipment has been -- it has been documented they've been moving back and forth. so it's probably may not necessarily be this time around and probably not associated with a convoy. because i do believe that the white trucks are going to be the white trucks and exactly what putin says they are intended for humanitarian aid because this is also his pr campaign. he is helping the ukrainians, those who are now in humanitarian distress. while poroshenko the ukrainian president is actually supplying

the humanitarian disaster. that's how the he would say the west is out to get us. that is what he always says, but the only way he can do it is, we're helping the people in distress. while the military equipment may go -- has already gone into ukraine some other way outside the international view. >> but assuming you're right, this is still an effect, they moved the trucks into luhansk, which the ukrainians had pretty much taken over the city. aren't they pretty much preventing the ukrainians from having any more gains because the danger is that you're going to hurt a humanitarian convoy. >> well, they have. and i actually think that that's why the convoy was stuck on the russian border for some time. because ukrainian was really blocking it -- ukraine was really blocking it.

despite the fact that ukraine was claiming there were other problems, it lets the convoy, humanitarian, even if it is truly a humanitarian convoy, into luhansk, there would have to be a ceasefire, the rebels would have time to regroup. what putin did is he waited for a week there and then he said fine if you cannot provide ceasefire and i cannot help them some other way i'm going to move it in and i will force you to stop and therefore the rebels would regroup. >> but then have the ukrainians in fact just played right into putin's hands because putin again narrative when it comes to the humanitarian convoy is that poroshenko, the president of ukraine, has stalled and that this is humanitarian aid that is desperately needed and so why didn't the ukrainians figure out a way of letting this in so putin couldn't get a pr side to

this? >> they all were trained by the same school so he knows exactly how putin is going to play that game. and so ukraine probably should have addressed the convoy story right from the beginning, inspected it immediately, let it in, because poroshenko also played his own paracampaign as you remember after putin sent his trucks, poroshenko sent his trucks because he would look really really bad to the public, if he's such a great peace keeper, poroshenko isn't helping his own people in luhansk, even though they are against him. so it was really a game. i think putin is greater because he was also kgb trained, poroshenko is trying to balance a lot of other issues so he is not as quick as providing counterbalance. >> but somehow in the middle of all this what's getting lost is a country has sent trucks into another country without authorization and according to nato they have got artillery

there, here is something ukraine president petro poroshenko said on friday. we will do our best that this does not lead to more serious consequences. but owne yatsenyuk yuck said, nt russian separatists. how dangerous has the rhetoric been getting? >> but the stakes have been up for how long we have been talking about it. so it is -- and i don't think it's actually it's lost. it's not lost that russia actually went into sovereign country. it hasn't been lost. another thing that yatsenyuk yuck said, yes, russia already invaded ukraine and it it in

crimea. it did it in march. russians wanted crimea. he thought probably with donetske and luhansk, and other places in ukrainian that would be the same story. because frankly crimea is actually a drain on russian resources if it doesn't have other east ukraine support. but it didn't work out this way. and moreover 60% of russians do not want any invasion. i have to say putin is very sensible to this kind of public opinion. he may manipulate it, however, he listens to it very carefully. although he has not invaded so far. his trucks were sitting there for a week but officially he continues to say i'm a humanitarianist, and i think deep in his heart he really wants donetske and luhansk can be free out of separatists, so can he maneuver it more politically so earnings

poroshenko wouldn't be important militarily. >> on tuesday poroshenko and putin will meet. nina it's always good to see y you. thanks. >> thank you. at least 17 palestinians were killed by mass fighters friday after they were condemned to death by a so-called revolutionary resistance court for collaborating with israel. meanwhile israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said, hamas would pay a dear price, hamas rockets wounded five other israelis. israeli strikes on gaza killed at least four palestinians and wounded 40 more. for discussion on this i'm joined by robert grenier, robert good to see you.

israel was able to target and kill at least three of hamas's top military leaders on thursday. given the kind of precautions these men usually take, would it have been possible for israel to get at them without inside help? >> forget they completely controlled the entire cell phone system in gaza so they can use that for geo-location for intercept of communication for communication themselves with potential agents, they have drones that just blanket the area. and as the campaign goes on, it's only natural as people are trying to move, shoot and communicate as the military says, that the opportunities for some sort of a slipup just magnify over time. that said, the israelis have been very, very clever throughout the palestinian territories both in west bank and gaza in maintaining a very effective network of informants. so in this particular case whether it was largely technical

through human informants or some combination of the two we certainly don't know. >> i understand there's tremendous anger in gaza against collaborators who may be helping israelis bomb because so many people have died, doans hamas understand that -- doesn't hamas understand that these public extra judicial killings are going to be viewed as barbaric and hamas is seen by much of the west as a terror group of? >> let's not forget that all politics is local and i suspect hamas is primary -- primarily concerned with maintaining control in the gaza strip. their foreign ministers are concerned with public opinion overseas but that's not the primary concern now. >> lawyer to assist them and they have the rights to appeal.

but these alleged collaborators who were shot on friday were tried convicted and sentenced by what hamas calls a revolutionary resistance court and they said it was to create deterrence. now a former deputy head of israel's national counciisrael'y council says that hamas is in a panic. do you agree that this is a sign of weakness not strength? >> yes, i think you would have to agree with that. clearly, they want to try to impose discipline and they want to be seen to be imposing discipline. i don't think it was an accident that these executions were largely carried out immediately after friday prayers, where you had the largest congregation of people to view it and take pictures on their cell phones, et cetera. this is clearly an indication that hamas is concerned both with its ability to impose discipline on the people and to be seen by others to be capable

of imposing that discipline. >> right, and obviously trying to deter scare as you set people off from collaborating where -- as you said people off from collaborating with israel. target them? >> we can only guess at the way politics is working out within the gaza strip right now. i'm sure there are some people who are very concerned about hamas leadership who feel that the people have suffered enough. all they want is for the violence to stop. and there may be an increased motivation for some of those people to work against the hamas leadership. you know again, the number of motivations that may be at work here are limited only by the number of people involved. so i suspect that the internal politics to include within hamas itself are very, very complicated right now as the pressure on them increases. >> talking about the number of people involved hamas insists that the number of palestinian

collaborators is minuscule, they say that many are either arrested by security forces or they actually turn themselves in. does that seem credible to you? >> you know i think we've seen before in individual cases ever palestinian collaborators, who are uncovered, there are difficulties they have with their families, even if they feel that they are personally justified in what they're doing there is always a certain sense of shame. so the emotion of an intelligence source a collaborator if you will are very, very complicated things and can lead people to do things that seem to an outsider to be completely irrational. >> certainly a scary situation all around. robert grenier good to have you, thanks. let's check in with hermella. >> accounts in implement of ferguson officer dairch wills

have raised over $250,000 and some eyebrows. go fund me has removed several nasty racist comments by the original donors but says that doesn't go far enough, says it should be taken down altogether because it violates go fund me policies, it an horgs all policies the financial coalition exploitation of a crime. adding that much like facebook and twitter, go fund me is an open technology platform that allows for the exchange of ideas and opinions within the bounds of our terms of service. let us know what you think. does go fund me have a responsibility beyond removing the hateful comments? tweet us @ajconsiderthis. and now, an update on a story we reported on earlier this month.

the u.s. copyright office has settled a battle between wikimedia. a photo that the monkey took, fresh guidance saying "the office won't copyright" it looks like wikimedia wins this one and the photograph will remain in the public domain. >> it's bad for monkey, he can't sell his own picture. thanks hermella. >> you're welcome. >> straight ahead, a new study raises hopes that autism can one day be treatable. a major company says workers should be taking naps. that's in our data dive. the u.s. open is about to begin, what has happened to american men's tennis?

>> the reason why some children develop autism while most don't has long eluded researchers. but research suggests that autism could be created by too many synapses. a child's brain develops synapses as a phenomenal rate as a child experiences the world. usually concessio excess synapse trimmed. joining to discuss this, dr. wang, good to have you back with us. the study compared brains of

people who had autism and who didn't. how do all these excess synapses create autism? >> the number of synapses really peaks in childhood and is supposed to go down as children become older. in autism they do not go down in number as quickly and as far as they should. that leads in abnormalities, in the connection of brains, they are not talking to each other the way they should. >> as laymen, it includes the sensitivity to noise, perhaps social difficulties, even seizures. could this synaptic pruning or the lack of the pruning be another symptom of autism or could it be the cause of autism?

>> we don't think of it as a symptom of autism but it's sort of the mechanism. it's the why of these symptoms being present. the cause, on the other hand, is some combination of genetic risk factors and environmental risk factors and then those things interacting together. and somehow those genetic and environmental factors together result in the pruning going awry. the pruning not happening like it's supposed to. >> and could that explain why autism symptoms normally don't get noticed or don't start appearing until at least a child is about a year and a half? >> yeah, i think that's absolutely right. because early on in life, at six months old, at 12 months and one and a half years old everybody is supposed to have a lot of those synapses and this research shows that at that early point in life the number of synapses is still normal and abnormalities don't come up and

that's when the symptoms start appearing too. >> there are so many different types of autism. could this be a commonality among all of them? >> that is a huge question. in this particular research as you said, they looked at you know a dozen or so brains. that's only a dozen. it's wonderful that the families of those children were as generous as they were in donating the brains of their departed loved ones. we need to understand this more broadly. we need more brain donation so we can see how common this is. if it's only a few people with autism who are like this or whether this characterizes the big population. probably it's not everybody, the question is what fraction of autism is like this? >> and different types of autism could they be happening because different synapses in differently parts of the brain are affected? >> yeah, absolutely. there could be regional differences in the brain. it could also be that some people have a problem with

inadequate pruning as they found in this research. maybe other people have the opposite problem, there is excessive pruning, we don't know that the pruning is inadequate in everybody. >> the study found that mice that had a disease that's closely associated with autism, they were able to fix the synapse pruning problem by using a medication that eliminated most of the autism like behaviors that the mice exhibited. what about those drugs? where do we stand on what could happen with humans? >> that is an incredible exciting piece of this same research. they studied the human brains and they studied the mice that had a genetic mutation for tubular sclerosis, many of them not all of them have autism. many of them do have autism. there is actually a study going right now not against rapo micin, the drug in this study

but a closely related drug, a study going on right now on these patients with tub tuberous sclerosis. patients have trouble with tumors appearing in some other places in their body and this drug helps those turm tumors go. we are hopeful that we'll see some benefits here, and then the question is going to be, is it relevant only to the patience with tuber oust sclerosis or with other types of autism too. >> dr. paul wong, good to see you. appreciate your time. >> my pleasure, thank you.

the preparation are underway but one thing is missing, an american man with a legitimate chance of winning. in one part of the country, the government is recommending some naps, we'll sleep our way through our data dive, next.

>> al jazeera america presents edge of eighteen >> this envelope is my life right now >> ahh...this is nerve racking >> at the crossroads of now and the future... >> i'm ready to get out man... i'm ready to get out of high school >> you find kids making adult

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you guys to understand it >> i'm so proud of you... >> oh my god! >> i feel like there's no way out >> you need to get your life together... cause you 18 now... edge of eighteen only on al jazeera america >> today's data dive sleeps on the job. the u.s. national sleep foundation found that japanese workser sleep just six hours and 23 minutes. we average only nine minutes more. that's a half hour less than people in canada, mexico, germany and u.k, the other countries surveyed. it's gotten so bad in japan that employers are encouraging workers to take a nap during the workday and japan's work ministry encourages all people to take a half hour nap during the afternoon. some businesses are providing a

place to nap. an added problem is that only about half workers everywhere report gettin getting a good nis sleep. that could be because workers aren't getting enough exposure to natural light during the day. researchers from the university of illinois found that employees with workplaces with windows get 173% more exposure to natural light than those without windows. that extra sunlight pays off with an average of 46 minutes more of sleep every night for those workers. and a better overall quality of sleep. workers with windows also reported a better quality of life, better metabolism and more physical activity. it's most important to be exposed to natural light early in the day and the closer you are to windows the more positive you will be. the positive effects of windows vanish once you're about 20 to 25 feet from windows. light is crucial to

synchronizing your internal biological rhythms. the world's biggest tennis tournament accommodation.comes up next week. >> hello i'm david schuster. air strikes might not be enough. will syria be next? a jury of his peers, the michael brown grand jury weighing possible charges against ferguson police officer darren wilson. and friday art segment, eric hutchinson talks about making music all on his own. all that coming up after this.

>> the final major tennis tournament of the year gets underway on monday here in new york city. it is the u.s. open and american men will be underdogs. i mean real underdogs. no american male has won the u.s. open since 2003. andy rotdick. joining us to discuss the state of american tennis and the upcoming u.s. open is patrick ruby who is a sports columnist. let's start with the american men. what is going on.

in 1994, there were 24 in the top 50, today there is one, and two of them barely, where did the american men go? >> surface and style. american players they grow up playing on hard courts. the ball moves faster. what does that mean? that means that they learn to have a big serve, maybe a big forehand. they play aggressively and try omove in. but the thing is, you know, the way the game has evolved in the last ten, 20 years, whether it's the racquet technology or other surfaces, you actually have a bigger advantage if you grow up playing on clay courts, like we see in europe and other countries. slower and more tactical. one of the key things that american players have to get better at. i think the usta is taking steps to teach younger players to play on clay, trying to build more

clay courts but that's going to be a while to bear fruit if it's even going to. >> some surveys show tennis coming in seventh, and tennis is second after soccer, but that argument sounds a little hole hw to me, restriction a little hol -- rings a little hollow because that's probably been the case all along. >> you could make the case, well, american tennis doesn't draw tall best athletes in the country. it probably 97 has. but i think that maybe what's more important is that tennis has become more popular overseas and more popular around the world, particularly in europe and i think maybe the talent pool in the united states has stayed a little flat or declined a little bit. but in the talent pool everywhere else has elevated tremendously. it's not just that american tennis players have gotten

worse, it's possible that the world has caught up and surpassed the united states. >> to play high level as a kid cam there's less money as a pro, fewer scholarships in college, we only have a fraction of the pro tournaments they have in europe and far fewer than 30 years ago. so is tennis on the decline? >> i'm not sure if it's declined. relative to the glory days of mcen rowrow and the '70s and '80s, relative to ten years ago, where we had the golden year ever agassi, and sampras and currier. it is an expensive sport to be good at, as a kid, to get the right kind of coaching, to get elite coaching and to travel and to play in these junior tournaments. it's also, look, america is a

very large geographic country. it's spread out, it's hard to get to those coaches, to those tournaments, even if you have the money you play not have the time. >> to be fair, the women are better, serena is 32, venus is older, if the two williams sisters stop playing tennis even the women aren't going to look that good. >> the williams sisters, i'm glad you brought them up. the biggest explanation what has happened to elite american tennis, we've been unlucky in the united states. the williams sisters are once in a lifetime talent. sampras or andy roddick, grand slam winners don't come around

very often. in some ways, all of us in america might have been spoiled by a lot of good luck. no matter what your national development system is, no matter what you're doing as a country to produce champions, champions happen. roger federer happened in switzerland. rafael nadal, australia and other countries have a long proud tradition of tennis -- >> they've done worse than the u.s. arguably, given at one point they were very dominant, too. the u.s. tennis association, get a lot of money, $200 million from u.s. open, questions how usta spends its money. i wonder if the usta is not doing enough, which is that american tennis may be declining

where it counts at the professional levels, but also, in that popular culture. it's just you don't see tennis outs there. we're not paying attention to tennis on television and other places that other sports get. >> well i think with the usta for one, that new york times story today, in terms of cronyism and sort of where the money is spent, you know i don't know how much there is to that. but every dollar obviously that is not going to youth development in some way is a dollar that's not going to find that flex agassi, that next sampras. it's really hard to say, the best they can do is what you hint at which is to particularize the sport, get racquets in a lot of kids' hands. if they're going to turn into the next great player, it's probably going to come within, it's probable because they've got some kind of singular ability. or the places where the williams sisters, one parent can make all

the difference in the world in tennis. i don't know systemically and structurally if there's much beyond that if they can make it easier to get to academies, i know they're trying to build more academies and more training centers, that may help as well. but to get to that top five, that top ten, you need special players that emerge and maybe there's nothing you can do as a country or tennis association to make that happen. >> it needs happen organically, at people's homes and not as academies. but the usta is certainly trying hard. they have all swords ever programs to bring new children into the tennis world. patrick, thanks. >> thank you for having me. >> a former u.s. official says president obama is being advised on iraq by the wrong group of people.

also after eric holder's group to ferguson, former attorney general alberto gonzalez on what he thinks the role should be. follow us on facebook or google plus, you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis and tweet me @amoratv. we'll see you next time. fp bls. >> hello everybody this is al jazeera america. i'm david schuster in new york. john siegenthaler has the night off. just ahead. assessing a threat from the islamic state group. the obamacare white house reacts to the pentagon's take that it's worse than al qaeda before 9/11. russia moves convoy trucks into eastern ukraine without permission. moscow insists the trucks are carrying aid, kyiv is not so sure and calls it an