facebook for more stories, more access, more conversations. so you don't just stay on top of the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. important. >> huge protests around the country calling for police reform. reverend jesse jackson joins us. also how thousands of veterans and civilian contractors may face serious illness because of their service in iraq and afghanistan. and meet the press host chuck todd will join us on his unflinchingly critical book on president obama. i'm antonio mora. welcome to "consider this," and those stories and much more straight ahead. >> americans still upset that a new york city police officer was

not indicted in the death of eric garner. >> this needs to end. >> we deserve better. >> this is how many military bases dispose of waste. >> this is our generations agent orange. >> barack obama in the white house. >> washington would change on its own by his mere presence. >> syrian families made it through their final steps through a war that nearly killed them. >> if we fight atrocities, as some point you have to make a good. >> we begin with a large protest across the country and calls for police reform following the grand jury decision not to charge a new york city police officer in the death of eric garner. you joining us now is the reverend jesse jackson, civil

rights activist and reverend, always good to see you. there is, of course, an incredible amount of outrage in the grand jury decision of the eric garner case. what do you hope will come from it and the efforts that i know you and others are having all over the country? >> well, it's a tremendous amount the way the department of justice stop this reign of terror on black men. the jurors set the killers key as rodney king's was set free. michael ferguso brown in ferguson. there has been injustice. >> has it really gotten that much worse. this comes from someone who has personally seen african-americ african-americans mistreated by

police. but if you look at statistics it seems that it was epidemic in the 1990's. we've had 30 years where things have not changed much. we're seeing these terrible recent cases, but has it gotten worse. >> well, you have the visuals of social media. you saw eric garner begging for breath and being choked to death and the police walked free. you saw rodney king being beaten, and the police walked free. but we put so much focus--the police are just gatekeepers. behind the gates are--we should put cameras on the backs of bangers. bangsers ar--bankers, bankers

are the ones who robbed our people. >> that's another story. what are they facing. >> you have the most unemployment. we need targeted jobs and healthcare and jobs and training because they should be lifted up to an even playing field. we have an analysis also a budget looking at those who are in the hole of the uneven playing field. >> what about the possible unintended consequences in dealing with police, and changing the way policing is done. as you know the crime rate in new york city has gotten infinitely lower over the past couple of decades to a great

extent possibly because of aggressive policing, and some would argue that the biggest beneficiaries have been people in minority opportunities. >> the question need do people knees more policing or more jobs, more access to healthcare, more education, more jobs, more training. we don't need to the policed, we need to be educated and inspired to do better with greater opportunity. we do very well on the athletic field. we're the best at it because the playing field is even and the rules are public and the referees are fair and the scores transparent. we need justice, not just police. >> we've heard on that broader scale, we've heard attorney general eric holder, we heard the president talk about how all people need to have confidence in police. and going back did you think you

would live long enough to see a black attorney general and black president? give that have then made advancement. >> this has ban backlash against them and against the rest of us, after all domestic violence is one thing when police hold badge and gun and shoot unarmed people and walk away, that's a pill that's hard to swallow. we need to give people confidence again in the jury system, and maybe there should be lights not just on the jury system but on the police. >> many would say that those who saw the garner video and heard him say he can't breathe repeatedly, it's hard not to be outraged by this, and i don't

think congressman peter king of new york isn't outraged himself. he said it wouldn't have been the same if garner had been white because in this case garner had all these health issues, and the police would have gone after a white person who resisted arrest in the same way. >> 's being hypothetical. the reality is that you have this wave of blacks who are unarmed killed by white police. if you had this wave of black police killing whites it would not be the same. >> thank you for sharing your thoughts. >> thank you, sir. >> joining us here in new york is congressman elizabeth holtzman. great to have you with us. >> thank you. nice to be here. >> you're the perfect person to

talk about this because you've dealt with grand juries and the new york city police. we only got limited release of information about what the grand jury actually saw. do you think this process has played out fairly? >> well, of course its troubling, and most americans are bothered by secrecy because we're encouraged by and accustomed to openness. a grand jury process that is secret is something that americans are not comfortable with. it's secret for a lot of reasons. it's always been secret historically. it was there basically to protect the public against the prosecutor. it was supposed to be a check against the prosecutor. people say that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. in new york state that is not true. i don't know what the story is in missouri, in the federal government the prosecutor can

recommend indictment but in new york state the prosecutor cannot make a recommendation. the prosecutor can cross-examine, but it cannot make an outcome. >> when you have a grand jury come back with no document. it makes people think there is some inherent problem and there is bias. >> it does create these questions. there perhaps could be a release of minutes. in missouri, can't just release it, you have to get permission from the judge, and that's rarely granted. but to give people confidence, they should release the minutes. we don't agree with it, but we didn't see someone putting their thumb on the scale. people have to have confidence in the system. i also think there are other checks on a system that have to

come in to play. in new york city, for example, until very recently we had a civilian complaint review board board that was not a very effective tool either to respond to public complaints or to identify systemic problems like the chokehold. >> when you were in the brooklyn d.a. you dealt with complaints against police, which does not exist any more. that's one of the questions here. you worked closely with police officers as a prosecutor. this staten island prosecutor, i'm sure s the same. that's the question, about whether the process can possibly be fair if you've got people going after people that they work with all the time. >> right, well, i was in the civil rights movement in the early 60's and i saw horrors of jim crow and i saw what the police were doing in georgia and alabama and so forth. when i came to the d.a. in brooklyn blacks could be moved

from the jury just because of race. i fought that all the way to the supreme court. these were practices that were definitely affecting the outcome. i understood that there was a perception issue when you had issues. here i am d.a. working closely with the police shah solved a murder case and then i have to prosecute the police in an issue involving misuse of force. who is going to believe the outcome? i did create a special unit that never worked with the police on solving cases but was just dealing with those issues. >> is that something that we should have all the time. >> that's something that we're thinking about. i knew this was the right thing to do because i knew it was not only important to be fair but to be perceived to be fair. that's one of the things that people are concerned about. that's one of the problems with secrecy. >> we're talking about police picketing you, some have said, including peter king, that police have been thrown under the bus in this case. even mayor de blasio's comments

could be read as anti-police. >> i want to say something about commissioner brattan and mayor de blasio, i think they have handled this very well. we are a city of 8 million people. we didn't have one house burned down. we didn't have one building burned down. we had few arrests. people could express whatever their views were in a peaceful way top to compare what happened in new york city to ferguson, this is an example of allowing people to have their first amendment rights without violence. >> what about the role of police. we've seen the broken window, the stop and frisk, going after smaller crimes, and how this has contributed to the lower crime rate. whether it's responsible for it or not is a matter of debate. are police in general doing a good job in the city? >> in new york city i think a

lot of things have changed over time. a more diverse police force. that helped to generate public respect for the police and public willingness to work with the police. diversification is important. bringing in african-americans, hispanics, asian-americans, women, diversifying the police force is important. they're making a lot of strides. they're trying to do something at the police complaint review board. >> that's something that has to happen nationwide. >> absolutely. >> in this case the police officer had a couple of complaints against them. and then we had this horrible case in cleveland where a 12-year-old boy had a toy gun that didn't look like a toy gun, and in this case the police came out aggressively. should there not be, again, more reviewed to make sure that especially the police officers who might be too aggressive are

not going to be put in situation where is they could create serious problems and even death. >> well, there is no question being a police officer is a tough job. i have enormous respect for people who put themselves in harms' way to protect the public. that doesn't mean that they can't make bad judgments, and it doesn't mean that they don't need the good training, retraining, constant support and help. if you look at ferguson, there was no diversity in the police force, in city government. it was very easy for the city to write off the minority population. you can't do that. we've learned the hard way in park city that you got to reach out. you have to have community policing and diverse police force. without the public's sport and help you can't even do a good job of policing because who is going to report the crimes. who is going to report to the police when crime takes place.

we have to make many strides and we have to make many more strides. i believe we need to review what happened, and we need oh 20 take a good look at policing around the country. one small ray of hope. in south carolina a white police officer was indicted for shooting a black unarmed man. it shows that america is not an one-way street here. >> consider this will be right back. >> i'm ali velshi, the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news.

more than 52,000 american soldiers have been wounded in iraq and afghanistan. veterans have filed close a million disability claims with the veterans administration. now the supreme court is considering whether a case should proceed, involving claims that as many as 100,000 veterans and civilian contractors have suffered health problems from inhaling fumes from tonnes of military trash, burnt in the

open pits on bases in iraq and afghanistan. sheila macvicar has more. >> everything didn't go to crash, it went to be burnt. it was every day black smoke came over us. >> reporter: this is how many u.s. military bases across iraq and afghanistan disposed of waste. in massive open-air burn pits, which unleashed clouds of thick black and some veterans say toxic smoke. >> during the day time it was solid black. you could smell it. >> staff sergeant antony thornton spent two years as a prison camp guard in iraq. he was constantly exposed to poisonous fumes, he says, that lingered around his living erts. worked. >> the burn pit you'd see anything in it, anything from

tyres to paints to medical waste. stuff. >> there he goes. >> and they would use j p8 jet fuel to set it on fire. >> reporter: specialist rodney miese worked in the mechanic area. it had a big burn pit, 10 acres of smouldering trash. at the height of wars, more than 250,000 bases across iraq and afghanistan burnt their waste. large bases burnt up to 300 tonnes of garbage a year. >> there was always a yellow haze over the base. everybody that you talked to had some type of respiratory issue with it. it was operational 24/7. the toxics released batteries, tyres, human waste - it made

them sick. >> all the burning was done wrong. and everybody nose that. >> reporter: more than two years an anthony came home from iraq. he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer, at 33. he underwent three surgeries. >> during his last surgery part of his brain was removed. the left temperal lobe and part of the hippocampus, playing a role in short and long term memory and affected his speech. >> i cannot tell you my wife or my daughter's middle names. i don't remember everybody's name. >> as soon as it happened, he said it was the burn bit. >> thornton's wife says her military. >> hearing these people go, and

they risk so much and forego so much for our country, that the country doesn't stand. >> thornton says he doesn't have a history of cancer in the family, and has a letter from his oncologist saying, in part: lip the veterans administration awarded thornton 70% disability, but does not acknowledge links to burn pits and says his cancer may be linked to radiation from a previous job. >> we know people were sick. we are trying our best to determine where the burn pits are responsible. >> the top health official says there's no proven link between exposure to burn pits and long-term health damage. >> we looked at several thousand

individuals, members, assigned to locations, versus location. we looked at the data and were unable to identify a definite difficult health risk asposhted with those at burn pits. >> leaving veterans like miese fighting for compensation they believe they are owed. he can no longer work, he's been granted a 10% disability. he planned for a long military career. where he was stationed he lived pit. >> while i was there, it felt like you were trying to breath. i have narcotics. after leaving iraq it took doctors 7 years to diagnose them with bronning ill itis.

he has to carry an oxygen tank with him, erp he goes. >> we see a population of patients with unexplained short possess of breath following service in iraq and afghanistan. >> this doctor is a paul monologist -- pull monologist. >> is this something you expect to find for someone fit for employment. >> it's a diagnosis in an otherwise healthy individual. >> this is linked to some inhalation and exposure during service in the middle east. you can go through a list of potential exposures. dust storms, particulate matter exposure. burn pits. >> dr miller began to see returning soldiers with mysterious breathing problems. he was the first to do lung biopsies. he began linking the conditions to war time exposures.

when he presented the findings, he said he was shut out by the dod. >> after that conference, the department of defense decided not to send any more patients. >> the department told dr miller they deal with the issues internally. we sent the soldiers to the middle east physically fit. they had toxic inhalation, coming back with problems making them non-deployable and were not willing to compensate them. dod's said the evidence linking soldiers to damage from byrne there. >> it's highly plausible, probable that some individuals have health conditions acquired as a result of exposures in theatre. being able to identify which

exporms and individuals is difficult because we don't have the individual exposure information helping us to establish that link. >> miese left the military. his doctors told him he was not fit to work as a file clerk. with his fiancee he moved to the mississippi coast. the humid air helps with the future. as for the future... future. >> jamie and antony were married shortly after he came back from iraq. they have a 3-year-old daughter. >> i mean this, is not what i thought our life would be. you know, at 33, 34, 35. it affected us tremendously. a lot of people say this is our generations. thorntons

say they want the military to acknowledge harm done to soldiers. >> my plan was to keep working, and get a good job working. she doesn't have to do anything and be a good man. but i've erased that now. >> you're still a good man. >> it's hard to accept that. >> reporter: for thousands of returning veterans, this is their reality, a reality shaped by exposure to the burn pits, and someone, they say, needs to step up and take responsibility for more i'm joined from baltimore by susan burke, a lead attorney in a class action group,

filing against a group contracted to get rid of rubbish from bases in iran and iraq. good to have you on the show. after vietnam there was agent orange, soldiers that suffered cancer from exposure to toxic herbicides. after the gulf war, soldiers suffered health problems, possibly due to fumes. and now these reports and lawsuits. the defense defendants response is the same sass in prior cases. >> that's true. sadly the commander in chief president obama said it's not becoming the next agent orange. in truth, it has. there has been delay, study, no progress. >> your lawsuit has 250 plaintiffs. are they suffering terrible health problems we witnessed in the story we just played? >> yes. and, in fact, the size of the

class is much brighter than that. we filed 250 claims. there are many others that signed on as well. what we see are respiratory problems. we have cancers. up to 12 deaths. how many potential victims do you think are out there? >> it's difficult to get a hard number. we thing it's in the thousands based on the number of people deployed, and the proximity to the burn pits. >> what about the claim that air pollution, dust from sand storms, could have caused the problems reported? >> what you are seeing is a clear causal link between the burn pits and the injuries. this is science independent of us.

there are reports that it is a causal factor. dr miller discovered a causal factor. that's a question for the scientist, and the consensus force be that exposure to the injury. >> how many doctors are involved in looking into this? >> what we see anecdotally, we seeing more and more treating physicians are attributing it. a lot of this is commonsense. if you think about it in this case nation, we outlawed the burning of trash in the backyard. hazard. >> people washing the story probably noticed a red flag. that the military stopped sending dr vanderbilt people

when he raised the issue. >> when you look at the wrongdoing, we need to look at the corporation at kbr, billions of dollars, and they were supposed to perform according to contacts. and is that required them to handle waste disposal in a manner that did not hurt the troops. the defense department, the veterans gafrs have been harmed by this. they are haemorrhaging money because of injuries caused by this association. >> the military spent millions to install incinerators that afghan troops and u.s. soldiers refused to use. kbr says the military offered afl of the burn pits. if there's a culprit. how much is kbr, how much is the defense department.

>> we are focussing on the pits that kbr operated. this is why we need to get to the district court. we are waiting to go back to the trial court level. and this fact-finding it done in the district court level. the information that we collected is kpr ran the vast majority of the burn pits. the first invasion tended to be military. they are not the pits at issue, they were short-term, small, and not institutionalized. >> are you going an kbr because the military is immune from lawsuits in cases like these? >> no we are going after kbr because it was their wrongdoing that caused the problem. this is a company that got billions

in taxpayers funds. person paid to provide a service. they didn't do that. they were supposed to take away the waste in a safe manner. thank you for joining us, we reached out to kbr, they

>> a deal went against they're own government >> egypt mismanaged it's gas industry >> taking the country to the brink of economic ruin >> this is because of a corrupt deal to an assigned to basically support two dodgy businessmen an israeli one, and an egyptian one... >> al jazeera exposes those who made a fortune betraying an entire nation >> you don't feel you owe an explanation to the egyptian people? >> no...no.. >> al jazeera investigates egypt's lost power

on al jazeera america president obama swept into the white house in 2008 with his message of hope and change. and the promise is end the political polarization plaguing washington. after six years in office, partisan politicking worsened, as has gridlock. partly because of the president's aloofness, and ub relenting -- unrelenting opposition. the paradoxies are laid out in detail in a book "the stranger", and i'm plead to be joined by chuck todd, nbc news's political editor, and host of "meet the press." good to see you. >> thanks for having me on. >> it's a pleasure. you wrote the president was disgusted and disdainful of the process of politics and quoted

an aid saying when it comes to retail aid and politics, it's like bill gates not liking computers. how can someone win two terms of process. >> he likes the campaigning. he doesn't like washington politics. much of the public agrees with him. it's why he was able to get excitement behind him in 2007 and 2008. because he made the promise that he is disgusted with the way washington conducts business. when he had a phrase called turn the page. it was a phrase that was used to knock the clinton, and the democratic party and the bush and the republican party. like it's time to break out of the politics we've been in. he struggled to do it. part of the problem is there's two types of pol ticking to succeed in america. there's campaigning.

something that the president enjoys. you see it. when he's campaigning, there's a bounce in his step. you here the stack atto in his voice. when he -- staccato in his voice. when he does the washington politics, he shifts downwards. >> you blame part of it on organs and on capitol hill, when he was a senator, he was seen as an outsider, too cool, aloof, unwilling to play the game, and you wrote that president obama is wired differently, believing the rational should oversome the superficial. being rational - i have known him for a while - how does he not figure out that in work you have to be superficial and play the game. pooech if it seems irrational. >> you get to the latest asset. it's an idea that he is more

normal than most politicians. many are wired differently. most of us don't need 50% plus one in a district, town, state or country to make ourselves feel relevant or important. there's a group of politicians, that is what drives them. president obama, in some ways is not wired that way that, is what made him appealing to so many people in '07 and "0le. >> there's the theatrics, the not understanding that others need that phone call to say great job, thank you for being there. that donors want you know that you care that they showed up to your fundraiser, that c.e.o.s want to know you care about their opinion. he thinks some of these theatrics are silly. he admitted at the last interview, we talked about the

criticism he got when he went golfing after giving a statement about the beheading of journalist james foley. and he said sometimes i don't get the theatrics right. sometimes it was interesting, but here we are six years into the presidency. >> if he misses those things, is not a good retail politician, could part of the problem be that his team is focused on the campaigning and not a week went by without a poll for exampling on voters in swing states. some came in with the idea of protecting the political brand. every" does that, has the focus in the first term, and don't let anyone that worked for the previous presidents tell you differently, they can tell you they weren't focus the. but they were focused.

i think the mandate that president obama had was to change washington. part of it it was the presidency he didn't expect. he was thrown a crisis with the great recession. >> one thick you say is you can't change washington if you are going be on the sidelines. >> that's right. >> that's an issue. that he didn't get involved in the game. >> i thought he thought his election would change, washington would change on its own by his mere presence, his mere election was okay, voters sent the message, they sent me here, it's time to change the way you do business. hammer. >> i agree. >> would it have matter. with the tea party, senator mitch mcconnell saying they want president obama to be a one-term president. was it possible?

>> we don't know, and we don't know in this respect. he came in not needing republicans to get an agenda passed in '09 and '10. that was a big deal. i wondered what would his presidency look like and what would his relation be if he had 50 to 51. he needed in the first year 10 or eight to 10 or 12 republicans to pass major legislation. there would be more urgency on both sides of the negotiating table. republicans knew they didn't have to be responsible because democrats controlled everything. the white house knew they didn't need republican buy-in. it would be nice to get it. if they got it they'd tout it. they didn't need it to get stuff done. >> in hindsight i think there is certainly a wish by some democrats that he was forced to have the republicans early on, he would have built a reservoir of goodwill, i think, with a

smaller chunk. you are right. the tea party, some of these folks he was never going to win over. you look at the way regan found conservative democrats to look at. are there fewer moderate republicans today than there president? >> absolutely. it was harder and trickier to do. but the outreach was not there. i'll give you an example of how little outreach there was in '09 and '10. election night republicans will win the house. the president decides he needs to call up john boehner and congratulate him. nobody had his contact information or cell phone. pretty symbolic. in the context of getting his agenda past, the president has been pillaried is not too strong a word. talking about the pen eta and

gates book and hillary clinton's book. and senator schumer last week criticized the president barack obama administration for focussing on the roll out of obama care. was that a mistake that that was what they focused on. >> let me take you to may of '09. that was an important decision. they had three paths to go down. they had spent $2 trillion bailing out the u.s. economy, with stimulus and the auto industry. it's time to turn their focus. here they are, yet to implement something they had campaigned on. the choices were health care, financial reform or climate change. cap in trade, carbon tax. ron emanuel was arguing what

chuck shooum acre was -- schumacher was arguing. he was arguing against reform. others said hey, you have political capital. if you go big, let's try to move on all three fronts and see what happened. >> one thing you woke that struck me, is he's neither the belittle. you say that he doesn't see himself as a leftist or a liberal. it seems incongruous to me. he doesn't. he believes he's in the main stream. most do. he'd argue that the health care law was something republicans were in favour of in the '90s. he pushed through tax cuts na in the '90s, that version of the republican party support. that's where he sits and says

hey, i'm not pushing an ultra liberal agenda. what is interesting, and i compare president obama and client. president obama is more to the left on the ideological spectrum, but they'll end up in the center if it's necessary. president obama is more of a trag mattist -- pragmatist. he would take half a loaf. some of his colleagues are nervous about that. but the republican party don't want to do that. >> look after the elections, he came out with a degiant speech -- defiant speech. people expected him to talk about the shall acting. he was defiant. they put out the e.p.a. regulation, which received a lot of opposition from conservatives and manufacturers

on the eve of thanksgiving, and tax cuts. something that congress agreed to. the white house is not on the same page. will anything improve? >> i don't think anything will improve. i can tell you the reason for the defines is the per cent feels as if he's catered to democrats for so long. look at the immigration decision. the president, many of his allies believes he wishes he had done it a year ago, six months it. he delayed it, and he delay itted because democrats begged him to delay it. he regrets it. i feel he wasn't given a chance to defend his own record. i think that's why he was defiant. he doesn't feel - he feels as if his party abandoned him. and that's why he doesn't feel

he - he didn't have a chance to defend his record. and democrats didn't defend his record, and he didn't get a chance too. that's where the defines comes in. doesn't sound like a good recipe to get things done. >> no, with your own party or the other side. >> i'll ask you with a book this tough on the president. are you concerned the white non-grata. >> i don't think so. look, i think it's a fair sober account. it's not an ideological book, left or right. it's what i saw through the press of his battles with washington institutions. i think none of these critiques that i put in here are new to some of the folks i deal with at the white house. we'll see. if that's the way it is, let the right. >> good to see you. good luck with the book. the strepinger -- stranger, president obama in the white house.

today's data dive honours a gaming milestone. wednesday, marks 20 years since the sony playstation debuted in japan. it revolutionized the industry. 50,000 units told, and it became the first gaming console to sell more than 100 million. video games are big business, averaging $90 billion in worldwide sales every year, tripling the worldwide ticket sales for the film industry. last year "call of duty ghosts" raked in a million dollars in its first day. "grand theft auto 5", reached a billion in three days. 19 films grossed more than a billion. it took the box office record holder "avatar" 2.5 weeks to

grosses that much. no wonder big name actors appear in video games. kevin spase stars in "call of duty", but the game doesn't seem to capture the oscar winner. >> can't they give kevin spacey spies with life. they have one of the greatest actor in the world and give him the eyes of a carp that's been in the refrigerator for three days. >> give them time conan o-brian, teach for america is supposed to educate poor children. >> schools where kids need grade teaching the most. >> can unprepared teachers make a difference? >> why are we sending them teachers with 5 weeks of training?

is america losing credibility overseas - from syria to i.s.i.l., and ukraine, foreign policy has come under scrutiny even from former top officials in the obama administration. including our next guest. i sat with ann marie slaughter for an to al jazeera". she the head of the new america

foundation, and head of a state department. i asked her about america's strategy to fight i.s.i.l. >> it's simply intention. i mean, you cannot kneel allow this organization steting up this rule, re draw the borders in the middle east. it is complete to tackle it as a military problem, and that it was not bound up with the war, and the politics of iraq or turkey. we need the political strategy strategy. >> good luck. that region had problems with politics and borders. since the borders were established. madeline albright put it succinctly - the world is a mess. president obama faced harsh

leadership, criticism for his behind. his enemies don't fear him, allies don't trust him. you wrote blaming obama for the world's ills is like blaming a caribbean island for a hurricane, but you wrote: thoughts? >> the first thing is i do think president obama is encountering more crisis at one time than anyone in recent memory. he has middle eastern flames, russia with ukraine, china and japan and korea. he has a global penn demic as terrifying as anything we witnessed. that's leaving out a bunch of other crisis. to blame him because the world is a mess that is crazy.

>> i think his failure to follow through on the use of force, when bashar al-assad used chemical weapons, we'd known for some time he was using the chemical weapons. president obama drew the red line. it made many wonder was the u.s. prepared to stand up for things that it says are absolutely critical. i think that introduced an element of uncertainty that is not helpful in relations with allies and adversaries, and gives you a little more looseness than you like. i don't think you can say that vladimir putin would have invaded. those are counterfactuals. worked. >> when does the u.s. need to intervene. if there's a legitimate action, we can't be the world's policeman.

you said that yourself before. do our vital interests need to be at play, and when is an interest a vital interest? >> so there's a clear vital interest where the defense of our homeland, the defense of our peep, the defense of our allies, all of those are things where, yes, we are prepared to use force. where i may differ from many traditional foreign policy people is i do think that if the gap between what we say we stand for and what we do becomes too wide, we are irrev okayably weakened in the world. either we can stop saying we stand for universal lights. we stand with people who fight for their rites. as long as we say it and are standing up in saying we fight atrocities and sign the treaty, we will defend people, crimes

against humanity. my point is at some point you have to make good on what you say. if you don't, you have lost your reputation, capital, your identity as a nights. i'm willing to say that rwanda is a case, syria, kosovo. and we could act not alone, but on behalf of the people, on behalf of the values we say we stand for. that is vital interest. it's just that you don't see it compromised in the same way you see someone inviting a boarder or killing a citizens. you don't see it. it's there, it's insidious, and it damages the united states in the eyes of the world, and the eyes of the people in a way that really is terribly dangerous. >> you were the first woman to head the office of policy planning at the state department.

you were the first woman dean of the woodrow wilson school. you have degrees from harvard, princeton, oxford. you have written a bunch of books. two years ago you wrote an article that became a media sensation, turning you into a media sensation, entitled why women still can't have it all. what can we do so men and women have the ability to have their careers and be involved parents. >> three things, one is flexibility. when i'm the boss, i say if family comes first, work will not come second, it will come together. i let the people who work for me do what they need to do, whatever they need to do, to take care of their families. the second, we need to rethink the ark of careers. young people have life expectancy over 80. there's time to have a family

and rise in your career, as long as you are not expected to do both. we have the idea that 40 and 50-year-olds, if you were not promoted, you were passed over. that's crazy. we are missing out on a tonne of talent needed. the last thing was a public infrastructure of care. we are one of three countries that don't have paid paternity leave, high quality day care or anything that we need if you believe that care is important. >> you can see my full interview with ann-marie slaughter on "talk to al jazeera" on december 13th. the conversation continues on the website aljazeera.com/considerthis, and we are on facebook and twitter at aj >> consider this: the news of the day plus so much more. >> we begin with the growing controversy. >> answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> real perspective, consider this

on al jazeera america >> a $16 billion problem the u.n. launch as knew humanitarian appeal, and syrian refugees are a top priority. >> we're watching al jazeera live from doha. also coming up. >> since i was employed. >> kenya's secret hit squads undercover police admit to killing radical muslims without trial. an al jazeera exclusive. plus kurdish forces fighting isil on the iraq-syrian border have to change their tactics