tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC May 23, 2013 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
9:00 pm
the plan. >> thank you, really appreciate it. >> thank you. that is all in for this evening. the rachel maddows show starts now. >> good evening, chris, thank you my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us. in august 1996 a man not a religious official of any kind, a man who had no authority to do it, decided that he nevertheless would issue a holey order, that man's name was ocsama bin laden and he called it a decoration of war against the americans occupying the land of the who holey places. the land of the two holey places is audio arabia, mecca and medina. he was a saudi citizen and it hinged on the fact that the united states had military bases in the land of the two holey places in saudi arabia. that was 199 6.
9:01 pm
two years later, the second bin laden and all eye da -- the first one was rambling but this spelled it out much more directly. it said everybody should try to kill americans, american personnel and civilians and the just if case for doing that started in the same place as the fatwa before, 199 8. the united states has been occupying the land of islam in the holeyest of places. since the first iraq war and the gulf war seven years earlier, the united states had been maintaining military bases in saudi arabia, the land of the two holey places and that fact that there were u.s. bases in saudi abrab ya apparently drove osama bin laden nuts. wage war on the sod did rulers for letting the americans be
9:02 pm
here. so in 1996 said get u.s. bases out of saudi abrab ya and in 1998 get u.s. bases out of saudi arabia and in 2001 it was 9/11 and we do not talk about this often, but one of the things the united states did after 9/11 was get the u.s. bases out of saudi arab arabia. we invaded iraq, which had nothing to do with al qaeda or 9/11 and on march 19th of that year and announced we were pulling bases out of saudi arabia on april 29th. we were quietly announced we were pulling military bases out on a tuesday and on thursday president george w bush declared mission accomplished on our very young war in iraq. osama bin laden's big demand was that we pulled u.s. bases out of
9:03 pm
saudi arabia and president george bush pulled u.s. bases out of saudi arabia. two decades later, we did the same thing. in 1983 there was a huge suicide truck bomb at the airport in lebanon. six months earlier there had been another big suicide car bomb attack, not on a barracks but u.s. embassy, 63 people killed including 17 americans at the barracks bombing, the toll was almost unimaginable. 299 dead including 220 u.s. marin marines, 18 american sailors, three american soldiers, nearly 60 of the allied french troops. the americans and the french and troops from a lot of other countries were there. they were in beirut as part of a peace keeping force trying to stop or mitigate the effects of a civil war that was raging in that country. and the bombings were a terrorist message that those
9:04 pm
international troops could get out, get out you infidelity occupying armies, we do not want you in our country. pull out the peace keepers. then president ronald reagan responded by pulling out the peace keepers. >> regan pulls back the marines. here is tom. good evening president regan tonight ordered a major change in the lebanon policy a full back from american marines to ships just offshore. >> he pulled the marines out of lebanon and george bush have pulled out of saudi abrab ya. they did not go back as pulling out but that's how they responded. terrorism is inco-her rent. it's not like osama bin laden in 2003 said look i told them to get the bases out of saudi abrab
9:05 pm
ya so we're cool and i want to hug it out. they did not assuage his desire from whatever point he was trying to make, right? terrorism is incow her rent. one man said the beef with the west is he felt unfairly labeled an an extremist. the man covered in blood holding a knife said that. terrorism is incoherent and you can't be assured will have the desired effect of stopping it. you can try to capture or kill commented terrorists, you can try to disrupt their plots. you can try to disrupt their organizational structure to screw up their planning to catch more of them. you can sneak spies into their groups the why the fbi and great gangster movies flips a mole
9:06 pm
inside to get the of the and wrap them up in a big sting operation. you can try to reduce the appeal of their i deology to have fewer new recruits to increase the chances anyone in the world who finds the terrorist groups are operating in this mist will turn them in. you can do that. you can try to take away some of the things they are complaining about. you can try to harden yourself as a target so you're less easy to hit so the casualty numbers will be reduced anded if they do hit again. there is stuff you can do. you can do things people think are a mistake or look like surrendering, you can do things people think are very, very, very tough. you can do a range of things but no matter what you do there is still terriorism in the world ad you will still find there is anti-american terrorism in the world born from more or less coherent i deology and it will
9:07 pm
be sometimes less and sometimes more but never entirely will it be susceptible to counterterrorism policies and strategies. there is no one policy orches a or strategic response. nothing is guaranteed to work and there is a lot of terrorism all over the world and in our own history there is a lot of terrorism. terrorism on u.s. soil did not start on 9/11. as president obama said, calling for an end to the bush era, the terrorism we faced as americans include the oklahoma city bombing in 1995 and the barracks bombing in lebanon and the boston marathon bombing, the fort hood attack, the seek temp mass shooting, the hijacking in 19 85 and, and, and, and it is not like america has never been confronted by terrorism before,
9:08 pm
but when 9/11 happened, when that specific occurrence happened the presidency decided the response this time around was going to be war, war that would be indefinite and unconstrained and waged in a way that was sort of designed to be as low impact as possible for our civilian population. we got a huge round of tax cuts in this country a few weeks before 9/11 and then once 9/11 happened and we invited afghanistan, we kept the tax cuts anyway. how did we think we would pay for that war? did we think it was free? then when we started a second simultaneous war in another country, we gave ourselves a second huge round of tax cuts after that second war started. the war, i guess, we thought would be free. don't worry about it civilians, go about your business. it wasn't just about tax cuts or the means of insulating civilians from the war so the war could go on without us noticing or caring. it was the direct shielding of
9:09 pm
us from knowledge of the war by waging a lot of it in secret. so after the bush and cheney years after we got a new president, he came into office, some new decisions were made. one of the two conventional wars that was started after 9/11 was ended. they said they would end the war in iraq and they did. the other war in afghanistan is still on-going but slowly, slowly, very slowly being ended. the new administration did not just keep up, they expanded the use of lethal action around the world in the name of fighting terrorism, operationally they kept that up more aggressively than ever, that aggression made it possible to find and kill bin laden himself but while they operationally kept it up and expanded it, they also did sort of get less secret about it over time increate mentally. march 2010 a year after they took office the famous human
9:10 pm
rights the top legal advisor of the state department gave the first speech explaining whied at minute station thought it was legal to kill people without a trial, he sate effectively because it is war and in march 2012 gives another speech that yes, that applies to even american citizens. april 2012 the top lawyer at the cia says even if the cia does it and no one in the u.s. government will therefore admit to it, they still think it's legal, another speech for the first time admits that when we are killing people, we're killing people with drones. november 2012 the top lawyer at the pentagon, jay johnson goes to england to give a speech when he makes the case that everything administration has been doing is legal under the laws of war but he says this war cannot last forever. it has to end. and now today, last in a long series we get the cull minute
9:11 pm
nation, the president saying yeah, the war has to end. war cannot be forever or it's not war anymore. it's something else. >> our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war and every war has come to an end. we must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. we have to be mindful of jay madison's warning that no nation could preserve it's freedom in the continual war not as a bound less global war on terror but rather as a series of persistent targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks that threaten american. a propet l war through drones or special forces or troop deployments will prove did he feel defeating and alter our country in troubling ways.
9:12 pm
our system mat tick effort to dismantle terror organizations must continue but this war like all wars must end. that's what history advices. that's what our democracy demands. >> this is a big historic speech, the turning point the way america talks about the way in the world, a turning point we knew would come some day and did come today at least in terms of how we talk about it. what will happen next, specifically the president said today he wants to refine and then repeal the authorization for the u.s. of military force that was signed after 9/11 and that is still in effect. he says he will not sign laws to expand it. he says he will lift the moratorium from sending prisoners home, that's most of the prisoners left at guantanamo and wants congress to lift the barriers that congress put in place to transferring other prisoners out of graun ton moe
9:13 pm
and told the pentagon to pick a site in the united states for military commissioners to be held here, held here and no longer at guantanamo and guidelines for spying on reporters for leak investigations. he wants a review of propels for more oversight when we kill people out of war zones like with drones. he's putting a senior envoy to try to close the prison at guantanamo even though that didn't work the last time he did it. all of those plans and the president declaring the global war on terror has got to be ended some day. this is a big deal what happened today. this has been a long time and coming. joining us now, someone that's been working since the first day of this president's first term and every issue the president talked to today. the deputy legal director of the aclu and representing three american family citizens that were killed in drones he
9:14 pm
represents a detain knee held at guantanamo in 2002 and won in the circuit court of appeals ruled the cia could no longer deny the fact they play a role in the president's killing and targeting people abroad program and as such, he's the one person i really wanted to speak to tonight. thank you for being here. >> thank you for inviting me. >> i feel like red trick is important and the way we talk about our way in the world. it's important to talk about this war ending. in terms of policy, did you feel like there were things that were new from the president in this speech that you felt like were progress today? >> i agree about the rhetoric. i think that the president did something very significant by saying that we can't stay on a permanent war footing, without compromising our democracy. i think the speech is powerful and compelling and over due. it's one thing to comment to end
9:15 pm
the war and another thing to end the war, and when you get to the level of detail here, a lot sort of slips between your fingers. it's very difficult to pin down the language in this speech. there are some -- some positive things that the president commented to do on guantanamo, a point envoy to negotiate transfers to other countries, lift the moratorium to yemen, use the existing power under statutory law to transfer people that can be transferred. these are all very important things and they are not the ultimate step. the ultimate step is releasing from guantanamo. in guantanamo there are positive developments. we have to see how they play out. on targeted killing it's more complicated. administration said that it's narrowing the authority to carry out strikes. to the extent that's true, that's a welcome development.
9:16 pm
administration is still claiming the authority to carry out strikes away from actual battle fields. it's claiming the authority to carry out strikes against people that don't present truly imminent threats. so it's the strange situation where you have the rhetoric of peace but the reality of war and, you know, which maybe there will be convergence there, maybe eventually the reality will catch up to the rhetoric but the rhetoric of peace is up to the policy. >> there is a couple quantitative issues that came up. on guantanamo he talked about picking the low hanging fruit, picking the people cleared for release and the barriers to release are political and not security. talking about reducing the number of people and when it comes down to people who he says cannot be released, he especially expressed faith. we narrow it to them and we will come up with a solution.
9:17 pm
on drone strikes he's narrowing the scope under which they can happen but he said after relief afghanistan there will be less, fewer because we won't need to use drone strikes to protect troops. he's making a principle argument but bringing numbers into it that way, i wondered what your response was. >> less is better than more. >> yeah. >> you know, ultimately there is an under lying though rethat's a problem. we're at war all over the world. the battle field is everywhere and that theory is the problem with our indefinite detention policy and targeted killing policy, a lot of the most controversial and unconstitutional policies that the last administration put in place and this administration continued and expanded flow from that basic idea. >> if that basic idea changes, do the policies have to change as a result if the military force gets repealed like the president said he wants to do today -- >> i think the policies will
9:18 pm
follow but we should be clear about what happened today, what happened today is the president did not declare an end to the war but an intent and that's a much different thing and, you know, i don't want to dismiss the significance of the rhetoric. i agree with you that the rhetoric is important, but i also don't want people to think this rhetoric is enough. the rhetoric has to lead to actual action on guantanamo and targeted killing and thus far we've seen small steps in the right direction but only small steps. >> talking about planning for an end comes with defining there will be an end that day and i guess we're at the beginning -- >> the beginning of the end. deputy legal director at the aclu and a guy at the center of these fights. thank you. >> thank you. >> robert gibbs is with us tonight, as well. stay with us. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two.
9:19 pm
verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. vo: ta friend under water is end usomething completely different. i met a turtle friend today so, you don't get that very often. it seemed like it was more than happy to have us in his home. so beautiful. avo: more travel. more options. more personal. whatever you're looking for expedia has more ways to help you find yours.
9:21 pm
9:22 pm
it was may 2007 and they wanted to figure out who the president would be to succeed george w bush. one guy who wanted the job was a wanted to run on the i'm a tough guy platform. >> i'm glad they are in guantana guantanamo, some people have said we ought to close guantana guantanamo. my view is we ought to double guantanamo. >> double guantanamo. mitt room know lost that republican primary. he lost to this guy. >> closing guantanamo bay because it's a symbol. it may be one of the nicest
9:23 pm
places in the world to love in and it's become a similar moll and we need to close guantanamo. >> john mccain won the primary at that time that year and he was vocal to close the prison at gun toantanamo and that positios held by the man who was president at that time. >> i would like to end guantanamo. i would like it to be over with. one of the things we will do is send people back to their home countries. >> so that was the position on the republican side in the lead up to the '08 presidential election. here is how democrats dealed with the same issue at the same time. >> we should shut down -- i would as first day as president i would shut down guantanamo and not build the $36 million part. i called for closing it three years ago. >> i will close guantanamo which i think is a national embarrassment. >> we'll lead by shutting down guantanamo and restoring habeas
9:24 pm
car p corpus to lead by example. >> he didn't have competition on his close guantanamo position. all the democrats thought that, including the eventual name knows said close guantanamo, the republican presidential said close that guantanamo. heading into the '08 presidential election, there was a clear national consensus, left, right, and center that closing gun ton know was not only the right thing to do, nobody was against it, at least nobody in power, right? it was going to happen. so to nobody's surprise on his second full day in office the winner of that election signed an executive order calling for the prompt closure of guantanamo. in the executive order, president obama noted that 500 guantanamo prisoners had been sent home or to another country under president bush. president obama set a deadline of one year to get the rest out or send them home, whatever most appropriate but the golfs one year to close it down. closing guantanamo was the one
9:25 pm
area of bipartisan consensus zus. there was no bush back on the republican side and if there had been democrats controlled the white house and both chambers of congress by a lot after that election. guantanamo was going to be over, and it was going to be closed and it did not happen. less than a month after the president signed the order to close guantanamo, republicans in congress tried to block prisoners from being transferred to prisons in the u.s. not in my backyard. they folded, they caved and democrats as well as republicans took away the money the white house needed to close guantanamo and the last year they took away the money for closing guantanamo. when democrats controlled the house and senate they voted again to block the president from transferring anyone from guantanamo and into the real u.s. justice system. so now more than four years when the president signed to close it
9:26 pm
when everybody thought was a forgone conclusion and they put up a series of barriers to keep that from happening indefinitely. that's what happened four years ago but today this president charged back into that fight explicit recalling on congress to get out of his way this time. >> given my administration's relentless pursuit there is no justification beyond politics for congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should have never been opened. today i once again call on congress to lift the restrictions on detaining transfers from guantanamo. >> what goes into the decision about that kind of timing? and for people who were there in this administration the first time around, people there when the president tried to float this policy before and it sank, what is their understanding of what went wrong the first time? did they get what the problems were the first time around, so
9:27 pm
they will be able to get around them now and get done now what they could not get done before? a man that can actually answer those questions because he was there and saw it from the inside joins us next. big time taste should fit in a little time cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop. now available for use iso you can capture brewer. your receipts, ink for all business purchases. and manage them online with jot, the latest app from ink. so you can spend less time doing paperwork. and more time doing paperwork. ink from chase. so you can. [ clang ] my house is where plants came to die. but, it turns out
9:28 pm
all i was missing was miracle-gro potting mix. it's got what a plant needs like miracle-gro plant food that feeds them for up to six months. you get bigger, healthier plants, guaranteed. who's got two green thumbs thanks to miracle-gro? ah, this gal. boom! with the right soil, everyone grows with miracle-gro. yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! ♪ [ male announcer ] every car we build must make adrenaline pump and pulses quicken. ♪ to help you not just to stay alive... but feel alive. the c-class is no exception. it's a mercedes-benz, through and through.
9:30 pm
imagine a year five years from now, 20 years from now when the united states of america still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not part of our country. look at the current situation where we are force feeding detain neeps, i'm willing to cut the young lady that interrupted me some slack because it's worth being passionate about. is this who we are? is that something our founders forsaw? is that the america we want to leave our children? >> more on the young lady who
9:31 pm
interrupted him in just second but an interesting point there, right? we got used to it but when you step back from it it is wacky to think our country is keeping a prison in another country and that's where we put people in prison forever without charging them with a crime and when they started to try to kill themselves in protest we physically stopped them by forcing food to them. how difficult that will be to explain to history when we're inevidencebly having to do so. calling for the closure of the prison that we keep in cuba, joining us now is somebody that was there the last time the president tried to close that prison and saw how it went. robert gibbs, thank you very much for being here. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> so when you were in the white house and the president set the goal of closing guantanamo for a year after he took office, did that policy sneak up on you guys or could you tell early on it
9:32 pm
was going to be in trouble? >> i do think you had a political situation where different parts of the political spectrum were trying to test when they wanted to convince the american people was an inexperienced president. i do think the politics of it were maybe not as easy as we thought, and i think it got away from what we were trying to do pretty quickly. but i do think you have a reelected president that's hunted down and rid the world of osama bin laden who is fendly in a different place now than he was even four years ago. >> do you have faith as the president pushes forward with this again, this time he'll be able to hold his own party? the surprising thing the first time around is not the republicans trying to change their minds and close guantanamo, the thing that was surprising is see the democrats tuck their tails between their legs and run. >> right, i think the democrats
9:33 pm
are in a fund mentally different position dealing with terrorism again, because of what happened over the last few years in decimating senior al qaeda leadership and hunting down and ridding the world of osama bid laden. i think there is an enormous communications campaign, if you will, that has to take place. you saw the letters being sent to the white house with don't send guantanamo prisoners here, don't send them there and i think there will certainly be some of that, and i think we have to also really get some folks out there particularly from the military. i would like to see colin powell and david portrayous reiterate why it should be closed because as john mccain said in your clip. it is a recruiting tool for al qaeda to this day, and it's been
9:34 pm
exacerbated by this hunger strike. so i think there is a long way to go. let's be clear, we have a super max facility in florence colorado, 100 miles south of denver, some of the worst people housed there with absolutely no danger they will escape. we keep everybody from ted kazinski to richard reid, the shoe bomber, the reason we take shoes off at the airport to the underwear bomber from christmas day 2009 and a host of other bad people. we can house bad people in this down industry and we shouldn't be afraid as mitt romney said in that clip that you showed to demonstrate our values to the world and trying them and if they are guilty imprisoning them, if not, release them. >> so you're making the case right there for why this should be possible but you're also saying work needs to be done. communications work needs to be done to solve it so it doesn't
9:35 pm
fail again. given the work that needs to be done why do you think the president is taking on this fight? why take now he wants to do this given the fact it will take work? >> the president considers this one of the main unfinished business from his first term and immigration reform which is set to get done in the next year or so. this is simply an unsustainable policy. we cannot continue in perpetuity to keep prisoners at the guantanamo bay deif he thinks facility and the unsustainability which is gop reality of what this means to a blienlt to foreign policy and recruiting tool to ali qaeda. for all of those reasons, now is the right time. again, i think it will not be an easy thing to do, but i was heartened but what some people
9:36 pm
said in congress today. certainly, there were those that said, oh, you know, try to scar and do the predictable bogeyman but some said we do need to close it or work through or find a plan how to do that, and i think that is encouraging. >> robert gibbs, former obama white house. hold on, we got more ahead. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one.
9:37 pm
standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. thto fight chronic. osteoarthritis pain. to fight chronic low back pain. to take action. to take the next step. today, you will know you did something for your pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a pain reliever fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. anti-depressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not for children under 18. people taking maois, linezolid or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes.
9:38 pm
tell your doctor about all your medicines, including those for migraine and while on cymbalta, call right away if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles or serious allergic skin reactions like blisters, peeling rash, hives, or mouth sores to address possible life-threatening conditions. talk about your alcohol use, liver disease and before you reduce or stop cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. take the next step. talk to your doctor. cymbalta can help. i did? when visa signature asked everybody what upgraded experiences really mattered... you suggested luxury car service instead of "strength training with patrick willis." come on todd! flap them chicken wings. [ grunts ] well, i travel a lot and umm... [ male announcer ] at visa signature, every upgraded experience comes from listening to our cardholders. visa signature. your idea of what a card should be.
9:39 pm
today at the president's big deal foreign policy national security civil liberties speech, an activist who has been a thorn in the side of two white houses now, medea benjamin from code pink, wheeled into existence that rarest of things in presidential speech, an unscripted moment. >> so today, once again -- >> there are 102 people on a hunger strike. these desperate people. >> i'm about to address it, ma'am, but you have to let me speak. i'm about to address it. >> you are commander in chief. >> let me address it. >> you can close guantanamo today. >> why don't you let me address it? why don't you sit down and i'll tell you exactly what i'm going to do? >> president at first seemingly flustered by the interruption. sort of. then nobody quite knew how it
9:40 pm
was going to end because the heckling did not stop. she stopped for a second, but then she interrupted the president again and again and again. and eventually he just let her speak. >> how about abdulrahman al awlaki. killed by you. is that the way we treat a 16-year-old? can you tell us why abdulrahman al awlaki was killed? can you tell the muslim people their lives are as precious as our lives? can you take the drones out of the hands of the cia? can you stop the signature strikes that are killing people on the basis of suspicious activities? >> we're addressing that, ma'am. >> will you apologize to the thousands of muslims you have killed? will you compensate the innocent family victims? that will make us safer here at home. i love my country. i love the rule of law. the drones are making us less safe and keeping people in indefinite detention in
9:41 pm
guantanamo is making us less safe. abide by the rules of law. you're a constitutional lawyer. >> all that while, this was the look on the president's face. listening. standing there listening at what is supposed to be his own speech. but the look of a maybe flustered president being heckled at extraordinary lengths -- >> we're addressing that, ma'am. >> -- eventually seemed way to give way to something else. >> the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. obviously -- obviously -- [ applause ] obviously i do not agree with much of what she said. and obviously she wasn't listening to me in much of what i said. but these are tough issues. and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong. >> the activists at code pink
9:42 pm
and medea benjamin are not trying to make friends. they are out to be disruptive to those with whom they disagree. the president today reacted in a way that was so surprising in part, i think, because he thought he was saying something in which anti-war protesters would agree. essentially the moment was there, hey, stop interrupting me and you might like what you're hearing. at least only some of it, you might like what you're hearing. more ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] purpose elevates what we do. raises it to a more meaningful place. makes us live what we do, love what we do and fills our work with rewarding possibility. aarp connects you to a community
9:43 pm
of experienced workers and has tools to help you find what you're good at. an ally for real possibilities. aarp. go to aarp.org/possibilities. constipated? yeah. mm. some laxatives like dulcolax can cause cramps. but phillips' caplets don't. they have magnesium. for effective relief of occasional constipation. thanks. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. meet the 5-passenger ford c-mc-max one. c-max two. that's a super fuel- efficient hybrid for me. and a long range plug-in hybrid for you. now, let's review. introducing the ford c-max hybrid and the ford c-max energi plug-in hybrid. say hi to the c-max hybrids. ♪
9:44 pm
[ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil™ sleep-aid. [ both snoring ] [ male announcer ] it's not for colds. it's not for pain. it's just for sleep. [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] because sleep is a beautiful thing™. ♪ zzzquil™. the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil®. ♪ you get 5% back, on everything. everything. everything. everything. everything. everything. everything? [ all ] everything? yup! with the new staples rewards program you get 5% back on everything. everything?
9:45 pm
9:46 pm
:. these look like printer cartridges but they are not. they contain chemicals, more commonly known and pronounced as petn. in 2010 they were mailed from yemen and traveled to four different countries and planes two carrying passengers before intercepted in britain and dubai following a tip from intelligence service, in 2010. we're now being told by the government that an american clergy who was a leader in al qaeda not only helped plan and
9:47 pm
oversee the plat to detonate the bombs on board the two u.s. bound cargo planes, he was also, they say directly involved in the deteals of the execution. the government said he took part directly and even the development and testing of the explosives placed on the planes. and while we're on the subject, in 2009, a nigerian businessman walked into the u.s. embassy in nigeria concerned about his son, he said his son was being radicalized. they deemed the concern over his son's radicalization, they added his name to a half million other names to a data base and the tip was forgotten until a month later in december of 2009 when he bored a northwest airlines passenger jet from nigeria to detroit and had 80 grams of explosive material hidden in his
9:48 pm
underwear and now for information said the underwear bomber was hosted for three days before he went on to al qaeda training camp and we're told he planned the operation for the underwear bomber in detail and helped him draft a statement read in a video that should be shown after the attack. we're told that he directed the underwear bomber to take down that u.s. plane, that his last instructions were to make sure he blew it up over american soil. all these new disclosures about him, the same points reiterated today. basically these all gages against this american citizen who was killed are part of an argument by administration it was okay to kill him that the u.s. citizen was not targeted for death and killed by the government without a trial because of his preaching or
9:49 pm
believes or even because of his membership in an soorganization with whom we declared to be at war. president obama said he was killed buzz of what he was doings, he was working all the time to kill people. >> when a zu.s. sit again goes aboard and is actively plotting to kill u.s. citizens and when neither the united states or partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot, his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down on an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team. that's who armir was. >> these fact well allegations about what he did are part of the case the government is making for why it was okay to
9:50 pm
kill him. are these new factual allegations true? joining us is the national security correspondent and the dirty wars, the world is a battle field and the film maker of a movie called dirty wars that will premiere in select cities across the country june 7th. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> so those are part of an argument why that targeted killing was okay. what do you make of it? >> it was interesting today because the president said if he had the opportunity, he would have detained and prosecuted him and if that's true, why didn't they seek an indictment against him? if they have the evidence bring it into a court of law, why not get an indictment, seek the extradition and if you can't get it, you have all sorts of options available to you. so they didn't try. they haven't produced evidence except for decorations from the
9:51 pm
attorney general and assertions from the president. for much of the past 600 days and he died 600 days ago his case is litigated through leaks from administration. i'm willing to concede maybe everything they say is true about him. it's not about who he is but us as a society. how we treat the most rep henceble of our citizens says a lot about who we are. if we have the evidence, what was so dangerous we couldn't seek the indictment? i should say almost no one ever talks about this. the first time we knew the u.s. tried to kill him is before the bomb plot and the allegations. they tried to kill him on december 24th, 2009 before this had taken place and any of the things in the attorney general's letter. >> having been to yemen and spend time with his family, a lot of which is documented in the film which is amazing, do you think it's feasible that would have been a way to catch him? >> he was in prison in yemen for
9:52 pm
18 months part at request of the united states government. john was part of it and said he want him kept in this prison for four or five years so young mislimbs stop being influenced by him around the world. i think there are numerous cases where we killed people in yemen where they could have been handed over to the united states if we negotiated. in the case of him, they had tried to kill him so many times i think he was so deep under ground that it would have been difficult. but i don't know that we ever tried. the triable leaders from his leaguen, told me they had repeatedly told the yemen president if you present us with evidence that he is guilty of any crimes, we'll execute him ourselves. the head of the tribe told me that he told a liaison with the united states government if you show us the evidence, we'll execute him ourselves. >> the aliqui son, the revolution from yesterday from
9:53 pm
attorney general eric holder, it was known his son was killed by a drone strike and the u.s. admitted to it yesterday but said it was not a specific targeting, effectively admitting it was an accident. how does that effect the on going case and the family's relationship? >> what i find amazing, robert gibbs said he should have had a more responsible father. harry reed said the two men killed on september 30th, 20 11 but they said if there were three americans deserved to be killed it was those three americans. do you actually mean the 16-year-old kid? there is not a sled of evidence, not a single member of that family is like him and his son was not and for someone like gibbs or reed to say that, it implies the kid did something wrong. this was a normal goofy kid into facebook, comic books and had no relationship to terrorism. >> does the relationship he was
9:54 pm
not killed on purpose going to effect how the family goes with the u.s. government to get recourse? >> we say they are targeted strikes, we should have known there were a group of teenagers there having dinner and i find the phrase and i watched your interview with jay johnson where he wouldn't quite say not accidental and used not specifically targeted. perhaps a strike going after a group of military aged males and hitting them and maybe someone were they trooking. to me it opens the doors to theories. when you kill the father and then the son two weeks later, i think the looming question is how could this have happened when i talked to a senior former administration official, he said john brenham actually believed it may have been a direct hit, that he couldn't believe that it was a coincidence in order to review. when i called the white house to ask about the review, they said they couldn't comment about it and send the boiler statement when we ask about drone strikes
9:55 pm
so how that kid was killed says a lot about us as a society. the family is owed an explanation. >> correspondent for the nation magazine and author of dirty wars. all right. we'll be right back. [ musick ] i knew there were a lot of tech jobs available out there. i knew devry university would give me the skills that i needed to make one of those tech jobs mine. we teach cutting-edge engineering technology, computer information systems, networking and communications management -- the things that our students need to know in the world today.
9:56 pm
our country needs more college grads to help fill all the open technology jobs. to help meet that need, here at devry university, we're offering $4 million dollars in tech scholarships for qualified new students. learn more at devry.edu. ... you thought wrong. get up to 50% off memorial day hotels. final days. book now with travelocity.
9:57 pm
are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. so you can capture your receipts, ink for all business purchases. and manage them online with jot, the latest app from ink.
9:58 pm
so you can spend less time doing paperwork. and more time doing paperwork. ink from chase. so you can. at the start of the civil war the land that would become arlington national cemetery was owned by general robert e lee, the southern general, general lee. amazing story, super duper short version the army took general lee's property and decided to turn it into the arlington national cemetery. eight wars later, more than 250,000 men and women that died in american conflicts are buried. this afternoon soldiers from the third u.s. infantry placed american flags in front of every one of the graves. they call it flags in, happens
9:59 pm
every year just before memorial day weekend. they did the same thing for all 14,000 graves at the u.s. soldiers and airmen's home across the river in washington, a remarkable under taking and a fitting reminder that the upcoming weekend is not just a three-day weekend where you get an extra day off work, as was the president's speech, the united states spent the last decade at war from which thousands of americans will never come home. a day for remembering the men and women that made the sacrifice for this country is this upcoming monday, memorial day held every year on the final monday of may. it's not to be confused of veterans day. veterans day is the 11th day of the innovate, dedicated to the world peace, the treaty signed at the end of the first world war to end all wars. it has not worked out that way but veterans day is a celebration. veterans day is a happy celebration and thank you. that's no november.
10:00 pm
memorial day is different. memorial day is the unofficial start of summer and it is a fine day in which to hold a barbecue but in 237 years, 7,000 men and women have given their lives for this well, the president delivered the most important war policy speech of his presidency today. republicans continued their ignorance-fueled war on the irs. and john boehner actually repeated the single stupidest thing he has ever said. >> now to the investigation into the targeting of conservative groups. >> we are going to move now to the irs scandal. >> by the irs. >> i'm not interested who is going to resign. i'm interested who is going to jail. >> republican leaders are not backing down. >> republicans are champing at the bit. >> somebody made the decision. >> to it tie this irs mess to the president. >> it wasnom
129 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC West Television Archive Television Archive News Search Service The Chin Grimes TV News ArchiveUploaded by TV Archive on