if you. from stupid.

stunts on t.v. don't come. president obama faces a tough challenge to ratify the atomic weapons control treaty is a shift of seats leaves him a lame duck senate u.s. leader need sixty seven votes even though his democrat party controls only fifty nine seats. rush's chief diplomat says the financial sun is rising in the east during trilateral talks with china and india the world's second largest economy is now china overtaking japan in recent months. and the e.u. prosecutors are investigating an organ trafficking network in the balkans connected with seven people charged in kosovo the details of the case due to be made public that months and. the us put out of a scan a stand and not seize hiding in the states at the invitation of the government just

two of the stories that are covered in the alone a show coming up next. welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey are coming live out of washington d.c. today the new york times reported that the obama administration has set a deadline for combat in afghanistan two thousand and fourteen but does anybody believe that actually means we're ever going to leave completely i'm skeptical we'll speak with author michael o'brien and was the u.s. covering up the fact that they created

a safe haven in this country for nazis a new report by the justice department concludes that it's true we're going to speak with national security archives about the report that they've been fighting to get released to the public for years then whatever happened to the rule of law the president once promised the nine eleven mastermind khalid sheikh muhammad would get a real trial in federal court but now the word is that he's going to remain in military detention without any trial whatsoever so as not to anger any critics on the right or the left so that obama never really mean what he said we're going to speak with a member of the human rights watch and do you know somebody who is a sex addict despite the fact that it's not diagnosed as an addiction officially people are seeking rehab for it across the country so what is it like recovering from a sex addiction or going to speak with someone who is a recovering addict at the end of the show but now let's move on to today's top story. do you believe everything that you see in the headlines the new york times reported today that the obama administration has developed

a plan to end the american combat mission in afghanistan by two thousand and four. and date the allegedly be presented at the nato summit in portugal later this week now this of course comes on the heels of afghan president hamid karzai is interview with the washington post where he said that the u.s. must reduce the visibility and intensity of its military operations especially in raids on afghan homes it also comes along with news reports that in the past three months more than three hundred insurgent leaders have been captured or killed with low level foot soldiers who have been apprehended in the thousands but as all of that really mean that the american boots on the ground are going to get to go home at the u.s. government will stop pouring billions of dollars into afghanistan while budget cuts are looming a hero here at home i only have two words to answer all those questions right but many of my guests will think otherwise joining me to discuss it is michael o'brien author of america's failure in iraq michael thank you so much for being here thanks for now me i want to start very quickly with the word combat right because what

they're saying essentially is that the american combat mission is going to end in afghanistan in two thousand and fourteen that's the exact same thing that we heard about iraq that the combat mission has ended in the train the tanks are rolling out but we still have over fifty thousand people in iraq so that clearly we did to you did that say that americans are going to be in afghanistan for a long time absolutely but it's a couple of things one a soldier is a soldier is a soldier. we were told that they were going to be advise and assist we're gates and we know that these are combat units that are over there are infantry units that are just being called advise and assist brigades in both iraq and afghanistan but a soldier's a soldier if they come under fire they should be able to fire back and the other thing about it is too it's it's so much of it was so much of it is politics. war is not like a football game that ends in sixty minutes in sixty minutes there's a winner and there is a loser or maybe even if the maybe it's

a tie but war ends when you achieve victory in. barack obama doesn't even like the word victory so the what's happening here is we're setting timelines which we shouldn't be doing at all the goal should be victory some kind of victory however you define that we need to define that and then stay there until we achieve that goal well that would leave that's part of the problem of course of afghanistan as nobody knows what victory is nobody has any idea what victory is going to look like so here the only thing that they're setting for themselves us you know what we can leave at once the afghan security forces are built up enough where they can protect themselves where they function where they can defend their own country but i mean is that even going to happen we've been there for nine years they've been working on that right we have would generate lieutenant general william caldwell he's in charge of training the afghan security forces he said no trainers no transition he's asked for nine hundred more of these trainers just in recent months so i don't what does that tell you well it says that they're not ready until then

it's going to take a long time until the afghan forces security forces are able to stand on their own very much like in iraq until they're able to stand on their own and what we're doing is we're boxing ourselves into a corner by establishing deadlines for when we're going to get out but we can't achieve them they keep moving around they're just it's a moving our deadlines are a moving target and then if soldiers are there we say we're withdrawing but we're not because soldiers are still there and then on top of that there is the issue of security contractors in both iraq and afghanistan and security contractors in my book i talk about this at length are you know are we being or are we going to hiring mercenaries now of course there are americans that are not from a foreign country but how are we fighting our wars today if we don't declare war anymore we go over to do a police action we don't have clear goals and objectives we don't have enough soldiers to fight the battle stanley mcchrystal asked for about seventy thousand

some troops obama took three and a half months to decide what to do. which i personally believe was all for political reasons he wanted to come up with a decision that wouldn't upset everybody and you would upset everybody too much dealing with the right in the left of the of the political spectrum and sends over thirty thousand less than half and is there any. any coincidence that this is the deadliest year of the war in afghanistan i don't think there is i don't think it's a coincidence i think it's definitely because there are not enough troops over there right now we're we're we're we're talking about pulling out on the certain dates and if i were al qaida i would just be sitting there going well one is america going to make up its mind and we'll just wait when they decide to finally put i don't think that al qaeda believes that then we set a date that means we're going to leave me if the american people don't believe they're for us sitting here being critical because if also if you look at the example of iraq right robert gates secretary defense said that well you know what

if the iraqis say that they still need us then perhaps we'll say screw the deadline we can stay a little bit longer so let's just say that the exact same thing isn't going to happen here ten days here after president obama announced that we were pulling out in august ten days later in al jazeera it was it was an hour the chief of the iraqi joint staff general bob uecker said. the americans should not pull out for another ten years until until two thousand and twenty another ten years and then he said if someone at the asked me for my opinion i would have told him they need to stay for another ten years meaning nobody asked him for his opinion he's the chief of the iraqi joint staff and then if you look at afghanistan i mean we're basically going through the same thing secretary gates made a comment yesterday i believe well you know we pulled out of afghanistan in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight and look what happened well before neglected to say well we also kind of pulled out in two thousand and three when we invaded iraq

and look what happened we left the field when things were going great in afghanistan and now look where we are today two thousand and ten we didn't hear i mean how long can we keep making out farmers takes right because if if general petraeus had his way he has made statements where he says you know that just like iraq this is a place over going to be for decades to come that my children the more generations are going to be fighting this war here that it's never going to end if we look at the embassy is that we're building a broad five hundred eleven million where dollars are putting into kabul huge embassy in islamabad and baghdad i mean it looks to me at like we're creating a permanent presence here call it a war or not but the u.s. wants to be in this region well i i i always go back on the military go i went to west point i was an infantry officer i graduated from west point three years after david petraeus did. i am a firm believer in in the concept of overwhelming force that means you go in if you're going to fight go in with overwhelming force get the job done get it done swiftly quickly and decisively and then leave a presence there to keep

a lid on things if you're not going to do that don't go in at all and we we. you know you know fiddled around and you know if you look at viet nam we had five hundred fifty thousand troops on the ground at the height of the peak the height the viet nam but we kept waffling our national leadership didn't know how to use them they they kept you know these. engine walls of engagement don't shoot at the n.b.a. if they go into a temple understand mcchrystal we were doing the same thing in afghanistan we're not really fighting a war over there we don't want to have any civilian casualties well nobody there are but how do you hear the civilian casualty jaggedly part of the reason why the civilian population doesn't like us and the longer this conflict keeps stretching on the more they're going to dislike us the more people are going to start turning and you know going into insurgency this just doesn't seem like a war that we're going to win and yeah i don't believe this twenty fourteen deadline timeline whatever you want to call it with one inch right thank you so

much you bet thank you very much all right we're coming up after the break it's called america's black hole even though excuse me this is not coming up after the break this is turning out even though it's located in afghanistan bob graham price has around six hundred detainees but there's criticism of how they're being treated behind bars so could the u.s. mission to win hearts and minds completely conflict with how they're really treating afghanis arches john hafiz has more about what goes on behind the great walls of bochum. thirty eight billion dollars have been poured into afghanistan by the u.s. since the two thousand and one invasion to bolster security and economic development a significant chunk of that money humanitarian aid to provide food build health clinics schools and one of the poorest countries in the world all part of the u.s. effort to win over hearts and minds and to convince afghans to reject the taliban and al qaeda drop off some humanitarian aid supplies as much as we can and give the

people the knowing that we are out here we are the good guys but there is a dark cloud looming over the battle for hearts and minds it's known as america's black hole in afghanistan a secretive place journalists and human rights activists still depict as a liability to america's so-called. the war on terror former detainees have described bob graham detention facility as the scene of heinous crimes a place into which people simply disappeared without a trace two detainees were tortured to death by u.s. forces in two thousand and two while the scandal exposed the use of torture to obtain information from detainees today bob graham rename part one detention facility rarely makes the news bob graham is still very much a black hole it's a prison facility that is operating that we don't have

very much information about as i indicated there are about six hundred or so detainees that are there many of them captured outside of afghanistan although a list of names that were released last year a federal court recently denied access to any other information pertaining to those detainees. global outrage and condemnation over detainee abuses america's the tourist guantanamo bay prison forced the u.s. to change its practices there but those languishing within the walls of bug room were less lucky intense and on top of. the most things were time to sort of in history bob graham detention facility and afghanistan to have the same standards for the litigation process but also treatment has a kuantan amount they do they do not have access to the hideous courts as because it is the grammys in a wartime theater it's an active war zone it would be and present to have such access to the original buggering detention facility may have been renamed relocated

but it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to ease the fear afghans associate with the prison reports of a prison within a prison persist with afghan president hamid karzai recently demanding greater afghan insight into the prisons affairs and greater legal recourse for its detainees which is why human rights. advocates insist the billions of dollars sent to afghanistan does little to buffer and sign an image of america has already been tarnished by places like bob graham and out of the aid and human rights policies seem hypocritical in england systems and i think it's a problem for the government mixing humanitarian aid with contentious us policies and nontransparent attention practices relate a different reality on the ground for the people of afghanistan hypocrisy is basically what it is jan huff this r t washington d.c.

. so to come on tonight's show term out financial regulatory bill that was passed earlier this year well it turns out the banks have found a loophole in the volcker rule allowing them to make the exact same investments to lead to huge losses during the financial crisis our chief financial correspondent lauren lyster will join me in a moment to discuss that and a secret report has condemned the u.s. government for knowingly allowing nazis to settle in america after the second world war so discuss the issue with tom blanton director of the national security archives at george washington university right here in washington d.c. when we come back.

news six hundred page report reveals a secret history of the united states government's a nazi hunting operation after world war two and the report concludes that american intelligence officials created a safe haven here in the u.s. for nazis and their collaborators and they did all this by cataloging both the

successes and the failures of the justice department's office of special investigations created to deport nazis in one nine hundred seventy nine now obviously this is not a positive piece of information but it is a part of history nonetheless except it turns out that the justice department had fought tooth and nail for the past four years despite a freedom of information act lawsuit to keep it secret and when they did turn it over more than one thousand passengers and references had been deleted now until this week somebody turned the entire document over to the new york times so joining me in the studio to discuss it all is tom blanton director of the national security archives george washington university right here in washington d.c. tom thanks so much for being pleasure to be here i guess first let's start with six hundred pages you have in front of you how it's finally been released so what are some of the most damning bits of information that have come out it's a horror story actually parts of it where agencies of the united states government knowingly brought nazis to the states gave them safe haven and set them up with

jobs new identities one of them became a leading rocket scientist helped build the saturn five rocket the put americans on the moon even though the american government had new information about what he'd done with slave labor concentration camp victims hanging's and so for now we say the american government is this the cia acting in its own secretive little bubble and you know the f.b.i. the justice department had no idea no in part it's the cia doing it in their own bubble it's the army doing it in their own bubble they helped clear. butcher immigrate out of europe for example it's the space agency recruiting rocket scientists like vernon von brown and others what we have here is it's a horror story about that sheltering of the nazis and then it's a kind of success story in the second thirty years as they chase down these guys take away their citizenship reveal the truth tracked down even people who were serving presidents of austria kurt waldheim this office exposed what he had done to collaborate with the nazis in world war two so horror story about this very black

part of american history success story over a long time that you can still push for justice well that's that's what americans love right i love to bring someone down you know i need them back up so and that sense you know if this does like you said you know mark a very dark period in american history something that definitely isn't going to look good on its record but then if they tried to make up for it you know for the next thirty years why would the justice department fight so hard to keep all this information secret that is a good question and i really don't understand it because it was their censorship that actually put this on the front pages yesterday and today if they hadn't censored it and they just let out the whole six hundred page report instead of trying to turn it into swiss cheese which is what they did with these all these marked out sections why did al that's the missing hair sort of hose lead to protect officials privacy that's what all those numbers out on the side say what they're putting out what they're censoring are opinions about how the office should operate

where it should be at the immigration service or justice department who should it go after or when they lost a case should we appeal that case they're trying to cut all that stuff out it's really dumb what tell me how much i mean in comparison to this six hundred page report that is the full report how much information where the national security archives given after your freedom of information we've got less than half of this report released through freedom of information so you have this wonderful kind of mirror image effect on the one hand the freedom of information process failed you could say this. our lawsuit our requests are great lawyer david sobel who really fought for this over the last two years and on the other hand the system kind of self corrected because when senior officials and justice department saw the censorship they leaked it to the new york times because they knew there was no actual basis for that censorship so you've got again a horror story i mean also people that it's a lower is now are they breaking the law it's a very interesting development to say that you know somebody from within the justice department decided to leak the entire exactly page report it's

a phenomenal story they have a lot to be proud of they chased they kept one hundred seventy nazis from getting into this country they tracked down eighty some odd nazis and threw him out of this country they have brought cases that establish what happened to mingle if for example the angel of death in those concentration camps that's who scalp showed up in the director of this office desk because bodies found in brazil the huge controversy is this mingle a it's not and it's only the d.n.a. testing on that piece of scalp that ultimately determine yes this one of the worst nazis in history was actually dead in brazil not living in canada or here so there are extraordinary stories i think to be very proud of but if you're a career official inside justice and you were part of these investigations and you argued with how they turned out maybe you didn't want your candid opinions to be published so maybe you tried to censor the thing actually they should have just said look here's the history it's got some warts senate it's the author's opinion she did it based on interviews let it out i mean and some of this information

already had been that's right side of it had been on front pages of newspapers that had been used in court so i mean in general do you think that this is an example of the over secrecy in our system and are indeed i only are a system i'd say it's every bureaucracy in the world look you know russia just passed a freedom of information law and russian officials are going to face this same issue what do you let out how much accountability can we get out works and all do we mind being embarrassed every official i think in the world resists this but you need. blowers and you need freedom of information the obama administration this is an administration that really prided itself that you use that word transparent so you go off to so does my as big as look very valid look at it they're the ones who are trying to suppress it from coming out i think eric holder is probably pretty embarrassed today the attorney general my bet is eric holder has sent around an e-mail today at the top of the justice department what are you people doing i bet there's some a couple hot meetings taking place in just as we're going to say what are you doing censoring this kind of report we should have published it ironically this office is

full report on waldheim kurt waldheim was published in full no censorship whatsoever in one thousand nine hundred four why are they censor in the discussion of wall time here doesn't make any sense it's that bureaucratic imperative they're going to do it no matter what so we've got to keep pushing we got to keep exposing we got to keep bringing the freedom of information cases if anything i think that only raises more questions right makes people more suspicious lento you this was a cia was working with these people creating a safe haven with not only is it the ultimate enemy now what are they doing now they found one guy and he's detailed in this report this guy otto von schwing who was eichmanns in. office when they were planning the whole accost in the one nine hundred thirty s. ended up in romania implementing the holocaust then signed up with the cia their top agent in austria right after the war they were looking for information about communists so this guy that wants to return to the united states they bring him to cincinnati ohio give him a job with procter and gamble's a vice president for international affairs speaks five or six languages no problem

ends up retiring to a golf course in ohio not until one thousand eight hundred lies doesn't listen this is all as if it's history as you know the us absolute good that it's out there now talking so much of a care very much for him all right the financial crisis that erupted in two thousand and eight taught us all that without regulation wall street will do as it pleases even involves taking risks that could cause the entire economy to collapse then this year the dodd frank financial regulatory bill was passed aiming to place limits on what those. thanks could do like placing short term bets at the capitol but what do you know it looks like something found a loophole making us once again question of anything on wall street will ever change joining me from our new york studio to discuss it is our chief financial correspondent lauren lyster now lauren first when you tell us about this loophole what's in there. what you referred to in your intro banks making short term bets with their own capital you know trading with their own money that's called proprietary trading and that's what's been eliminated it banks what's been

regulated in the volcker rule so this is what banks have been reacting to they've been closing their proprietary trading desks which were big money makers for them but which also carried immense risk because banks were betting with their own money as opposed to customers money which is you know the traditional role of an investment bank well banks turns out according to the financial times are reporting that they've found a loophole there's a different kind of investment called a principle investment and because this is seen as a longer term it's not affected by the volcker rule but it allows banks to buy securities buy assets buy companies with their own money and financial firms what do you know are saying that they're going to continue to do this to use their money to buy exactly what i just mentioned which is in essence what the volcker rule is is supposed to be prohibiting but doesn't look like it's making an impact in this category at all we are as far as i understand buying of these long term investments that's what made

a lot of money for these banks for these financial firms before the collapse and then of course during the financial crisis it's also what lost them a whole bunch of money so it just seems like like nothing's changing here. you have a fair point you know if you want to look at a prime example let's take a look at lehman brothers remember that bank that no longer exist that collapsed during the financial collapse well you know one part in that was a very large leveraged buyout a takeover of a property group called archstone which was considered one of these principal investments twenty three point six billion dollars worth for lehman and that inevitably a year later you know was it a contributor to the collapse so yeah these are investments that were risky for banks in the that took a toll during the financial collapse well do we know yet which banks exactly are using this loophole. well according to the financial times some banks you may have heard of goldman sachs morgan stanley j.p. morgan so you know essentially the largest investment banks in the u.s.

such familiar names that makes me feel so much better and then i heard those before and. now one thing also that came out today is there's going to be a new book coming out about you know within the obama administration the struggles during the financial crisis and richard wolffe revival is what it's called and according to this book tim geithner wasn't necessarily the that guy that we all thought he was there was someone else that was stirring up some trouble. well yeah i mean the conventional wisdom or are the mainstream media kind of portrayal during the whole wall street reform was that it was timothy geithner who was for example blocking the volcker rule which now we're talking about because banks are skirting it or are getting around it it's about what kind of the narrative and now according to this book we're finding out that larry summers obama's top economic adviser was who was causing the volcker rule to baseball who was dragging its feet you know back in october according to this book according to you know during that time when they wanted the volcker rule to get pushed through when banks were back on their

feet but yet we're still able to get subsidized money from the government which was a very fair for obvious reasons you know they're trying to push the volcker rule and that it was summers that was dragging its feet on that and it was summers that was causing discord and holding up some of those things that were possibly blamed at that time on timothy geithner we're not excusing anyone here but we're just you know this brings up a different story there are thousand of it now was it just a vocal rule anything else that we should know that larry summers tried to thwart in his day. well you know this is something that you know this this book these ads are painting portrayal of him as being you know kind of thorn in the side of other things that came up during the first two years as the obama administration and other examples are things that were considered non-controversial like a jobs tax credit that during the first year of obama's presidency he supported and then it was really as popular politically or policy why is this anticipated so in the second year you know he wasn't supportive of that and.