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the. country's top story is shifting from the kids nato tells russia it's not just a rat on the wall to moscow to join a new missile defense shield while the lines approves a new post cold war strategy in place where leaders have also discussed the war in afghanistan with twenty fourteen admitted the pullout date. also deadly legacy as the culprits come up covering troubles nuclear corneas band of applied scientists more about hidden dangers and they're going to need a new protection shield is going to fail to provide protection for at least one hundred days against the local great lakes local town streets and. down to russia considers stretching the law to get planes all committed to substance to the place

and for minor crimes it's part of the country's ongoing criminal new words fulminating until relieved of the crown of the jails by introducing a punishment to the growing. up next the i don't want to show from our washington studios and as the nato summit continues i mean coast if the organization is actually needed of the twenty first century and why obama is the ego is making headlines in this but. we've got. the biggest issues good voice ceased to face with the news makers. welcome the alona show the real headlines with none of the mersey targeting live out of washington d.c. now as we head into the second day of the nato summit i'll bring you the latest on

the pomp and circumstance around the meeting of world leaders we'll also get details from artie's lucy catherine off about what the public can expect from nato for the rest of the week and speaking of one of the major goals is to develop a new strategic concept for nato at this summit it's what they call a roadmap will guide the alliance through the next decade but is this alliance really even needed in the twenty first century to begin with a mistake with the invasion ski senior fellow at the atlantic council on that next we gave you details about the acquittal of off mad golani yesterday what a not using evidence obtained through torture has civil libertarians lost out on a shining a light on the bush administration's unlawful actions we're going to speak with the director of the a.c.l.u.'s national security project about the case then what if somebody told you that all of those medical studies that you read are completely false and that you should just ignore all of the latest medical research that's out there what's that one well known doctor alleges in his groundbreaking research three to get the details about his findings from journalist david friedman and it's

friday which means we're bringing you the best of the stories making headlines this week and he stuck sex study says that those who have the letter a in their name are a lot more shall we say fulfilled in the bedroom and it will pale it just blow it for the entire pagan crew with her facebook tirade where you get sarah benincasa is take on all of that at the end of the show but now let's move on to seize top story . the two day summit in. portugal for nato has officially kicked off today an opening session a working dinner amongst leaders a chance to maybe get a few words in without the cameras flashing but all business will be in order to morrow for the main events producer lucy caf enough joins us from lisbon portugal now to give us all the details live now lucy i know that today there are a lot of closed door meetings but for some reason we do seem to be hearing a lot about obama's dog and obama's limo in the press. that's right oh no well unfortunately there's not that much for the press to cover in fact if you take

a look behind me there's not really that many people here where one of the few crews left standing. i think in this in this case dog which is supported use breve so it's a little bit more popular than this policy is somewhat more exciting for the press to cover but about the little thing i mean you have to look at the contrast here you have these international diplomats the portuguese foreign minister the portuguese officials zipping around a little tiny electronic electric smart cars and president obama comes here with his giant motorcade this bunker and wheels this huge armored limo that's essentially been the ridicule of the town and i mean the contrast is just too huge to ignore so i'm not surprised that it's stealing the headlines but but but on a more serious note there has been a little bit of a development president obama did hold a press conference just a few hours ago where he said that. nato officials are moving forward they have agreed to develop some sort of a missile defense a missile shield plan we don't know the details yet they're working that out at the

dinner right now and of course they've also issued an invitation for russia to join this but again we won't know the details until tomorrow when president medvedev actually lands and starts working with nato officials on this let's talk about what else is going on tomorrow of course afghanistan is one of the issues is going to be taking center stage coming up with a new strategy will two thousand and fourteen be a deadline for combat troops what's the feeling around there i mean are people kind of waiting for. america had to make their announcement of what they think should be done or is this really a group session. well i mean it's a group session in the sense that they're all getting together and talking about this and we do expect there to be an announcement that emphasizes the end up to twenty fourteen as a deadline to start to finish handing over afghan forces but you have to sort of look at the context here it's almost falling apart at the seams before the deadline was even officially announced i mean you had u.s. officials you had nato officials saying that this is going to be a conditional deadline it's going to depend on what the situation on the ground we

saw british officials almost instantly reacting to that saying that you know we're not if this is conditional it's not necessarily going to be conditional for us because a lot of you have to remember the context here a lot of these european countries are tired of the mass of the mass of casualties and sacrifices that are being made in this conflict you know they're not really focusing on waging america's war they really want to focus on the economic disaster here at home so while i'm sure they're going to come out with a lovely press release that's going to be covered by all kinds of news organizations whether or not that is a reflection of any kind of real consensus that remains to be seen of course one of the things that everyone here at home in the u.s. is talking about is the start treaty obama battle it out with senators yesterday before flying to portugal this morning and at first you know there was talk that this start treaty could kind of cloud the relationship for the way that people are seeing russia's new role as you know an ally and not an adversary of course of nato

is that the truth or if we see these developments when it comes to the missile shield can we say that all is somehow being ignored. well i don't think it's that the start treaty is clouding russia's relationship to nato i think it's more putting a damper over the obama administration's ability to get things done in the foreign policy arena i mean if you look at the situation these days when obama first came into office he was widely. popular all across europe you know he was criticized back in the united states at home for being so much more focused on european issues where he was able to get these foreign policy successes and of course if you fast forward to today he's coming off of these summits at the g. twenty a pack all these international body meetings where he's not able to to actually come home with any sort of concrete win which makes it really difficult for him to come home and tell his people he was able to accomplish anything now those who very quickly where does the global financial crisis fit in with all of this. well the financial crisis is point and center at the summit it's not actually being

officially discussed on the agenda but this is the background against which all of these decisions on the missile shields on afghanistan continuing the meta agenda into the twenty first century is taking place because as i said we are at a time when europe is cutting down its defense spending cutting down its military budgets while the united states is essentially continuing its conflict in afghanistan which is now entering into its tenth year and it's very difficult for them to get support in these. difficult economic times are with you all thanks for filling us in of course and i'm sure we'll speak to you on monday as we get the details from what else happened at the summit in lisbon. now as we told you yesterday one of the main goals of this year's nato summit will be to come up with a new strategic concept such review hasn't been completed since one thousand nine hundred ninety and increasingly nato is really struggling to find relevance in the twenty first century with the threat of the red sylvia army long gone with much of

europe still reeling from the effects of a global financial crisis many argue that it's time to cut back in fact some european nations like germany and the u.k. already house and yet there are also those who just don't want to say goodbye now earlier today i caught up with the inversion skee senior fellow at the atlantic council and the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for european and nato policy i first asked him if he thinks that nato does bear any relevance in the twenty first century without a soviet threat why is it still there and what is it doing. i think nato is because actually more importantly and you see that demonstrated in its operational agenda it now has saudi forces patrolling the seas and better training against weapons of mass destruction it has nothing piracy mission off the coast of africa. it's still supporting the training mission in iraq it's on course undertaking operations in afghanistan today a central focus of the summits occurring in lisbon today so nato in fact is less

relevant and it was before it's more relevant is demonstrated that each day by its operations on the ground but if we talk about i mean you could say i've got to stand might perhaps be the exception right but if you talk about patrolling the seas for effort piracy i mean that is a defensive measure of course and that's to deal with a very specific issue but are there larger geo political goals here that you think that european nations also share with america sure i think both united states and europe are going to be better off the united states north and better off working together leveraging their common pool political economic military to political weight in dealing with short the global challenges it faces you know there are there are still regional priorities that have to be trash and you can do that even though that may not be the day to day focus of its operations but when you're dealing in a world where you have cyber threats emerging where you have more and more challenges to access on the high seas or space is becoming increasingly challenging were you to do with only weapons of mass destruction but the cliff ration of missiles and missile technologies that security and architecture that nato provides

is ever more important you wouldn't want to throw that away in this world but now we see i and you can say of course obviously part of this is because of the financial crisis some countries are taking austerity measures you could say that germany or of course is the u.k. they're now engaging in defense cuts to their military but isn't that also just well a natural part of not needing these huge standing armies anymore because they're not worried about another army coming in and trolling through now you're worried about like you said you know these are these different. thrives for fighting terrorism we're not fighting it nations against each other anymore well certainly when you have a time when the hot tanks were revving their engines on the you know in the folds of gap that certainly added a certain focus of attention that could help countries more shoulder resources for defense spending and today we are a different age the threats are a little bit more diaphanous they're none the less important and i would argue with that with all these cuts this era of austerity which promises and portends to be

a prolonged one could actually be the long overdue catalyst for a strategic priorities ation collaboration innovation cooling of resources that could actually well you see defense budgets reduce the overall numbers of expeditionary capable personnel being reduced in europe could actually increase the overall numbers because today the expeditionary capability that allied forces have is actually a six tiny portion of the one plus. one over a million folks they have an arms it's about seventeen percent so if you reduce their budgets but increase the effectiveness by with you're using the remaining budgets you could actually have a more capable europe a more capable transatlantic partnership most of the should the u.s. do you think of right now be looking to europe since this is an alliance says they are their partners as an example when it comes to to defense spending to what kind

of cuts can be made in order to also be able to you know be prepared for the new. the new threats that are placed to be able to modernize but at the same time downsize but that will be proven in time. right now i would say i'm doing i have i mean we don't have right now i don't have that much money left a very very very urgent and when you look at the increasing threat posed by weapons of mass destruction the spread of missiles that are agency is very very real but i would argue that there is real possibility and this summit will theoretically. today and tomorrow roll out the alliances roadmap by which it's going to leverage austerity to marshal defense resources more effectively should they could get more impact per block more impact or euro so perhaps they could influence barack obama and he could bring that back home here i want to actually just as much waste i mean there's a lot of mileage there and they in the eyes of the families like the u.s. military budget but it's not as great as the waste you see in the european for

structure well we spend more on our military than all the other nations of the world combined when you have to assume that at some point that we have more waste going on there you know because if you look at the percentage of u.s. forces that are truly expeditionary forces that can be sent around the world around the world the figure is somewhere around two thirds of not higher in europe charlie but seventeen percent are just don't think that also this is where in my disagrees i don't think we need you know more than seven hundred bases everywhere around the world troops to be stationed everywhere around the world anymore i think that those are we're we're in a different time now we're in a different thread but i want to switch really quickly to afghanistan because you say that barack obama here is using the word transition too much the by focusing so much on transition he's giving the impression to our european allies that really it's kind of a retreat a withdrawal that we don't want to win this war but do you honestly think that afghanistan is a war that's winnable i think you want to use the word prevail when succeed if you define it strictly in military terms then i think you're missing the big picture to

prevail or to win or to succeed in afghanistan is really setting up the conditions such that the afghan government can sustain itself and provide the security and services to its people on its own you can manage it out of the transition though is it not yes that is part of transition but the problem is the war transition the way it's being articulated by this administration and by the alliance really in for withdrawal. reduction of force levels in fact even today as the the alliance has made the right decision to try and shift the. because attention away from spring that over all of two thousand and eleven to two thousand and fourteen is a step in the right direction a recognition that timelines aren't the definition of success conditions conditions are but when you talk about transition and you all the sudden have discussions that we're going to be going below one hundred thousand troops in two thousand and twelve well below was a phrase i heard this morning i think on the morning on the morning joe show what are you communicating to the afghan government how they can interpret how our rod

at the top up on in the al qaeda elements are going to interpret i think it probably interpret that as a source of hope as opposed to continued pressure well i definitely think that at this point after nine years to be starting to use these terms after nine years to start rolling it takes it's definitely sending a very mixed message and i don't think that there is in any way that we can show that we really are winning this war like you said and i don't think that either the afghan government. can agree with that i and perhaps now the taliban they do think they're winning and so if we start using timelines for withdrawal then sure it gives them that impression but the american people the nato alliance says are also tired in their war weary and they feel like what's the point anymore also feel weary and tired if they feel that their own governments aren't really committed to prevailing. and you know the point of potential mate they're not rolling in tanks as if they're bringing in huge devices they have to fly them in considering being bringing way down six. which would provide precision fire power which i think is

a really good move because if i were an enemy facing that i'd be terrified it be a demonstration of determination and resolve that maybe would make me more likely to lay down my arms and take a more constructive path in afghanistan i want to ask you one last question here is you know what does america have to gain by nato expansion into eastern european countries i mean if you could say also that you know these are countries that still feel that russia offers some sort of threat to them in the world but he does the u.s. believe the russian my attack again at some point you know i don't. we think that russia is going to attack tomorrow. but there are countries in central europe who have felt pressure from russia russia did have the zapata exercises continues those exercises with a clearly anti nato orientation so having small exercises to to demonstrate the viability of article five is not threatening it's consistent with with with needles mission and you get to the core issue you have about what is the benefits of nato

expansion to use that phrase i preferred the vision of a europe whole and free undivided and secure a vision that could actually ultimately include russia as part of that community i think that's a very profound vision and unfortunately at this summit i don't think we'll get to more attention it deserves i don't get the catalyst it deserves you deserve it because what it does is it brings further and further to the east zone of democracy that was on the prosperity of the rule of law prevails a zone of stability that actually i think benefits countries along the periphery because it demonstrates to people who want to bring democracy to their countries who want a normal role instructor for all for the country and all affairs more hope and aspiration becomes a model and look at the success. they do a large one to use the term e.u. enlargement has had for the relationship between russia and the new members of these two institutions they've been overall much better than they were before well you know russian president dmitry medvedev that is of course there at this nato

summit right now and perhaps it's not getting as much attention as it deserves and thank you so much for being here thank you. well still to come on tonight's show it was started sixty two years ago as a place to train soldiers in combat it's called the school of the americas but most often it's referred to as school of the assassins scale and ford has more in the school located in georgia only comeback and the fallout from the first civilian trial of the given that detainee will get the a.c.l.u. is take on the trial of occupy guy line who is only found guilty of one charge relating to the one nine hundred ninety eight bombings of you. embassy in eastern africa or that cannot.

see. the future. for three days protesters are rally outside of the school of the americas and fort benning georgia thousands plan to stay at the front gates of the school demanding that it be shot down and this isn't the first time of the public has demanded the schools close artie's killing four tells us about the tumultuous history of the place nicknamed the school of assassins. imagine a school dedicated to teaching torture my neck was in the hole of this of this guy and then he said well. we are educated people. they even wanted my boots they're just bloody i was served. i was i was in the middle third. to educating soldiers on how to rape and murder american nuns and

assassinate salvadoran priests. to demonstrating how to disappear civilians with total impunity when i heard the screams of the children and i knew which ones were mine they were. mommy they're killing us now imagine it's funded with american taxpayer dollars and that it's located on american soil but you don't have to imagine because for the past sixty two years the school of the americas has done exactly that it began as a way to train soldiers to combat the spread of communism in the early days of the cold war but it soon became known as the school of the assassins fort benning georgia has graduated sixty five thousand soldiers from eighteen different countries its list of alumni reads like a little black book of assassins pinochet's soldiers in chile roberto deal with son's death squads in el salvador operatives in argentina that's why for the past two decades jesuit priests and latin american and us activists in solidarity have gathered outside of its gates to protest its dark past and i can't be indifferent

in the face of i think many people have suffered and solidarity as a human value to see people who have suffered who have been displaced activists charity riders and spent six months in federal prison for intentionally trespassing on the school of the americas to draw attention to the crimes of its graduates i think that as americans we have a particular responsibility when our government has been involved in a lot of atrocities throughout history but even more so today when our military aid is not being used in accountable ways but the school recently renamed the western hemisphere institute for security cooperation and its crimes are in a thing of the past the generals that led the two thousand and nine coup in honduras were both as a way graduates every year a congressional committee here in washington votes to continue funding the school of the america but this weekend tens of thousands of activists from north central and. america out will converge at the gates of fort benning to demand the school be closed and it's dark legacy be remembered and ford artsy washington d.c.

. yesterday we discussed the verdict in the case of ahmed ghailani the first detainee from guantanamo bay who was tried in civilian court and he was found guilty on only one charge of conspiracy out of more than two hundred eighty of the possibility of twenty years to life in prison now critics of the obama administration's decision to try detainees in civilian court are disappointed with the results while others argue that this is a perfect example of our justice system at work and that evidence obtained through torture was inadmissible but there's another side to all of this and taking out the torture the jury didn't hear about it didn't hear about guantanamo bay or about cia black sites so for civil libertarians fighting to get the truth out about the bush administration's actions was this a bit of a loss here to discuss it with me is he in his director of the a.c.l.u.'s national security project thank you so much for joining me tell me this first of all how do you see yesterday's verdict was this a success or

a failure for our justice system here. thank you for having me i think this verdict this trial in its entirety it stressed any unfounded fears there may be about the ability of the federal court system to deliver a fair safe and effective trials well tell me this right now let's talk about what the jury didn't get to hear in these trials essentially what made this case such a contested one why is so heated this kuantan him obey our cia black sites statements were reached through interrogation so do you think that in keeping torture out of it somehow this case you know lost the chance to bring war crimes committed by the bush administration to light in a courtroom environment. well certainly on the big picture level there is frustration at the extent to which the full story of the torture and abuses and paul. that led to torture and abuses under the bush administration have still not yet come out but i think one of the important lessons of this case is the fact that

it worked in that evidence that was obtained through torture was excluded in two ways one the government decided the attorney general decided that the case should not proceed based on evidence and confessions or evidence obtained through coerced interrogations and in the second way the judge decided that testimony from a witness that he ruled was only had come only come to light because of coersion and therefore was unreliable could not be included so in many ways that is a victory it shows that the federal courts are capable of trying cases to their conclusion and doing so fairly in accordance with american values but do you think that we're never going to see any kind of justice brought to the idea any kind of punishment to those people who actually committed the torture to people like george bush who allowed it for the torture to happen in the first place well certainly the

opportunities are narrowing and that is cause for great concern but there are still a number of ways in which the full story can come out and in which in this investigations continue one key one is an investigation being conducted by a prosecutor john derum who is been charged with investigating abuses conducted under the bush administration and we're waiting to see the scope of that investigation as well as its results and certainly hope and have sought to ensure that that inge investigation is as broad reaching as possible the a.c.l.u. in fact recently asked the attorney general. and any general holder to ensure that the investigation in compass is admissions by former president bush that he authorized. waterboarding yeah well it's also something that we could have gotten from his book right that was just released just the other week when he said

waterboarding damn right i approved in a lot of people so well you know i wonder if that can be now in use as evidence against him but tell me this do you think the this could be a deliberate move on the part of the justice department to make sure that torture can't be used so that nothing so the nothing happens here so that the heated debate the the political issues that surround these guantanamo detainee trials don't really come into light you know they made it very neat so torture can be used but at the same time you can't talk about it either well let's be very clear and distinguish between two things which is what you're doing but let's just be let's just clarify that torture should never evidence obtained through torture should never be used in any kind of trial and specially in federal courts where it's prohibited we would expect that it wouldn't be used as turned out to be the case here that doesn't mean that information about what happened to detainees shouldn't come to light and we certainly hope that it will in fact come to light and should

be taken into account in any proceedings that go forward now why do you think it has been so many lawmakers out there are favoring the idea of military commissions instead of civilian trials i mean if we look at the record of military commissions they've in fact convicted far fewer people than civilian trials have and often their sentences are much much shorter you know some would argue that this means the lawmakers want these people to get out even quicker. well i think that a number of the lawmakers the naysayers have it exactly backwards they are looking to military commissions as needs of coming to certain conviction i.e. the convictions are going to happen which is simply incorrect on the facts and also not the way a justice system works that's look at the facts there are as you've said only five military commissions cases that have been completed to date and you contrast that with hundreds of terrorism trials that have been completed and successfully completed in federal.