Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    April 11, 2011 10:00pm-10:30pm EDT

10:00 pm
more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations through the day. on the lower show the real headlines with none of the mersey are going to live out of washington d.c. now there's a new battle that we need to keep an eye on the human rights battle between the u.s. and china well both sides are engaging in a tit for tat argument and the case of p.f.c. bradley manning's inhumane treatment is on everyone's minds last could this finally push obama towards a more humane option for manning then shifting our focus back to libya attempts to
10:01 pm
reach a ceasefire have been stalled the issue all sides are disagreeing on is the removal of cut off he says the trouble continues to mount the war torn country we have to ask ourselves lots again what has obama gotten us into and there are new reports of u.s. soldiers being killed by drones in afghanistan but does it take the death of an american rather than afghan civilians to get a conversation started on the use of drones in war zones or will the u.s. continue to rely on unmanned aerial vehicles could do all their dirty work and while the government shutdown battle might be over the war over the debt ceiling and the budget has just begun the g.o.p. has already announced of the debate over the debt ceiling won't be an easy one all critics are warning that not raising the ceiling will be catastrophic for the country so find out who will be at fault if congress can't come to an agreement and that will have the latest from the economic meeting at bretton woods over the weekend lauren lyster will join us to discuss who was there and what was said among the famed financial figures we'll have details on all of that and much more in
10:02 pm
tonight's show but first our top story. the letters signed by more than two hundred fifty of america's most eminent legal scholars has been written to protest the obama administration's treatment of bradley manning the army private charged with leaking documents to wiki leaks now the letter once again details the inhumane conditions. manning's detention nine months in solitary confinement twenty three hours a day unable to sleep as he's questioned every five minutes if he's ok and evidence of being forced to strip naked at night all of that without a conviction now the letter not only contests that his degrading and inhumane conditions are illegal unconstitutional and could even amount to torture but also takes a personal job at obama's own background of being a constitutional law professor once an eloquent moral leader and now a commander in chief whose fundamental standards of decency must be questioned on top of that lawrence tribe who taught constitutional law so obama and served as
10:03 pm
a legal advisor to his justice department until recently is also one of the signers so the timing couldn't be more interesting as the u.s. released its report on human rights violations around the world to which china fired back mentioning wiki leaks because even this still not that the president has a joining me to discuss discrepancies co-founder of voters for peace and executive director director excuse me of come home america kevin thanks so much for joining us tonight now you and i have spoken on the subject many many times about bradley manning's treatment and nothing has changed yet but do you think that this letter more than two hundred fifty of the greatest legal minds in the u.s. might finally push obama. high pressure is mounting there's a lot of things going on in dish and this letter this low is signed by some the top legal academics in the country all the top was schools in the country are represented and what they call a family man is to the department of defense to defend their position openly and if
10:04 pm
it can stand up on the fence in the light of day and change his condition that's a pretty mild request a pretty reasonable request in some part of the presence not done yet so i think they're requesting a good one i think is a powerful group of people and coming at the same time as he would write a report by china which really outlines in great detail so many problems in american culture with well asian rates and probably the same time that we're seeing the u.s. reporter and human rights the investigator of human rights violations and torture for the u.n. denied access to bradley manning it's all building to a crescendo of serious pressure and i hope president obama does a rape me. should this also be embarrassing for obama the fact that he is a former constitutional law professor and now he's being called out by all these legal experts even by a man who taught him constitutional law you know i would say that and a man also who was one of his advisors best until lately i think that that would probably make a hell of a barrister if i was in his face it should be embarrassing he has gone from being
10:05 pm
a constitutional law professor and she had to the torture and she's he's a recognized people now see him as someone who is torturing an american veteran american soldier you know and he's doing it violating the due process there's been no conviction and he's being tortured for trial and doing inversions even of the constitution these are such clear cases it's not only a debatable point there are some in solitary confinement for nine months pretrial constantly harassed by the guards with are you ok and we are only allowed to go out one hour into another room in chains and you figure eights as exercise walking for your aides this is clearly i think that they say nearly torture i'll use no doubt this is torture and graham so president obama is going to be known as a torture and she has a long history put in the context he let all the torturers go free in the bush administration he kept on the lawyers who covered for the torture as with fully
10:06 pm
legal moments he refused to even allow his department justice to disbar or in any way punish the lawyers who used their legal license to cover torture he did nothing about the cia agents who destroyed evidence of torture he's becoming the torture kenya's deeds and it's become very open very blatant it's pretty and it's very embarrassing it's time for him to take some action now if you count p.j. crowley and now you look at laurence tribe that's already two people from the obama administration that have essentially broken ranks or defecate over this issue but then again it's only two people do you thing. but you know that others within the obama administration honestly agree with what they're doing here or is everyone just his character speak out because if we look at b.j. crowley as the example he was forced to resign directly after he made those comments and p.j. crowley is a very sick cation when he when he finally did resign he made some comments that have become very personal he said that in this current worldly world and
10:07 pm
information travels the globe quickly and people in other countries see what we're doing and the chinese come out a couple weeks later with this report that includes point of the treatment of bradley manning has evidence of human us human rights violations this is not only embarrassing for president obama it's embarrassing to the united states are usually we don't mean we say we talk about a marxian for human justice our constitution does not mean what it says when we when we're protected from calling little punishment when we're when we're not punished before trial obama and this this administration showing the united states to be essentially a hypocrite and p.j. crowley critical and that's one reason he left he knew this would undermine our image in the world and if you think about this in light of so many other things that one grab scandal torture going on while it widespread war reports from the from the red cross on torture in afghanistan reports recently there have been not couple united states of four thousand pictures of u.s. soldiers posing with afghan civilians have been killed this is really embarrassing
10:08 pm
and american people don't know the worst of it as a mission there four thousand those four dozen pictures are barely been discussed in the u.s. media and yet the rest of the world knows very well about the afghanis know very well about it so this is quite embarrassing knows that it's not their president obama you know puts his actions were where it was he campaigned saying he was in favor the rule of law he was in favor of transparency in his administration be different from president bush and so far it's different it's worse. of course that new scandal they were talking about with the afghanistan kills they have something we have covered here on this program which has not gotten a lot of play in the u.s. media because when it first came out that there were all these pictures people were asking if this could be the next abu ghraib or think of the worse but somehow it's gotten a lot less media attention here i want to ask you one more point on this letter because you know what the cosigners do here is they say that it looks like there's a pattern within the obama administration that they're really trying to deter other whistleblowers but at the same time they say that if bradley manning is convicted
10:09 pm
of a crime that he should be he should be convicted right that he should be punished so are they not really supporting was a chorus here are they kind of walking a thin line when it comes to what their what their view is on it but i'm sure that if you're two hundred fifty people who signed on to something you have to kind of you know present different perspectives and so it's maybe not as strong as some of the signers would like it to and in my view we need to be recognize now if we really mean he's guilty of what he's accused all you do is expose war crimes and other misbehavior where government officials from the lowest rank military up to the secretary of state hillary clinton was turned to the american officers into a nest of spies spine illegally on u.n. representatives in one in new york city spine and illness around the world gathered personal information she has taken a turn a step so from the bottom of our foreign policy so the talk for a foreign policy is clearly millions guilty of what he's accused he's exposing is a need to be discussed and debated and if we want to be the country we see
10:10 pm
ourselves and we need to face this stuff today and change it because we're not behaving in a civil fair shouldn't were speeding has the lone superpower bully innocent and that's not an image that america wants what sells are have i want to thank you very much for joining us and that's definite an image that i want for america the country that i live in a man and i am a citizen of and i do hope that finally maybe this will make obama have to take them are pretty outstanding issue thanks so much and you very much. i was much more to come on as monday evening small budget battles here in washington grabbed headlines all week and the u.s. is still involved in a war in libya and the african union says that gadhafi has accepted a ceasefire proposal that's not really takes place first with fellow at the university of virginia center for national security law joins me in just a moment and the u.s. a loves to use drone strikes around the world because the first incidence of u.s. troops being killed by a drone finally bringing more questions about our reliance on these unmanned machines for discussion with adam weinstein from other jobs.
10:11 pm
let's not forget that we in the fourth quarter. i think. either one well. we haven't got the show's nuclear safety get ready because of the freedom. charter here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture a. new
10:12 pm
website with twenty four seven live streaming news tells us what to do about the ongoing financial hard unlimited high quality videos for download. and stories you never find. aren't just saying. hey guys welcome to shell and tell. part of our guests how to say on the topic now we want to hear. just go on you tube to video on our twitter for part of the questions that we post
10:13 pm
on you tube every monday and on thursday the show long response. all americans have been fixated on the government shutdown threats and the tit for tat between democrats and republicans let's not forget that this nation is still involved in a war in libya a war that's research stalemate and carries no clear answers as to what the outcome a look like over the weekend a delegation of the african union arrived in tripoli with a cease fire proposal which they said oh mark radomsky except it our pows will included an immediate cease fire the delivery of humanitarian aid and the protection of foreigners of the rebels are having none of it between one and two thousand demonstrators gathered outside a hotel in benghazi where the african union delegation met with opposition leaders who said that no cease fire can be agreed upon unless it includes cut off these removal so it's time to expire and civilian lives are put into jeopardy in libya the more the hostilities go on you have to ask ourselves what has obama caught in
10:14 pm
this into your discussions with me is christopher swift a fellow at the university of virginia center for national security law christopher thanks so much for being here tonight could be the first starters and offer you supposedly accepted this ceasefire from the african union but then after that his forces started shelling misrata this morning on monday morning so i mean does anybody out there really think that you can come to some kind of a logical agreement with gadhafi that you can get him to sign on to some. you know actually comply we cannot these done a very good job of keeping his promises when they benefit we saw in the early bush administration when we caught him red handed with nuclear materials and nuclear technology and he responded by giving it all up and we had of normalization of our relations so when it benefits him yeah he'll cut a deal and yes he will enforce that deal but as soon as it stops to benefit him as soon as it's contrary to his interests i think it's reasonable to assume that he's going to move in another direction but with this kind of this fire not benefit off
10:15 pm
the of course one of the reasons that the rebels don't want to accept it is because they look at the african union with a lot of skepticism not the african union wasn't onboard with the u.n. in terms of a no fly zone and the african union you could say these are cut off these allies here a very very much are and they are because when the african union is a very very strong warm against any kind of foreign intervention there is the legacy of colonialism these countries countries and their leaders really don't like western powers fooling around in you know in the regions they used to control during the dark ages so you know it's very fair to say khadafi has allies in the a you it's also fair to say that at this point a ceasefire will benefit everybody including nato but given the chance to regroup and reassess but let's look at what's going on here with the a you he is brought in essentially a group that's favorable to an outcome that looks more like a cut off it wants some or all the rebels are meeting with the european union the e.u. and the e.u. generally speaking is more favorable to what the rebels want so both of these
10:16 pm
groups are forum shopping when you're looking for a mediator or a particular peace plan and they're both doing it with the understanding that the war can't go on and i have to start talking about talking sometime well the war is at a stalemate right i think for most people could probably agree over that and as you said the ceasefire could also benefit the rebels they could benefit nato and the rebels would have more time to regroup here but in large part from all the reports that i've been reading specially when it comes to the rebels in the east the civilians. majority of them have gone home it's now these special operations forces it's now the military guys it's now more of the professionals that are fighting against gadhafi forces i know they're still not getting anywhere yeah i would say it's i wouldn't say it's the professionals it's a bit of a stretch i'd say it's much more the hard core and this is something that happens whenever you have a normal rebel movement there's a lot of enthusiasm about throwing overthrowing the state who's you hasn't got getting back to the dictator but as soon as people run into the race of war they realize how difficult and unpleasant it is and they realize that they're just not
10:17 pm
trained for the difficulty with the rebels as well they have control of the skies by and through nato they don't have the two things that you need to move in on me the first is unit cohesion and the second is the logistics train or unit cohesion is down cohesion is down because simply they're not a trained organized fighting force they never work they're getting better but they can't compare with their adversaries in that regard and second they don't have the capacity to move manpower money food materiel fuel the kinds of distances we're talking about i mean libya is the size of alaska it has a population smaller than new york city is a lot of desert there it's not like they can get off at the rest stop on the exit on the way to tripoli we also heard last week of course that even though it would be ideal even though it wouldn't be favorable the u.s. could consider putting troops on the ground something that we've been told since day one from the obama administration that that won't happen so how long could they wait you know how long will this stalemate have to go on until they would make that decision to put troops on the ground oh i think that decision is premature i think
10:18 pm
that outcome is unlikely that said i think it's very likely that the longer this goes on the war certain senior generals are going to signal our intent or discuss our planning for such an eventuality one because they have it to be to provide the president with those options but to it's a really clever way of getting people wouldn't go she didn't. you know also think that it's perhaps because we're there to protect civilians that's there that's the line that we're being told we're not being told they were there. to take it off and help the rebels overthrow them but yet the longer this entire conflict goes on the hostilities the more the civilians are the ones that are suffering there have been reports of children dying of course when it comes to getting any type of food or water you know access for those things it becomes more difficult by the day well let's ask for the wheat is in that question the we need is not just the united states the we is the united states the european union which is really you know we position on this much more than we are with much more of the support standby and support role and also the united nations so there are
10:19 pm
a whole bunch of different institutional tools that can be brought to bear here whether or not that means that there will be u.s. forces on the ground i can't tell you exactly i think it's unlikely i think it's more likely that you're going to see some sort of you when you were e.u. sponsored humanitarian intervention and some of those guys are going to go in you know arms and ready to help with that me take the form of a police units rather than a military unit it could happen in any number of different ways the more likely we are to have negotiations the more likely we are to have some kind of boots on the ground those aren't necessarily going to be u.s. troops i very quickly i know reading out of time but want to play a clip of tom brokaw interviewing the prince of side here and we play it very quickly i just want to get christopher's response i want to go on those for the united states and the world to those. we don't have a place for crude offered to go. would he be welcome in saudi arabia if he were to decide. that i think. it was
10:20 pm
because. it's almost comical. because we have a point. we have a point that nobody wants him but he also has a huge ideological difference with qadhafi been cut off he comes out of the pan arab movement even became apparent africanus he's changed his convictions as many times it's changed his mind about what he wants for dinner right the saudis have a completely different outlook on what the broader muslim world should look like they have nothing to do but nothing to do with a guy like this so perhaps he reminds us that the saudis aren't always just going to be the go to say you guys take care of christopher i got to wrap it up i want to thank you very much for joining us later to see thanks. and b c reported today that military officials told them that you are american servicemen were killed in afghanistan last week and a mistaken drone strike it's believed to be the first case of its kind when it comes to friendly fire and the news comes out just as the l.a. times released a long investigative report on a particular drone strike on wrong last year are between fifteen and twenty five
10:21 pm
afghan civilians lost their lives including women and children as the dark reality of drone strikes and as one that's happening more often thanks to our increasing reliance on an arm technology but it's also really a reality that the pentagon tries to keep away from america's eyes through freedom of information act request the a.c.l.u. found out earlier this year the pentagon while keeping individual reports on each airstrike keeps them classified and that they don't even track the overall number of civilians killed so it's today's tragic news all the debate over the precision and the more reality of drones once again heat up trying to discuss it is out of line for mother jones thanks so much for joining me tonight now considering that there are now has been this case of friendly fire of u.s. servicemen being the victims of a drone strike unfortunately do you think about what it's going to take it's going to take american lives to be lost to get this debate to heat back up again to see more congressional hearings more investigations. it's
10:22 pm
a fair question i'm not really sure at this point what it would say to really ask some tough questions back home you know the irony is one of the reasons that we're relying so heavily upon these drones in afghanistan is because pakistan let's not forget that the cia is funding a lot of drone operations in pakistan is because we're trying to sort of exalt accelerates the results and try to get the countries to a point where we can pull out more american troops and i think the general consensus among the american public that's paying attention which isn't very large at this point is that's got to be a good thing right so i'm not sure if anything is really going to move public opinion at the moment well the thing is to have believed that this is the first case to be honest nobody even knows which in itself it's sad and considering that the military now has become known for a number of coverups. very high profile cover ups too if you have to take a guess do you really think this is the first time it has happened. in you know i
10:23 pm
think in terms of drone strikes in a friendly fire incident this is probably the first that's the sort of thing that you're not going to see covered up very effectively is to be perfectly frank there are too many people in the chain of communications that are involved in drone operations that i think you probably would have heard something if if there was a another incident preceded this one what is however i think a related question that really needs to be asked is why aren't we doing a better job tracking and being more diligent on the civilian casualties that we that we actually cause with these strikes and there's a wide divergence in the numbers there and you know catherine she demanded and bergen you tracked at least the pakistan drone strikes you know america's foundation are usually relying on open sources newspapers try and find some consensus in the numbers it's really hard to do with a military it's us i'm totally with you there the fact that you know as they say you also find out of the pentagon doesn't even keep an overall tally of how many civilians are killed. the drone strikes or to me there's
10:24 pm
a huge conflict there if you consider the fact that we're supposed to be winning hearts and minds especially in afghanistan. yeah that's one of the big ironies here is you know general petraeus is running the afghanistan war is sort of on the horns of a dilemma here and he's considered this very counter insurgency groups counterinsurgency is all based on you know making friendly with local populous and trying to reinforce good will in constructs you know civil military relations rather than destroying things but also the pressure i think domestically to sort of accelerating and to the war is got us relying on the stand off weapons like drones that are flown by people at creech air force base in nevada where the fog of war sort of reigns and it's very easy to make mistakes and very hard to sort of assess the damage afterwards and of course that brings you know a lot of questions up about morality to somebody firing pushing a button from thousands of miles away when they kill people and if you you know if you also read through some of what the l.a.
10:25 pm
times reported on and you look at the language that's shared you know over the radio communication when they make the decision to actually shoot off a drone it really sounds like they're playing a video game some time but darpa right now is supposedly working on some new technology so that they could have one man on the ground that would have a direct link to these drones you know who could also call in a strike from perhaps a closer distance to make it easier so they don't have to go through this long bureaucratic process do you think we really should be making it easier to fire it around. i think we should probably be reevaluating how we use the fencing reference to look let's be honest in terms of the difficult terrain and some of the challenges that we face in afghanistan the reapers and the predators and these unmanned aerial vehicles of themselves time and again as great. as haitians to the way that we gather intelligence there are there eyes in the air in places we can't get people necessarily to see the research relying on dems are actually commit often such operations to actually do ground attacks and coordinate the sorts of
10:26 pm
attacks in a bunch of different assets in a bunch of different military service and stepping on to the air force sometimes they need to. either ask them for some trouble and i think that there is a sort of. you know air force customers who are in nevada and other places like this they wanted to their best job but often their best job is not counterinsurgency based it's not building villages based it's finding the enemy fixing the destroying and that's not necessarily a skill that we really need to be treated at this point in afghanistan and i'm very quickly and of course there's been some rumors flying around the general david petraeus might be taking over as head of the cia these days if you look at the way that our wars are conducted the lines are constantly blurred between what the military does what the cia does we know that they also. execute a lot of drone strikes you know the general petraeus is a fan of drone strikes so if it were to come true if he took over the cia do you think that we would just see our reliance on drones increase. well i don't think
10:27 pm
there's much question even beyond general petraeus. get kept going more of these things something that fans contractors certainly are interested in it's something that congressmen who are serving constituencies that want to bring troops home certainly are interested in and i think that general petraeus has certain certainly shown a willingness in the last year to rely on more of the straights and since the cia is running more and more of these operations specially in pakistan although it should be pointed out the wall street journal just reported the other day that pakistan healy's wants us to stop it's an open question but i think the e.u. you're likely to see in the short term probably more of the same and i want to thank you very much for joining us in this fight that's looks like the drones are here to stay thanks. all right it's time for show and tell on tonight's program last week we told you
10:28 pm
that fox news is ending its regularly scheduled glenn beck program and now they want to fox's the your face is stepping away from the spotlight we want to know who you think should replace back in his time slot so here's what some of our viewers suggested alberto marquez tweeted his idea to us saying static here or static that might generate more sponsors than he currently has we also heard from bill abri on facebook who said someone more sane and reasonable like charlie sheen miles lacy suggested newt gingrich granted he's not for conservative swine but at least he does have some intellect rattling between his ears who doesn't rant and rave and lance w. meyer sound off saying how about ed schultz for glenn beck's old spot a different more reasonable perspective like news would ever go for that obviously our viewers are quite creative right think it's safe to say that we're all very curious about who's going to fill the extra use but until we find out here's our next topic of discussion for you at home earlier in our show we told you that the u.s. and china are engaged in
10:29 pm
a tit for tat over their human rights records i think most people would agree that china is not the best example of protecting human rights we want to know if the u.s. should be getting involved in their business publishing information about their not so admirable record so let us know what you think do you think that the u.s. should publish human rights reports on other countries or should they stick to fixing their own problems first you can respond to us on facebook twitter and you tube and you know your response just my mate on air. now coming up q. must be lonely way up there in alaska too long out of the spotlight so sarah palin decided to cheer on the burgers that's coming up in tonight's tools on the war and a last minute deal was reached to avert a government shutdown on friday night but is washington about to see another ugly partisan battle over raising the debt ceiling benjy sarlin a congressional reporter at talking points memo joins me for some insight when we return.

41 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on