we're talking today about several issues from a nuclear energy and power plants and to politics and who's really leading the race to talk about who is responsible for some of what's going on and income from civilian deaths in libya and also why ron paul a man who's been against war all along he's seen as a fringe candidate that's all coming up.

it's monday june twentieth i'm christine for sale in washington d.c. you're watching our t.v. our top story today u.s. involvement in foreign wars and the fact that while these decisions continue to be made from the top and overwhelming majority of americans are unhappy about it take a look a poll conducted last week i pulse opinion research found that seventy to two percent of voters believe the united states is involved in too many foreign conflicts and should pull back its troops seventy two percent that's with sixteen percent saying a level of engagement was appropriate and twelve percent saying they're not sure so only frustration now growing as u.s. and nato forces continue involvement in libya but the most recent news that at least nine civilians were killed and among all the airstrike in tripoli our correspondent were in fear notional is in tripoli and she has this report.

mohammed that his extended family used to be one of the biggest in really behooved . and a table means filed with him by his father one of his brothers a sister and her own family mohammed shows us the picture of little jumana his niece taken on his mobile phone just days before he pulled her dead body from auditing. i woke up when i had explosions seen that piece of the roof fell on me and i ran immediately to see how my family is and many of the dead my mother survived another brother is in a coma and we don't know when or if he will recover but how is that not three they've been living in this agreement they start in tripoli it's home to many hours incomplete most from one family this is just a regular six or quarter quite densely populated built up area this is what used to be the heart is house the three story buildings are reduced in ruins in just

moments after being hit in a missile strike a man who has brother who survived says they will never forgive and forget what nato has done to them destroyed their lives and hence. they should take responsibility for their wrongdoing and nato has responded with an apology. the intended target during last night's airstrike in tripoli was a military missile art however from our initial assessment of the facts it appears that one weapon did not strike the intended target due to a weapons systems failure. although officials in tripoli claim more than eight hundred civilians have died in later raids the nine people they say were killed in sunday's bombardment of the city have become the first civilian casualties officially acknowledged by the alliance only on saturday nato has also admitted it another mistake in a strike this time on the rebel forces neither live in oil port of brag or the number of casualties not being disclosed we'll hold nato to hold mr cameron was the

start of this better scorning mr obama here and. here's a good response support for the death of these innocent children innocent boys and girls and innocent fathers and mothers who cannot justify this attack the enemy was up with that incident in. sunday's fatal error occurs in the rising concerns with the nato about his operation in northern africa only eight out of its twenty eight members have joined the mission to protect civilians in libya which raises the question how many would support one to kill them and raif an option or rati tripoli libya of course simply the most recent efforts there are also currently about one hundred thousand u.s. troops in afghanistan fifty thousand troops in iraq that's imagine the more under the radar efforts going on in places like yemen and pakistan and this is of course

people the human cost i really want to start on the financial cost to this country but earlier i spoke to r.t. blogger and military analyst. i asked him his thoughts about the growing lack of support for the u.s. wars abroad and what he thought it meant for the country as a whole. it shows that the american people are tired of war and we saw secretary gates to say yesterday that nobody's more tired of war than the military families and the veterans that have served there but now it's showing that what we've all been saying for a long period of time since two thousand and seven after the iraq war two dozen if the iraq surge was done and the american people are catching on board what we've been saying which was it's time to bring these open ended war to it and i'm wondering you know why the disconnect here we think about president obama back when he was candidate obama and his primary challenger in his party was hillary clinton and his one thing before it was jobs and the economy before that became a major issue before the financial collapse it was the war and time and time again

he felt at her for voting for the war in iraq and a lot of people speculate that that's why he came out ahead. it's a good as good as i think so let's talk about that difference between candidate obama and now president obama who has said he wants to speed up the withdrawal of troops in afghanistan but all we've seen so far in afghanistan is a surge of troops there so there's a lot of talk and a little action here and now we have proof that americans want more action you know what i better be careful not to support president obama here because i'm not a good fan i think that there's a couple things that we do have did see with president obama that afghanistan was virtually neglected once the bush administration chose to go inside of iraq and as a result of that the obama administration tripled down first with i think ten thousand and seventeen then thirty thousand more troops as a result of that people can debate what they want but nonetheless there needed to be attention given to afghanistan because there is nothing done since two thousand

and two virtually the same strategy when the tragedy chose was bad policy chosen the policy advisers he brought around him i thought was a very bad decision counterinsurgency in nation building and all of that and as a result of this reckless decision i think by president obama now where we were spending so we're going to. ten million dollars an hour we've got five thousand americans killed as a result the war and god knows about a million iraqis and afghans and americans have had enough but jake you know this is america we have a democracy here we have a system in place in which the will of the people is supposed to be demonstrated by those officials that they elect into office clearly this poll and what we're starting to see with a lot of the dialogue that's coming out is showing that that's just not happening why do you think that those you know we just take a look at the pentagon budget or take a look at the spending that is given the money that's given to these wars that is certainly not and can grow with what americans are feeling why what we start with

problems first we have the bank bailouts followed up from the bush administration unpaid for tax liabilities that the bush administration now now we've got the military spending and by what the american people are most of influenced by in the polls is finances they want they want money in their pocketbook americans want to work they want their houses they want freedom they want their own identity they don't want the government to be taking everything and giving it to afghanistan or iraq or in some some liberal minded people think that we're doing is actually occupying and killing a lot of innocent people over there so we certainly certainly americans in general don't want to be killing innocent people in america's don't want their tax dollars given or taken from them so that's why it's pretty interesting to just if we think about what we've seen over the weekend in terms of some of the lawmakers and politicians kind of taking different stances than we're used to in terms of the hock position in the position president obama as you've already seen sort of seem

seen as hawkish continuing to you know the surge in afghanistan the involvement at all in libya that he's in favor of and then we have people like lindsey graham who i never thought i'd say this in you know now now time post two thousand election john mccain saying obama's right to be involved in libya and yet. then we also have a lot of republicans coming out saying wait a minute he didn't get congressional approval we should think about this to talk about this this redefinition of you know the hocks versus others no longer a blue and red issue well that's what i used to think about john mccain he has turned into a lack of google his he is so old and senile the man really needs to be brought to a nursing home and provided care for he has whatever john mccain says is so irrelevant he's so removed from the troops as like his rhetoric i support the troops it's a bunch of nonsense but really what's going on within the discontent is what general bruce palmer said after vietnam and that was general bruce congress and the

american people will not stand for an ambiguous war of an unpredictable nature and which it doesn't end free of ruled suitable to united states this is something we heard forty years ago now so the american people are that's where they are out we've got guys like mccain and lindsey graham who get a lot of money from defense contractors they get a crap load of support from pro-war military organizations and as a result they get to get on t.v. and do they really care about the troops you know john mccain does not care about the u.s. military it is a larger so you does god bless him for his military service but he does not care in the least bit what's going on now is part one of my interview with r.c. blogger and military analyst jake tapper tell. but the question of the u.s. led war effort is one that also frequently comes up on the campaign trail over the weekend many of the republican candidates for president gathered in new orleans for the republican leadership conference to talk about their ideas for how to move the

country forward among them congressman ron paul the only candidate who has said from day one that the u.s. should not be involved in any of the work for its and we should withdraw our troops and our money from iraq afghanistan and libya now one time this was an idea that was. radical on the fringe even and it's one that must be registering more and more turns out that ron paul won the straw poll there and while it was barely a contest six hundred twelve to the next in line candidate jon huntsman score three hundred eighty two perceived front runner mitt romney just seventy four votes ron paul in an interview this morning on the today show is that as he has an idea about why he's getting so much the port especially from the young people it's analysts under cleared unwinnable wars dumped on the young people and also the financial crisis that we have related to the foreign policy it we're dumping that then on the

young people and that's why the next generation the current young people between the age of fifteen and twenty five or thirty they're with me because they're getting dumped on and that to me is the big issue so i brought jake back into this discussion and i also asked him why the general consensus among the mainstream media outlets is that ron paul is a fringe candidate who doesn't matter here's his response. most of the mainstream media and a lot of the establishment kind of political folks are invested in establishment candidates ron paul is not the true establishment he's been there a long time but he's libertarian minded some people do it but because kids get something straight ok mitt romney is like watching a monkey screw the football like he's absolutely horrible you have romney care and then he criticized obama for doing the exact same thing romney says in march i don't want to stay there piers there brother he says of the last poll we need to get out of afghanistan i mean this guy is the biggest joke on the republican ticket

and paul and pete barkman and term obtain are no better the only person the only two people like on the on the on the on that platform i think that have anything of substance to offer with the huntsman and ron paul and no it's no wonder they just told the higher ed pretty interesting there i mean you mention is that romney romney romney and these are actually polls that are taken on the one that was on the n.b.c. wall street journal poll whoever their polling is obviously different than the people voting in the straw poll but you know there are some consistency to that in terms of people voting for who they would vote for but you're right mitt romney has a record of being a flip flopper let's talk about this is ron paul i mean he has consistently said the same thing that something's changed talk to me about what you think is change in terms of these ideas these smaller government and the tea party which was born and i can contact you know get pulled the troops out last more why do you think that this is becoming more and that's it again going back to the first part we have in this new segment where we talk about what matters most american public what

matters most american public is money bottom line it's money wars cost a lot of money high taxes cost a lot of money when you have high taxes you have wars the republic the the the the people on the average grassroots they're the ones that have to pay for that and they're tired of doing it it's been ten years longest war in history he's the only candidate up there that said yeah it's time to end this the sheer arrogance but. let's be honest i mean i've got to bring this up this is brought up i think this morning in the interview on n.b.c. that ron paul did that a lot of these ideas people can jump on board with but when you talk about getting government out and you talk about really really cutting back the involvement of government that also includes a lot of social programs and when you have a candidate getting out there and saying the government should make laws about drug use we're not just talking about marijuana we're talking about heroin that's a resonate with people you know it doesn't i criticize i was i was on a program at a birthday man a few weeks back and and i on this network and i talked about how ron paul

supporters have a lot they've got a lot to learn and supporting the legalization of marijuana heroin is not a winning issue ending wars and lowering taxes is a winning issue and that's what they should stay focused on and not into do you deem carolyn and she now to get the other one spencer last what's it going to take for ron paul to be the not considered fringe candidate by and he's turning into. start watching r t r i like that advice and found here r.c. blogger and military analyst hate america so is ron paul's consistent antiwar message against traction is the changing tide of u.s. foreign policy quickly winning over followers here at home or harmfulness of the resident outlet took to the streets of the big apple to find out. u.s. troops are in iraq and afghanistan and libya and syria are not enough whether they're going to be enough united states of america this week let's talk about that we

think about. americans as being some kind of. world police. is good or bad thing. i don't know but why do you send troops there if there is something you want to do your resources. secure your resources and that's a little bit different than. making peace. with mcdonald's we're number one in the world. to show the world we can still do it even the best we can we can do it why is that so important to be number one has to be. be one of you think about your take yes you don't think there's any at all syria motive. no oil interest no economic interest no i don't know what do we want to accomplish than. just the safety of the waste of money and the lives of young people

did you think this is maybe another reason that we're doing it one reason only or. i don't think it's logical out of that makes any sense granting there's a big disconnect between what people in government are thinking and what they think we want and what we're letting them know that we once. again your priorities are the same so you have all these countries in the middle east where. the people are standing up against their government why aren't people in the u.s. standing up against their government saying hey we're going to troops home i'd like to think that one day that will happen you know there was an arab spring maybe the america will have its own spring no matter how you feel about the imperialism of the united states the bottom line of let's face but it's not going to stop anytime soon. so i had here on r t what's happening at a power plant in nebraska it's surrounded by a flooded misery river and the dangers may be growing by claims that everything's

all right well look to unravel this mystery. with below and back you. all the result is when people are still to be called her you know she says she's a star. r

t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to the u.s. . i want to switch gears now and talk about an issue that a few of you our viewers have been asking us to shed some light on an issue that now many news organizations are talking about at all and this time it involves the fort calhoun nuclear plants in nebraska actually weeks ago there was a fire inside the plant that at the time knocked out the cooling system in certain parts of visuals there say it was restored within about ninety minutes but now

there is cause for new concern take a look this is the rising missouri river it has flooded the area and experts including the power company says that high volumes of water could pose a threat to the electric system has been an ongoing no fly zone here as well but officials say it has nothing to do with potential radiation that could be the relief from the plant in fact they say everything at the plants is just fine now is that the situation may not be the same at what we've been seeing unfolding at the fukushima nuclear plant in japan but you'll remember there as well several attempts by the government and officials to downplay the threat because they everything was going to be fine which we now know just wasn't true so the point is we should talk about it there is reason enough to be suspicious joining me now is tyson slocum director of the public citizens and energy program and i say let's talk about this what we're seeing in fort calhoun the flooding around the nuclear plant how much of

a danger does this pose would clearly pose a because risk. as the nuclear regulatory commission which is the agency that regulates all hundred four duke of power plant states raised the level of concern level for this plant to almost to a critical level so it's clear that regulators in washington d.c. are concerned enough to raise the level of concern but the bottom line here is that the lack of public information about our nuclear power plants particularly after september eleventh two thousand and one it was designed to keep critical information about vulnerable energy infrastructure like nuclear power plants away from terrorism but what it's done is keep this critical information away from us so that we the public the lawmakers and journalists don't have quick easy independent access to important information about the operations and concerns about these

plants and so part of the problem with this situation has been the lack of clarity in some of the public statements by the operator of a nuclear power plant and by federal officials and so we're getting more independent access i think it's going to be critical but we do have some new information in fact a report just released today by the associated press it was the culmination of a year long investigation found that there is a pretty tight comfortably close relationship and i buck between the nuclear regulatory thing can commission and a lot of these power companies and the nuclear energy field in the united states basically what this show this report is a very in-depth report it showed that when you have things like leaky valve clogs up pipes leaking radiation instead of the nuclear regulatory commission say all right we need to figure out a fix this they say you know what. the rules and regulations they were just too conservative for us so let's loose in that make them a little more lax this to me is frightening oh yeah absolutely and public citizen

has raised these concerns along with some members of congress like representative ed markey who's on the house energy and commerce committee he's been trying to get more information about the lack of of toughness by the nuclear regulatory commission on the domestic nuclear industry particularly in wait in light of what's happened in japan now in october the nuclear regulatory commission actually cited this nebraska power plant for not having adequate safety and security measures to deal with flooding from the missouri river and they put the nuclear power plant on on watch on notice essentially the plant has allegedly come into compliance with those findings but the fact is is that the rising floodwaters do pose a risk and from a big group picture scenario here it does raise the issue of whether or not nuclear

power is viable going forward there are a number of risks and the obama administration is committed significant taxpayer resources to build a new generation of nuclear power plants and the question is is this an affordable route are there more cost effective or less risky alternatives like renewable energy and energy efficiency that might be able to meet our energy needs going forward you talk about this new generation of building new plants i think it's really interesting and tell me if i'm oversimplifying much but these plants most of these plants were built back in the sixty's and they were built be able to last forty years under the idea that most of them would probably be upgraded renovated or totally remodeled long before forty years well now it's been more than fifty years and a lot of them continue to get their permits renewed so that is what i think you know you have a car and you have a bad part on the car you either get it replaced or you get a new car and. that's just not happening here that's right and this particular plant that's threatened by the flood waters in nebraska it was built in one nine

hundred seventy three and you're absolutely right your point that these are very complex systems there's a number of critical. components and as those components age the risks get higher and higher and so the question is from a safety and security standpoint does it make sense to start to phase out these aging reactors and the price tag for new reactors is now ten billion dollars or more and the question to american taxpayers should be should we subsidize these or should we think about some of the emerging technologies like wind and solar energy efficiency that present far less risk but but arguably greater return for the public and you have officials coming out here and thing as you even have leaders of major countries like germany coming out and saying this but the fact is that doesn't think very likely in the united states for various reasons between the different lobbying groups between the power of the nuclear industry what needs to happen to fukushima need to happen here what needs to happen in order to sort of change the entire type of thinking here in this country i definitely don't want

a nuclear accident in united states or anywhere else and so i hope that it doesn't take an accident for us to recognize the huge risks and costs associated with nuclear power i think it's evident just looking at the situation we don't have a solution for the high level radioactive waste it's true that this calhoun reactor to waste this storied in is stored in dry cask and dry casks that don't need as much water as the plants did in japan but the fact is that when we've got cost effective alternatives like wind and solar available when we have an optimized energy efficiency why are we continuing to pursue expensive and risky nuclear power certainly an important question tyson slocum director of public citizen's energy program and as for calhoun officials continue to assure the public that there are no issues there's proof else. where that small problems can explode into bigger ones take focus shima for example where japanese officials have admitted they were

unprepared for the disaster and have been part of countless cover ups about the threat levels there are dish on thomas went to an area near the plant though considered outside the exclusion zone where locals are extremely concerned about high radiation levels that are. i really ominous and constant taking a geiger counters as scientists working in fukushima city concerned and some of the i'm in charge of the group of radiation detection and survey from fukushima university where now thinking there is a creation protocol and process set up by the japanese government is not enough and myself i think i should evacuate from this area but because of my job at the university i can't my family and my friends family are of a creative. officially fukushima city is in a safe area eighty kilometers from the danger plant reactor one and a full sixty kilometers outside the band danger zone but still radiation levels here and the much higher than normal. just to give you an idea of the consistency

right now the background is really pretty chilling nine. thirty times what is more of them except admirable but the problem here is that we're just more of a lot of the regular quickly. climbing earlier we got a really good night. which is about a thousand times more than it was really accepted at the level of really going for . it in order to claim that fukushima is truly safe from leaking really usually the japanese government has had to be creative with the numbers but the government. changed the quantum level standard the levels from one. to twenty million per year to twenty times. the standards before the accident and now. they raise the. standard

so that they can say it's safe but actually the standard has changed the new higher levels mean that fukushima can be classed as being outside of the exclusion zone some say that evacuating the city would be simply impractical given the huge numbers of people of fact. to try and mitigate the circumstances to some degree a group of scientists have teamed up to find simple ways to reduce the radiation level. we're just trying to do a pilot project do the. walk by ourselves and we are not using our special you create man we just use normal child both. scoops. we just. bought. a small effort to bring some security to a community facing a scary and uncertain future in fukushima city sean thomas r.t. . and that's going to do it for now.