just woke up from a ten year long slumber and realize you hey we're in a war of a really you know what it might have been a good idea to start asking questions as to whether or not the money spent the lives lost are worth it i don't know how about any time after two thousand and one when the taliban actually fell for a little while when al qaeda was mostly routed out of afghanistan you know it's been almost ten years since that you realize that right now don't get me wrong at least the mainstream media is paying attention to that issue today and for that i applaud that but again the notion that i actually have to applaud them for paying attention to america's longest war well that's just pretty pathetic but if all you care about today is hearing a number and moving on with your life then go watch them if you want to think about what that number actually meets what thirty three thousand fewer troops means and you can come here because i can begin to tell you right now that out of one hundred thousand that doesn't sound all that much i mean that there are people in this country who want to have a permanent presence in afghanistan and they don't care how much it cost in blood or money we've already seen reports of secret negotiations for basing or going on

and if you thought the death of osama bin laden was a turning point in the war on terror then you were right this was a turning point for the worst because since then both the obama administration and congress have all double down on expanding it be a drone strikes in yemen a drone base being built somewhere in the persian gulf or the reauthorization for four more years of the patriot act and so on and so forth so that's what we'll get into tonight and that's what the mainstream media will miss. no matter what president obama announces tonight we do have to realize that it still doesn't mean that the war in afghanistan is coming to a close to new york times the washington post for all reporting the president is going to remove it ten thousand troops by the end of two thousand and and eleven.

the rest of the surge goes by summer of two thousand and twelve but even if fifty thousand troops were to leave by the end of twenty twelve that still leaves fifty thousand more we've seen these end dates coming up and even a transition to afghan control of security in two thousand and fourteen that one's been walked back by military officials they go officials to and reports of said that secret negotiations for a permanent u.s. base in afghanistan have been underway so this is a long ways from over so what's the real course of action that needs to be needs to take it what are the chances for peace talks with the taliban to be successful and it will this be our final war of a large ground troops at the extended global war on terror is fought with drones and special ops teams from pakistan to get it here discuss this with me is lawrence wilkerson were tired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell lawrence thanks so much for being here tonight thanks so for starters do you know any information that i don't like i said in the new york times the washington post are saying that they got a call from the white house telling them before the speech that it's going to be

ten thousand out by end of two thousand and eleven and the rest of the surge by summer summer of two thousand and twelve can you confirm that you know anything else i don't know anything else i do know that i would like you lord for the fact that the media are paying attention to it finally it's understandable why they're not no one really fighting in afghanistan within the foreign legion we've created with our armed forces but they're missing a huge gamble don't lose by that but no one's fighting other than the foreign legion that we've created well it's what we do in less than one percent of those countries believe in dying for the rest of this country. so why should anyone pay attention to their son or daughter's not being in danger in afghanistan and there's no possibility for them to be in danger this is a this is a military that rapidly is becoming like the french foreign legion i wonder sorry that you know all of this though i haven't heard the central issue i've heard it on the periphery but i haven't heard in the main story the central park east. i knew

you were going to say that and well we won't get into that well ok if i were you want to get into pakistan right now then we can segue there first let's start with some of these issues as in if we do leave let's say if we take thirty three thousand troops out now that we still have the other you know the fill out the other one hundred thousand troops like i said there are now negotiations supposedly for permanent basing in afghanistan is all of that having to do with pakistan we do think that afghanistan is going to turn into the next germany or the next japan where we just constantly have fifty thousand troops right on the side i think you're looking at unless the physical situation stops it and there's a good chance it might i think you're looking at iraq and afghanistan being permanently for the next half century or more and it has to do with everything from the what the military is calling the arc of crisis which constitutes everything from really the eastern border of turkey all the way over to zhejiang province in

china central asia if you will and it also has to do with oil and gas if you look at the lay down of pipelines in the world envisioned under construction and pumping you're seeing the future that's the future renewables are running out by two thousand and fifty twenty seventy five at the latest we're probably going to be at the last drops of oil. this is the future you're looking at a future of conflict you're looking at the future of security needs all across that region but when you talk about the future of conflict do you really think that basing and that large numbers of troops play into that because i think that traditional marriage is the traditional stereotype or are we moving away from that are we moving towards drone warfare what we saw we were a smaller special operations teams we thought we were remember general jones when he was commandant of the marine corps and earlier nato commander talking about lily pads and simply bouncing in and balancing out when necessary i think that strategy has been royally discredited by the problems. had with everyone from was back in

time to pakistan and to whomever we've had to have overflight rights and basing rights with so we feel like we need troops garrus and in the region in order to secure our interest but yet we keep asking are the pentagon's asking for five billion more dollars worth of drones for the very next year i mean i guess it's just going to be a mix of the two billions i just went through a defense budget exercise this morning several hours of it we're looking at ways to cut the defense budget because we are now spending half of the world's money on arms on the on our military on our security establishment if you will in the screws everything from nuclear to aircraft carriers and there are some real demands to cut that budget now and those demands are only going to grow as our fiscal situation worsens so we talk about garrison the troops in other areas and yet at the same time we still have about one hundred fifty thousand in europe we still have about forty fifty thousand in korea and okinawa we're going to bring some of these troops home if we're going to garrison these other places i'm not even sure in

a year or two are going to be able to find the physical realities that will allow us to garrison anywhere so this is going to be a real battle in the congress and elsewhere as we try to determine just how much we should be spending on the it's hugely expensive instrument now we call the armed forces it is a hugely expensive instrument you definitely are right there i want to ask you if we do let's say have this permanent presence you know is one thing that in afghanistan in particular then what does that mean for all of these negotiations peace talks with the taliban they just want the foreign presence out because i mean it's i think right now i think what it means at least in part is to try to come to some kind of an accommodation with at least a portion of their leadership so that this reality can take place that is so we can leave and there are some troops going to the same way in iraq we're going to have to talk to a lot of people about leaving troops in iraq when we say we're going to leave them for example in the kurdish region because that's the most amenable to our presence is going to be difficult to reconcile. well there with other people in the region

alone other people in iraq so you know so i think some of these talks are going to be reconciling those with whom we will say we have made a deal and who maybe the government in afghanistan will say it's made a deal although that's very helpful especially of cars i remains with the government that's part of the talks i'm sure that what we say talks we really mean private is a lot of money flying around that's got to be a huge part of it because that seems to be the one thing we know how to do over there and the corruption we've created in doing that as karzai has pointed out to his own purposes of course but it's true it's a record we've created a corruption factor the probably is greater than the one that was there before we intervened now you say of course you're working right now on cutting this defense budget we keep hearing these calls that we can't afford these wars anymore and you know i think that's unfortunate but that's one of the reasons that people actually start paying attention to the fact that we're in a war but that's all they've got if that's what at least drives them to it to

realize that we're going broke because of it then i think it's good but there are always those people that are just going to want to keep fighting where war is around the world and we have actually a clip of two of them which are very outspoken voices but they definitely aren't the only ones. if you think the pathway to the g.o.p. nomination in two thousand and twelve is to get to barack obama's left on libya afghanistan and iraq you're going to meet a lot of headwinds are you fearful that there is an isolationist streak now running through the reality in part we would drew from afghanistan one time we withdrew from afghanistan and the taliban came they actually followed by al qaeda followed by attacks on the united states of america. and it was senator lindsey graham of course talking about libya we would be stupid if we actually forced the president to get us out of a war that was illegal to go into in the first place senator john mccain the republican party is using this word isolationist and just throwing it out. when

like if that's the dirtiest word you could possibly imagine what a basis that is because they're scared to death of the isolationists within their own rights because they've got plenty of them there is there even such a thing as a real isolation as well as they would try relation if i would not catch it that way at this moment more i would capture those fiscal conservatives and they see the trillions of dollars that are being poured down the rathole of afghanistan and the trillions of dollars that were poured down the rathole of iraq and they don't like it they don't like it at all and i add to that the money that is now being expended in libya by a president who went to war without consulting anybody in the legislative branch of government as far as i can tell let's talk about that president because you know when bob woodward's book obama's wars came out and suddenly everyone thought they had this great insight into how it was that we came to this decision or the obama administration came to the decision to send the initial troop surge of those thirty three thousand troops and it seemed like he was really getting strong armed by those around him by general petraeus and the like this time it's being reported

that he went with joe biden's plan when it came to you know the timetable on the numbers of he's going to give us instead of what the pentagon and the petraeus wanted which is that of course they want this to be as as small and as minuscule as possible does that mean he's learning i'm not sure you're right in characterizing the pentagon and warning this to be small and miniscule well the pentagon did say that they think of the troop surge should stay until the end of twenty was on ok we try and this is a great giant building over across town there are people of the building where they would love to shut down afghanistan in the bar morning and they would love to leave maybe a few troops to garrus in a few places and make sure they guard what accomplishments they feel they were cheap but they don't want to stay there forever and there are people who feel the same way about about iraq but you understand what it's doing and they understand the hundred billion dollars a year perhaps because that's looming. against the defense budget and they understand what they've got to do to assure. the security of the country and the

future against an unknown range of threats and afghanistan and iraq frankly are dragging a lot of money out of that potentiality so you there's just not enough money to do it all well i'm going to start seeing a lot more money out of general david petraeus of course is now leaving aside the pentagon and he's heading over to the cia but this is a man who has made statements that he thinks that we should be in afghanistan for decades so i'm just curious how much more money we can start seeing flowing over to the intelligence agencies we know like i said ready eighty billion now yemen and we are increasing in the cia is taking over drone strikes in yemen eighty billion dollars i think is sufficient for the intelligence community all seventeen and these are but i'd hate to see that budget go up much more like to see it used a lot more efficiently and a lot more effectively i think what we've got is a situation here where with panetta at the defense department petraeus it's the president in a second term if he's elected let's see if he's reelected i think we've got

a situation where we're going to see some real trick kone and cuts in defense budget but the president is not going to approach that until panetta has had a chance to get in and feel his way around and see what the best way to do that is both bureaucratically and in terms of strategy and the president is reassured of his second term and the kind of flexibility and freedom that his second term will give him to be more forward leaning he uses stablished his national security bone a few days where he put to rest all the talk about him being a manchurian candidate or a muslim in disguise or whatever when he killed bin laden and here's the guy he may be completely the opposite direction which i think is part of the problem so of course you got osama bin ladin and that's going to be on his record but now he's expanding the executive power is far far and away more than you could say of the bush administration or furnish movie if you're right and i don't frankly at this point after doing some research and looking into it and talking to people i don't understand the decision about libya the only indication i've got that gives me some

real. something i can grasp is really really cynical and that's the fact that goldman sachs had lost over about ninety percent of the sovereign wealth fund that they'd taken over for gadhafi and khadafi got so angry at him he was ready to throw them out of libya maybe even cut their throats before they left and so all the sudden we had calls this belly yeah well we've got we've been down the cynical route here on the ready when it came to wiki leaks cables that said they could office relationship it sounded weird only to big oil companies lads' why they had to if there have to be able to tell me when i don't think they're in libya but i'd love to know i'd love to know but i still want to know why we're still in afghanistan first and foremost lauren thank you so long to be or no it is thank you sure i'd still to come tonight and bernanke you know thank chairman met the media today so what's he now saying about the economy and author going to see a q e three let me break it down into a wizened often in business insider and just in the.

nutrition cluster in the center of europe one scene has revolutionary ideas for the automotive industry just straight out of software to make. building blocks for. we're told it's going to. go to. the future.

all right so we just discussed the impact on our military with the upcoming troop withdrawal no matter how small it may be but since the u.s. has been involved in afghanistan our economy has been on a downward shift now we're in a recession some would argue it's another depression artie's christine for al takes a look at the current state of the fragile economy. two and half years after the collapse of this nation's economy. the dust is still settling. and decisions on how best to rebuild are still in the works the economy needs to grow to create jobs our basic challenge is trying to figure how to make growth faster more sustainable translate to more jobs the lack of jobs has led to widespread homelessness in many of this nation's cities and a foreclosure rate still too high to give most americans any hope majority of americans are understanding that this is not the recession that they've experienced in the past this is the second great depression the unemployment rate still

hovering above nine percent it is a grim picture painted even grimmer by some economists in the united states it's nine point one percent but then when you add in the underemployed the part time workers who want full time work and can't find discouraged workers. people who have dropped out of the labor market it's probably more like one out of five americans i propose solutions to this thirty billion dollars small business lending bill signed into law in september by president obama less than nine hundred applications have been filed and so far zero dollars have been given out the majority of small banks haven't even applied we do not have the capacity in the program does not give us the ability to force banks to lend many solutions proposed by the obama administration continue to ignite anger mr secretary i would just like to close by saying that on behalf of the business owner. years in north carolina and across

this country you are wrong also happening and with no apparent progress vice president biden and lawmakers continue their struggle to find an agreement to raise the debt ceiling as the deadline looms closer there is increasing talk of a short term agreement kicking the can further down the road as well as reports of lawmakers resorting to creative accounting and gimmicks to exaggerate the size of spending cuts finally with q e two the six hundred billion dollar bond buying program expected to end in a week many worry about what lies ahead and if it will feel anything like this. or like this. what the implosion looks like in greece where austerity measures have already been put into place the unpopular solution that's angered the people there . leaving many to wonder the similar scene becoming to these

shores i don't know what the end result will be but maybe there will be a night where americans get fed up with this and will be storming the dates of washington d.c. with pitchforks over the last two years the u.s. has had to borrow trillions of dollars to keep this country and this building operational the federal reserve bank has also printed hundreds of billions of dollars and pumped into the economy to try to help the frustrating part for so many americans that they haven't felt those results yet and they're starting to wonder when and if things will ever get better in washington christine for his now our team. all fed chairman ben bernanke he held around today and what this new era where the federal reserve actually gives press conferences prior to be event the fed released its forecast for economic growth and employment this here lowering both for the second time they said that the economy is going to expand the rate of two point seven. two point nine percent down from the over three predictions just

months ago and they expect unemployment to average of around eight point six to eight point nine throughout the end of the year thing is though they also decreased their outlooks for twenty twelve so the moment everyone was really waiting for was whether or not a third round of quantitative easing was in the stars as it was set to expire in just a matter of days bernanke said no dice so when we say do these bad presenters leave us any more lightened or do they just remind us that it really doesn't seem like anything is being done to bring back jobs and get america back on track joining me from our studio in new york to discuss this is joe weisenthal deputy editor of the business insider joe thanks so much for coming on the show tonight it has been a while thanks though we've missed you on too long in the so like i said there were some whispers maybe he three was in the mix but it seems like bernanke he pretty much put the kybosh on that are you shocked. a little bit actually i mean right the consensus you know on markets has been that probably isn't coming but there are

as you say there have been these whispers he seemed pretty straightforward that we're not going to get more easing at least not know he clearly laid out the differences in the economy today versus last summer. the jobs picture is a little better than it was a year ago inflation is clearly hotter than it was last year and he laid it out pretty clearly and said that conditions just aren't there or more easing and you could tell the market got that reaction from it because you saw the dollar really pretty much straight after you started talking or do you think that there should have been more easing i mean let's look at england for example right now they have inflation to worry about as well but the bank of england said that they might actually go for another round. yeah and the u.k. economy is zooming that the world is slowing down across the board the u.k. economy is clearly one of the worst they may already be back in recession and so obviously they're looking to do whatever they can and it's certainly possible that

by the end of the summer of the fall especially if they're spending cuts in d.c. which seems likely that the fed will say oh things are starting to go off the rails again we have to do something. at this point and i think bernanke is probably taking the right approach if you would to really didn't do that much good the economy is not growing faster than it was last summer he says the jobs picture is a little brighter than it was i think that's debatable but you know it's hard to see what the positive effects of q.e. two were so there's doesn't seem to be any good reason to double down at this point but what would you call his approach because i don't really see you know i think congress doing very much right now that we don't see the fed doing anything it's kind of this hoping way to cross our fingers and maybe it'll get better one day. that's actually probably exactly as approach or maybe his approach could just be get back to me in a few months and i'll tell you what right now i just wait and see there's just no

it doesn't feel compelled to go one way or the other inflation isn't that bad it's starting to cool off a little bit from what we saw commodity prices are coming down the economy the recovery is clearly weakening but it hasn't gone negative or anything yet so bernanke is attitude is get back to me and look clearly serious problems but it shouldn't all be on him monetary policy is a pretty blunt instrument to deal with these things we talk about foreclosure crisis and various jobs and municipal layoffs there's not a lot monetary policy can do there so you know. but the fact of the matter is what he has at his disposal is not particularly well suited for the problems that analysts today now definitely shouldn't be on all. an interesting laugh when he was asked about austerity measures he said that no drastic cuts right now are not a way for us to create more jobs do you think that joe biden who is actually meeting with you know with his bipartisan debt grew that he was just jumping for

joy clapping his hands and maybe repeating bernanke his words about meeting. or i'm sure he was glad to see his position vindicated unfortunately suspect that these words can have no impact whatsoever. you know this debate i don't think he's bernanke is not a light character he's not influential within either party particularly not the republicans these days so what he's saying makes sense is that really true this idea that if we cut spending will create jobs that's incorrect but whether his message is particularly useful i kind of doubt it now i'm wondering. if he is telling us that you know we often hear from ben bernanke that sure the recovery is still going along it's just slowing down a little bit we're in a low but then the fed they not only downgraded their forecast for you know economic growth for this year and for employment also for two thousand and twelve so does that mean that they're actually telling us that this isn't just a rough patch this is going to last

a long time. yet it seems like they did kind of say that this is interesting because you know the the joke is that bernanke you loved has been using this word transitory to describe the weakness of the commodity the price inflation and so it seemed like he actually kind of did the towards this idea that there are bigger structural issues at play yes we're in the know and maybe some of it has to do with japan or the surging oil prices is due to what's going on in the mideast but he also seemed to acknowledge that in a way that he hadn't before that there are bigger problems with the economy just the huge housing problem the ongoing deal leveraging most americans are still have to. it's credit card debt by historical standards and have to cut that down so we didn't seem to suddenly tip is heading that direction and the fact that the two thousand and twelve economic growth was downgraded as well is another confirmation

that even the fed doesn't think this is just a temporary. r i why i guess that means that the president wasn't completely useless but i did hear that some people didn't come back for the second time around or at least the media organizations out there joe want to thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you. are coming up another installment of you said it i read it on your comments that you left on line about the stories we cover on the show and the f.b.i. versus hackers last night federal agents raided a data facility in northern virginia and confiscated several servers in that raid is allegedly related. to the topic i'm just not. good you take three. four three. three. three. three. three blow video for your media project

a free media are. broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is our team we're certainly glad to have you with. the death of a boy survivor brings the number killed to forty five after a plane crash in northwestern russia as investigators start decipher the airliners internal black box recorders. the president of the european commission many well barroso says the e.u. will be behind greece and helping it through economic crisis if. promises of reforms follows the new greek government's narrow victory in a parliamentary vote of confidence despite widespread public opposition to the proposed austerity cuts. us president obama declares that thirty three thousand

american troops will withdraw from afghanistan by summer two thousand and twelve but said his country will continue to pressure pakistan over fighting terrorists but citing the libyan action president obama said that airstrikes and drone attacks could still be. coming up in about thirty minutes my colleague will be here with a full look at your news but right now it's on to the second part of the alyona show from washington that's coming up next. all right it's time for you said it i read it right take time to respond to my brilliant engaging viewer comments from facebook twitter and you too because when you've got some to say i do listen now first i respond to gerald swan who commented on our interview about keith olbermann new show on current t.v. on facebook he said this is b.s. overman never made me feel as though he was going to change his show this shame same show is exactly what i expected and was waiting for and when you waste time attacking the mainstream correspondent whose view is most closely resemble your own

it makes me question your motives and as a fan of your show i'm disappointed now perhaps derailed you did not expect anything different from keith's new show but i did it partly because as i said yesterday this is what he told interview said what we're trying to do is something that is utterly different than what's been done with television news in the last thirty years since the advent of cable and the breaking down of that used to be the wall between news and everything else the television networks so i was just simply pointing out that what i saw on monday night wasn't any different than what keith was doing and as n.b.c. before that relationship soured was a revolutionary it was an above the fray and part of it concentrated on personal gripes with m s n b c which i found neither enlightening nor interesting so yeah i was a little disappointed and i'm not going to shy away from saying that just because keith olbermann and i purportedly play for the same team that being said i look forward to watching the show and hope that he fulfills his promise of bringing us something that's.