it's a grand old walk out republican lawmakers storm out of talks with democrats so as the debt ceiling standoff seems to be tumbling down what could this mean for the u.s. economy. we're starting this drawdown from position of strength. so is this obama's version of mission accomplished or is the u.s. going right down to where it started. and first there was the turnaround in iraq and came leading the war in afghanistan and now the path to lead the cia but will america's favorite top brass. as america's top spy.

it's thursday june twenty third i'm christine for now in washington d.c. you're watching r.t. well starting off today just down the street from here on capitol hill an implosion after a tense talks on how to raise the debt ceiling reached a head over the issue of taxes congressman eric cantor and senator jon kyl both republicans actually walked out of the meeting apparently over talk of proposed tax hikes or as republicans have said since day one are off the table vice president biden has been meeting with lawmakers in hopes of reaching a deal by next week to raise the fourteen point three trillion dollars debt ceiling before it from the treasury department runs out of money if congress does not act by august second default could occur which would in turn have bruising the facts on the economy and the markets around the world so what does this mean for u.s. debt. for more i want to go now to our new york studio to talk with courtney

comstock editor at the business insider. and there courtney reports now saying this is not the death of these talks but they're certainly on life support so i want to get your take what happens if an agreement is not reached you know that's a terrifying thought if it hits august second and we haven't raised the debt ceiling and we haven't delayed it longer i don't i don't think i had a lot of people are saying that we wouldn't automatically default on our debt and i find it hard to believe that we would but it's a possibility and even the possibility is. something i don't think the u.s. wants to mess with we as a nation where you know we pay our debts and that's something i think we want to stick to doing and as we know as a nation this is not a unilateral decision and this is not something that will just affect this country this will affect potentially the entire world how do you think other countries are looking right now as word of this standoff leaks out. what are other countries

thinking right now well china probably concerned about i know that they and although they have been dropping some u.s. treasuries they are mistaken if you can number still and i would be pretty concerned if. i would have to say that the u.s. pretty trustworthy and we are the reserve currency and i would hope that other countries have faith that will work this out. certainly i think people do have faith than they should certainly there's a chance that what we're seeing today you know this walking out is simply kind of putting on a little show for the constituents in case they are forced to raise taxes certainly democrats of some of them have said there is no other way republicans have this off the table it's not surprising that this is where they came to a head but i want to switch gears now and talk about other issues that are going on right now in the economy news out today of course that the number of people filing

for new claims for unemployment benefits went up yet again increasing by about fifteen thousand between may and june. do you think that's surprising that this is still going on unemployment no doubt at all i mean layoffs on wall street i can tell you are terrible there are two thousand more layoffs this year in the past since the year started than there were last year and usually wall street layoffs preceded bigger layoffs in the rest of the country so i don't know if i meant just looks like it's going to get worse and the economy is really up in the air and i think a lot of people are worried about it and i'm i'm one of them it's very interesting to be here in washington because there is just so much going on right now regarding the economy a lot of different groups of people trying to find solutions but we're frankly getting some signals i know yesterday we saw the chairman ben bernanke testifying and seeming pretty pessimistic i guess tim geithner was also jessica right

tim geithner was also testifying talking about small business lending and continuing to say you know we can't force thanks to lend we need more time existing home sales are down what is going on here. it's just everything is that there are so many different things right now you've got the debt ceiling you've got greece crazy things going on with greece you've got is q e three going to happen at there's just all these uncertainties and when there are this many people are they just don't know what to do so i think it's just a really confusing time and nobody knows where you can make money where jobs are going to be consistently in the future and where i don't i just think it's it's kind of a mess and i know you cover a lot of these issues with the business insider i'm wondering just kind of your personal take on what's the most concerning thing what should people really be bracing of greece oh my gosh greece if greece defaults i just saying.

absolutely and same china will get crushed i think you have to worry about what the chinese might do if they've lost a lot of money which they would if greece defaults said i don't think greece go thought that is the euro can exist if greece if the greece who knows what's going to happen the debt ceiling is also really concerning. because if there were a chance that we default on our debt it would just be really disastrous and the fact that there's even not like point that this might happen is just terrifying pretty interesting and i know yesterday we talked a lot about greece can't you know looking at the protests that are happening to people you know reacting to these austerity measures that people taking to the streets and a lot of people say you know that would never happen in the u.s. and you know the two countries are so different but when you look at the economic situation and the g.d.p. and the dead the countries really are not that different. yeah look at the tea

partiers rowdy and i think other groups like that that maybe aren't so. because they're not that rowdy but other groups could rise up like that and they're really big now and they're actually affecting some of the i think they're affecting the debt ceiling talks and they don't it's just not good to have such. to have such uncertainty with with jobs and the economy and to also have these people that are so wealthy that we see every day in the news and there are five and there are so many poor people at the wealth inequality is just growing and protests are tough you know there are possibility in our country not just not just protests like we've seen in greece but the same economic situation as well comstock editor at the business insider thanks so much. and i want to look now at what lies ahead in afghanistan we heard last night president obama laying out his plan for u.s. involvement in what has now become his country's longest war in history.

a lot of focus here president obama announced that by the end of this year about ten thousand troops would be. drawn down from the area and by the end of next year thirty three thousand but you know a lot of talk about these numbers is it too many troops is it not enough but i want to broaden the discussion and talk about what this bill actually means earlier i spoke with james carafano national security expert with the heritage foundation and adam kokesh host of adam vs the man here in our team i asked them if they saw any change in the afghanistan of today and the afghanistan of ten years ago if i had to say in two thousand and one you hadn't pushed everybody out and then the united states basically went to sleep it didn't really do anything to capitalize on that success of the two thousand and five the taliban to build up their capacity and they started coming back then you got kind of war number three which is the united states coming back in two thousand and nine not giving the troops that the

commanders wanted only about half as many as they wanted so they pacified one problematic area the country the cell they didn't pacify the other problematic area which is the north so now they're turning to the north but unfortunately we're we're cutting troops at the same time we're doing it so this is the beginning of the end but i don't think the ends going to be pretty honestly and your thought i mean has there been noticeable changes for all the resources all the money all the time that we spend there well the main thing that's changed about afghanistan is that as an excuse to justify the liberal nation building welfare program for the military industrial complex it's kind of wearing thin with the american people as we see that that money would be better spent here at home and in terms of what's happening on the ground when that happens and obama is forced by if anything public opinion and political pressure to withdraw troops to spend less money although i think with his latest announcement really an insignificant number of troops he's going to find other places to support his sponsors and keep that government gravy

train going so that's why we have more intervention in libya that's why we have bombing in yemen. that's why we're looking for all these other excuses for more big government spending that's kind of like keynesian economics you know you got to dig a hole you know even if you hire the guide to fill it out the next day in military spending your it still counts if you hire a guide to dig a hole in the sleeves and i want to you know president obama last night said i wanted different things and i want to play i'm not forcing out of his speech about the position this country is in and we can discuss we're starting this drawdown from a position of strength and qaida is under more pressure than at any time since nine eleven together with the pakistanis we have taken out more than half of all kinds of leadership and thanks to our intelligence professionals and special forces we killed osama bin laden all right ahmed in line is indeed gone but what about the notion that even if it's true that the taliban have retreated i don't think we just have to hang on for a few more years and that and get back to business adam well that's the whole

premise of being in afghanistan flushing out all tied is really kind of ridiculous it's like trying to be anonymous on the internet when they took root in a dozen different countries bin ladin was even killed in afghanistan he was killed in pakistan so i mean the whole notion the foundation that basic concept we're going to flush al qaeda out of afghanistan by keeping the taliban out who harbor them i mean remember the those who allegedly attacked us on nine eleven were trained right here in the united states we can't keep our own country from harboring terrorists or the idea that armed a nation building and supporting a corrupt government in afghanistan is somehow going to provide for national security and kind of ludicrous again once again i'll let you respond to that. well you know i would i want to go on the record that adam and i agree on almost nothing and i think everything he says is actually pretty silly but it doesn't matter because we. don't need to said that the united states is a democracy i don't know if you know this or but it's actually

a constitutional republic and there is a very important difference there so i certainly disagree with you on that ok adam so if you want you can do all the talking and i'll just sit here and listen but let me just get my one comment in which is we actually get to the same place i mean i agree that this isn't going to work i mean the president saying we're persistent a straight that's irrelevant because what you've done is is you have the enemy on the run. afghanistan and you've damaged them in pakistan and then what the president is basically talking about here is now we're going to walk away and adam is right what they're going to do is they're going to build up right back to the capacity that we had before and i'm afraid if we walk away in the way that the president has outlined in two thousand and fourteen we'll be back right back to september tenth two thousand and one they'll be able to reestablish their base and they'll be able to do another nine eleven so james then why didn't you know just across a little on this i mean what's your solution here are you saying then that there

should be more troops that we should do another surge instead of starting to withdraw that initial surge. well you know this is the sad thing is there is no do over i think the original military strategy would have worked if they'd have gone in with the numbers that the military had recommended and they conducted simultaneous operations in the south and the north first of all they would have made a little bit a lot more progress much more quickly they would get a lot less u.s. casualties the taliban would have come to a much more pressure pakistan would have been much more compelled to deal with us from a position of strain you know all that's really kind of history now and i and you know instead of monday morning quarterbacking i'd rather hear you know what you wish obama would have said last night and i'll ask a question of both of you about it james what do you wish you would have said that you think may have been may have been a better idea a more responsible thing for how to carry this out. blood i think if he if he would allow the military to reign maintain sufficient forces in the country to conduct a real campaign in the north set

a strong message to the afghans then to pakistan event to the taliban and to qaeda that we were going to create and i think this discussion about nation building is silly look we were never there to do nation building it's not about building a great government that will it's about building sufficient capacity in the countryside to take away the ability of the taliban and al qaeda to freely operate in a country that was an achievable goal i mean it's still an achievable goal but i am very skeptical that has to be achieved with the strategies the president outlined. completely skeptical about the basic promise of this that with that our military as a presence even has the capability of patrol in an area and keeping terrorist from gain also told me like i said it happens right here in the united states and according to the cia just a couple years ago there were less than one hundred members of our private even operate in afghanistan so i mean if you take the premise of your argument here to its logical conclusion you have to say well we need to occupy the entire world with our military in order to deny al qaeda safe haven and any just reasonable look at

recent history shows that that whole premise is ridiculous but it's really interesting to see that the heritage foundation is now supporting such liberal voices who want to see more government spending who want to see more liberal nation building even though they don't call it that to say the promoting such a great salesman for this welfare program of the military industrial complex who doesn't know what form of government we have here in the united states let alone what we need to do to make our nation more secure and more fiscally sound and really the grow our current defense policy has become a threat to our economic security again that i'm just taking that and the nation of supporting liberals restaurant to restaurant for that so right so adam you know me i you know i was in the army for twenty five years you know i've studied strategy military history and and i would never suggest something so silly as that so you know that that was a strawman. and you know it wasn't a serious comet look and your other comments not serious either look defense spending is not the root of america's food schools we're spending half of what we

averaged on the cold war defense we could take the spend defense spending to zero tomorrow that includes everything not just afghanistan but all defense spending and the country still goes bankrupt in forty years because of our economic policies so defense spending is not the problem and you know that as well well the real strawman here is your idea that we can even deny safe havens to terrorists on any kind of large scale it fundamentally doesn't work the idea of citing terrorism with with occupations is ridiculous and it's been demonstrated over and over but you are taking the side of obama on this one and that's certainly a surprise from the heritage foundation you know james earlier you were not going to let me get in here on that because there's so much to talk about regarding that was not ahead in afghanistan but i know james you were talking about nation building and was it really ever the idea are to get an interview with and after a woman in afghanistan and somalia joy joy ashley the human rights activist she had a lot of experience from what the people there are experiencing and i want to just play a little bit of what she said and then we'll talk about it. i think the people of

us i don't want to be with my people that democracy never come by our lesions democracy not come by make an invasion it was never tried by cluster bombs by one phosphorus by muscle car by thumping our roving pockets so i mean maybe this is something that you call it going to green i mean a democracy doesn't come by occupation i think both of you guys have said that is not right or now well i'm against a lot for democracy and cause a democracy by definition is bad for minorities majorities violently imposing their decisions on minorities that's why you know i don't think that that's the best form of government i think that the constitutional republic that our founders gave us is a far superior form of government and i don't think we should be spreading democracy or trying to spread any form of government but we should be peacefully leading by example showing how freedom lisa prosperity that was what our country was founded on and our current foreign policy really turns it on its head to say that we have some right or some need or some cause even to dictate any form of

government in any other country can go ahead. well first of all the united states is an occupying afghanistan and i agree with all those comments look the united states has both a defends its interests and it works for freedom and prosperity were can i you know i don't paint america that doesn't exist i mean exists maybe in adam's rhetoric but look america's got a lot of good in the world and so a lot of very peaceful things in the world and it's also defended itself we need to be also not forget we didn't start this i mean america didn't wasn't attacking afghanistan. two thousand and one guy we didn't start or we should have invaded florida where those terrorists were training now all right on that note we got to wrap it up i found my thanks so much for bringing i certainly an important discussion to have james carafano a national security expert with the heritage foundation and of course our own adam kokesh host of our two thousand percent the man well general david petraeus is on track to serve as the new director of the central intelligence agency his previous assignments include the commander of the u.s. forces in both afghanistan and iraq as well as the commander of u.s.

central command percent com and his confirmation hearing today petraeus said his past work won't affect his future job but some say petraeus his appointment has more to do with star power and strategy are to correspondent helen ford was on capitol hill today and has more. since he's been called the rock star four star he is without question one of the finest officers and military minds of his generation the architects of modern counterinsurgency i mean it's quite often as were all of those. first response is well whatever juniper troops direction which we are that's. general david petraeus. the trains was on capitol hill today to be confirmed as the next director of the central intelligence agency in truth my goal uniform has always been to convey the most forthright and accurate picture possible. i have to be sure offered more

positive assessments than the intelligence community did but although he's been lauded as the man responsible for america's strategy in iraq former c.n.n. pentagon correspondent jamie mcintyre says he has his detractors a lot of people see him as very ambitious very calculating playing the system telling the american people what they want to hear. and a lot of people also some critics also think that the success that the u.s. is tolerating in iraq is vastly overstated and despite his star power some in the military say for trances better at navigating the media and washington in a battlefield it's called the green zone hero these are your senior officers who never actually saw any action who have never themselves been under direct fire and have never called trigger and killed anyone in combat although president obama calls him a quote lifelong consumer of intelligence others are skeptical that the trance will fit in at the cia their evaluation of director of valuation of afghanistan have

been generally diametrically opposed to what betray us has said his characterization of conditions on the ground in that country bears no resemblance to what people in the central intelligence agency and say general petraeus spent thirty seven years in uniform but will hang it up to leave the cia as a civilian senate republican leaders praise president obama's decision for quote choosing competence and continuity but that same constituting means petraeus will be in charge of assessing his own success in iraq and afghanistan here in fort r.t. washington d.c. . general david petraeus is on track to third as the new director of the central intelligence agency his previous assignments include commander of the u.s. forces in afghanistan and iraq and was commander of the u.s. central command now and he has come from a nation hearing going on right now or just about wrapping up the trails that he has passed to work on a fact his future job clearly i have views on the efforts in which i've been engaged. however if confirmed when i am in the situation room with the president i

will strive to present the agency position. well we're going to talk about what is our means with a journalist and former cia officer jack rice. hey hey guys act on i'm going to start out by asking you what do you think general david petraeus brings to the table going for the cia well it's basically it is incredible about experience and on the ground experience here today huge change time over the last ten years really the experience that the military has had that has impacted all of those men and women who get involved he brings that to the table in a sense that's good but there is a negative that can generally come with that and that's the fact that you see just sort of who are you know the lines to the point that the agency could potentially be swallowed up by the department that's when you start talking about dollars and actual power you realize just how much bigger the is going to take you back to two thousand and one thousand to two thousand three hundred donald rumsfeld secretary

but it's you saw it back then was this. kind of god to essentially small luck the roles of the state department and the successfully that you know anybody waits to steer some of the roles of the word exclusive department defense could be smaller than the very same thing that is a very negative thing. pretty interesting i mean even though he does say you know his pay has passed job well not a fact as i think is a very important point you make about those lines being blurred a lot of people already talking about this overly close relationship between the pentagon and the cia let's look now a little bit at the betrayers timeline looking back you know the first time we really started to hear about him was in the early days of iraq back in two thousand and three when his soldiers found and killed saddam hussein's son uday and qusay since then general petraeus has risen. to the limelight and i think the argument

could be made that he is the most talked about man military man at least a decade maybe even a century he's politically savvy now he seems to be articulate and intelligent both with other military personnel. and also to president obama so i'm wondering if you agree with his critics who simply call him a self promoting media star with presidential ambitions. you know it's a great question but this is one reality and i thought it is interesting because i don't care whether you're left or right here the one thing that's true if you have any experience working with the military is this if you get to that level you're a politician never doubt it's anybody who's a president or an admiral you cannot get to this position without being a politician i can take you back to call them towel in the long before that will take you back to us ran for that that you don't need to go all the way back and you realise that if you get to that level you are a politician you're just a politician with a uniform on rather than a ten thousand dollars suit there's not that much different otherwise and in fact

he simply working its way through that power base just like so many other politicians do dare i say it but it is true seems like it has to be part of that job description are to get as far as he's gotten you know let's do a comparison here leon panetta going as a plaything when you first came on he was pretty open about his views on torture coming out staunchly against it you know saying we cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances and i started to say i think of the bush administration and i want to go on these kind of comments i mean do you think general petraeus being as outspoken about this or other things you know i really don't but you know what here's what i've also seen is we've seen leon panetta at others hold back from those very same arguments right i mean you write a report saying that they don't stand for this and yet at the same time they turn around stand but i blindly support the people of egypt or what the if the wait a second my response as a former cia officer is i will support those moved on the right things for those who have failed to do the right things or produce more tension he may have

committed a crime let's find out because that's what i'm standing or so we've seen a shift under the ground of leon panetta and frankly the president of the united states president obama. it's not shocking that you're going to see a share of the likes of general petraeus when he moves over to the agency and obviously he will when he moves over to the agency we'll see a shift in how we approach this maybe but generally speaking it's rhetorical it's more in words rather than deeds and us thinking before about this blurring of lines and they train the cia and pentagon i want to go back to that on not just because a lot of people are concerned about it but i want to get your take having been on the inside there in the cia i know there's always sort of been that you know tough relationship between the cia and the f.b.i. what do you think that this could mean with these boring lines having someone literally crossed over from the other side come to head up as agency you set a critical starting what should people be concerned about well we have seen this

before with hayden and others so i mean this isn't the first time you've had other d.c.i. says of the central intelligence agency who are military men as well so this isn't the first time but i think somebody at this level in the military this is my big concern and by the way you're right there have been problems in the past with the bureau on one side versus the gaijin but the same thing to a place during the first gulf war between the agency and pentagon so there was always an effort to pull these old together but the real problem is this the reason you want these organizations separate is because you don't want this you don't want everybody looking at the problem from the very same perspective after nine eleven we found that this failure to connect dots one of the fundamental reasons is that we all look at it from the same perspective the idea that you were working independently if you just have the cia as essentially a junior partner of the department of defense and they see themselves is that what

happens is the equivalent of getting a lot of yes men around you there i say it that way where you just give people what it is that they want and it's one of the least things that we really need the independence of. agency and other workers nations that are used absolutely critical rather than say well they have never could be as little let's figure out what the correct policy it is and then actually you know why should it make everybody come out of individually and then fight it out and fight it with the best experience can't help but think about weapons of mass destruction when you talk about this certainly a you the example to point to thank you so much former cia special agent jack rice well so you can't get enough of our t. but meet the newest member of the family it's called r t d or our team documentary . was twenty four hour english language channel was launched earlier today with a little help from president dmitri medvedev yet in the farthest reaches of the

arctic so a close look at russian history r t documentary hopes to give viewers an in-depth look at the world's largest country and even some russian language lessons also in pursuit to keep questioning more r.t.d. can be viewed via satellite around the world or online at r.t.d. dot r t dot com and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our c dot com slash usa also check out our you tube page you tube dot com slash r t america lot more coming up here in the eight o'clock hour we'll have to check in and see what's going on with the rock out of the debt talks for now i'm christine for. our g. is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera.