welcome back to the big picture i'm sharpen coming up in this half hour america's war rap sheet continues to get longer and longer the most recent attack an air drone bombing in somalia so how many alleged terrorists we have to kill before we can feel safe here in america plus we all know those chertoff x. ray charles scanners at the airport are annoying and intrusive but explosive new documents released by a privacy organization reveal they may be deadly to so as securing our nation worth getting cancer. afghanistan iraq pakistan libya yemen and now those somali a u.s. military official confirmed yesterday that a drone attack was launched on two leaders of a somali militant group last week bringing the total number of nations that are that our military is dropping bombs on to six towards the u.s. special forces who for some time been conducting missions in somalia because the

militant organization known as al shabaab is allegedly affiliated with al qaida but last week's attacks mark the first time drones were used and bombs were dropped a clear indication that military efforts in that nation are as soon it will be easier to list all the nations in the arab world that we're not currently at war with and listing the ones that we are at war with so it's a strategy of endless and spreading warfare across the arab world really keeping us safe from terrorists are creating more terrorists and even so in the seeds of radicalism right here in the united states here to offer her take on this issue is catherine herridge fox news correspondent and author of the new book the new way on the hunt for al qaeda as american recruits catherine walker tom thanks for having me great to have you here with us according to the f.b.i. . the by the way is a fascinating story. in this in particular the american who has become a. islamic through the public face of al qaeda. yeah but on the other hand there's

kind of the other side of this court of the f.b.i. you're being a bit hysterical about this this the f.b.i. just released a twenty five year study of terrorist incidents in the united states and we've got a graph here of the cover of the report but the graphic is other holes were here and it's actually it starts goes from one thousand nine hundred to two thousand and five there's a crop and the there's also a graphic that shows this is the breakdown of who actual attacks were inside the united states and forty two percent these are primarily these are bombings and things primarily from groups that are working for puerto rican. others as mostly the right wing extremists the left wing extremist groups earth first things like the jewish defense league is like a communist five percent islamic extremist six percent right are we making much ado about nothing and shouldn't we be concerned about your deen and the two thousand

and five and two thousand and six i read about this in the book there was a sort of policy decision within al qaeda senior leadership to change their tactics and start going after western europeans and also american citizens because they saw that law enforcement intelligence albeit was i mean they were doing you know but they made a real estate sale that were christie thousand and six and two thousand and seven and want to show in this book their background documents that i've seen that were produced by the justice department is that since january two thousand and nine we've had a case of homegrown terrorism here in the united states with some kind of international link whether it's to al qaeda in yemen or the group in somalia al-shabaab i don't every two to three weeks during that period now you can compare that to the number of car accidents here in the united states and say well look the numbers are completely far apart but you know terrorism which has a greater impact because let me just finish my thought here because terrorism by definition is an act of violence to promote political ends it has greater an effect and ramifications and implications i would argue well if you if you just look at.

the statistics for the last decade you see that you know more than ninety percent of the terrorist incidents that have happened so you're more than eighty three percent right as it were actually christian like us i mean they were not muslims and you know i'm not i'm not trying to minimize that and if your your point is that there's a slicer that we need to pay attention to that is no point because i think i think it really is because what you see because what you see and i'm glad you raised the somali question is that we've had a situation since two thousand and seven where more than twenty young men from minneapolis have gone over to these training camps in somalia to fight for al-shabaab this is not the affiliate and we now have two documented cases of americans who've been suicide bombers in that country and of that is that's a big turnaround so since nine eleven just the last decade it was sort of old because if well that's really just cause or a thought experiment let's say for a moment. it came out the proof barack obama actually was born in kenya and americans were horrified medical obvious this is

a church. and that he's actually a muslim and so canada hates the united states to save us from a president who's illegitimate and somehow you know whatever and and you know there's a lot of republicans who think that president obama actually was working kenya something like forty percent of and who would probably welcome getting him out of office but my guess is that if the canadians invaded the united states. i as a democrat and many of my friends were republicans even phil who was just on here we probably will be fighting to push them out and nobody likes their country occupied aren't we with these with these crazy wars in afghanistan and iraq with instead of taking osama bin laden more or more awkward into us what's offered to george bush in two thousand and one and just dealing with him as a criminal are we just made. things worse by occupy and he's going to take i think

the first part of your question if i could first which i think you were getting at how were these people sort of drawn into this ideology because you know one of the reasons i wrote this book is one of my colleagues at fox after me how listen that americans who are old enough to remember nine eleven have turned their backs on their own country and sort of bought into this icon. and what i write about in this book is what i call the digital jihad it's the people who use the internet whether it's email or blogging or scraping and they're kind of like a facebook friend from hell and the person who's really at the center of it is this american and wore a lockie and i think the second we were trying to kill the strong he's well he's you know i'm glad you raised that point because one of the issues i raise in the book is is it right that the u.s. government is really judge jury and executioner for an american citizen when on the other hand the attorney general favored bringing the five nine eleven suspects who are all foreign born and bringing them to a federal court in new york city where they would have the same rights as american citizens in the presumption of innocence i mean i raise that issue in the book

because i see this complete disconnect but i'm sure i don't agree on fact i think that we should have a trial if we're trying to kill him it's a first at least first given the trial but that's neither neither of the issue i mean. the point is that. iraq has a seven thousand year history the oldest civilization rights where you know i have been i've been in the region and you know where the epic of gilgamesh was written you know up north of north of seven thousand years of never had a suicide bomber in their country and so we have afghanistan as an eight hundred year hit contiguous history right now nearly eight hundred years never had a suicide until we have abated it seems to me like we're creating this problem. well we certainly didn't create the problem in yemen that we're faced with right now where we have a group i call it really the trifecta this is al qaeda in yemen it's a group that was responsible for. the last major consequence the united states was

if that was so because it was i mean we're not opposed to the muslim world but hey look let me let me let me tell you without attacking let me let me let me tell you a story have you ever been in the guantanamo courtroom because i have with the nine eleven suspects and i want to tell you the story because i think it's a real window onto who these people are and why they are not one oh not like us i was in a courtroom and one of the nine eleven suspects through this paper airplane in the court and the other and suspect opened it and started laughing and i learned later that on the inside of that plane he written either the flight numbers or the numbers for nine eleven and to me the symbolism of that in a courtroom and knocking us eight years later i mean that was a real window on who they are let me tell you they are not like you and me. i don't disagree however we've been occupying their countries i mean the whole you know it's all been lost and so for you go it was because a regional coming after us was because we were allowing women to drive in saudi arabia because we were occupying an air force base the prince sultan air force base in saudi arabia said get out and and if you don't get out i'm going to come attack

you and we didn't get our george herbert walker bush put our troops there for the first iraqi war it's like i guess we're just going to have to disagree that on on that ok. to disagree that's what democracy is all about where you go on the hunt for ok it is american troops thank you i mean your radio show now. and we thought they were going to say it was ok moving on from our war efforts in the middle east designed to keep us safe from terrorist to our security efforts here at home next time you're at the airport and you're forced to either walk through the x. ray scanner or take the grain checked go ahead and get groped and while you're doing it be sure to stand as far away from the x. ray machine as you can electronic privacy information center epic has released a slew of letters obtained through the freedom of information act request and shows a growing concern among t.s.a. employees about the risk of cancer from the michael chertoff x. ray scanners according to letters of pain but after some t.s.a. agents who. work with the radiation machines daily are falling ill with cancer

clusters one such a letter written by the president of boston branch twenty six seventeen of the american federation of government employees in boston t.s.a. deputy director of federal federal security director read quite a few ts those consistently complained to me about their concern over the growing number of ts those working here who have been diagnosed as having cancer and if their concerns the t.s.a. is utilize technology may be to blame b.o.'s that's the symbol for boston still has an alarmingly high number of cancer affected afflicted t.s.o.'s still working here out while trying to address the illness in another letter a t.s.a. officer wrote to the federal security director of atlanta international airport saying following the influx of t.s.a. employees falling victim to various forms of cancer it led a workforce is concerned about radiation levels were being exposed to on a daily basis as these chertoff x. ray scanners are being installed across the country back when they first started out the department of homeland security repeatedly downplayed the risk from the

radiation with this new information obtained by epic coming to light can we really take the department's word for it stephen webster is stephen is the senior editor at ross story dot com joins me now to talk more about this issue stephen welcome to the program. thanks for having me joe what do these released documents by epic tell you. those of us that the government is pretty much doing the same thing that it's always done i'm sure you recall the tragic tragic conditions owing to the september eleventh attacks when all those first responders and brought tears just rust down the ground zero to try to help out and would help us but they suffered from grieving in things that were in the area best the similar things are many many are dying because in one of the government saying right after hours after knowing what their beliefs are right no problem you don't need

a restroom. and the same thing here and it sounds like the government is going at something upward has just. missed the risk of peace creations chanters through. as much as we may be irritated by the t.s.a. people doing graine checks or or you know pushing us around or through the porno scanners their people to these t.s.a. workers they're just working stiffs don't they deserve protection or at the very least a dose of meter oh absolutely that's exactly what you and me hope for it's not like they're urging but seriously prostitutes to do shit changes so we wouldn't be employed as it's probably are asking or is access to these those who do so can you you know see how much they get exposed to after eight weeks or however long they set up period why is the government refusing to let them have a dosimeter this i mean has any do you know if any t.s.a. employees have ever i mean these things are not that hard to get there very

routinely used in hospitals has any has any t.s.a. employee ever just like showed up wearing one or stick one in their pocket for a couple of weeks or are or is there just no trail of that is that is that culture is that a government agency so locks down that if there were to happen we just haven't learned about it we need a whole nother for filing. oh not really sure if any t.s.a. agents actually tried that but it wouldn't surprise me i believe is the letter that was so big union which by the way congress has been trying to refute its hearsays rights so if they did exist we might not ever upis of the losin from a union so they were seeking reimbursement some places which would kind of seem to buy that some actually have a god. that's interesting you as in reimbursement for buying the dosa meter and for then had a film developed and evaluated on a kind of thing yeah that's very interesting is this a symptom in these these machines appearing which by the way are not even made in

the united states they're made in most of them are made malaysia. talk about outsourcing insanity but they you know the profits are coming to an american several american companies and michael chertoff is one of the more prominent lobbyist for them making millions on these things isn't is is this a symptom of how dominant the military security industrial paranoia complex in america has become those who will give you a little a straight a statistic more americans dying from lightning strikes every year from terrorist attacks but you're actually more likely to get struck from electricity struck by electricity from the sky and you are you by some to hobby so the real irony here is if in fact the sinners are causing cancers through who are we suppose are in there has not been care but if they are we could see a situation where the scanners in other killing more people than the terrorists themselves that would be genuinely and truly bizarre and not

inconceivable but genuinely and truly bizarre stephen thanks so much for being with us tonight. cute talking with evan e. the church of x. very pro scanners are to blame for the uptick in cancer among t.s.a. officers and it wouldn't be the first time we've been lied to about the dangers of a product here in the united states or this back in one thousand nine hundred four you know you believe nicotine is not addictive i believe nicotine is not addictive . congressman cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction i don't believe that nicotine or products are addictive. and i'm. not. this isn't the first time we've

been lied to by people like this i mean this is and by the way none of those guys that you just saw went to jail in fact lou gerstner over here and i.b.m. i mean you know they've not only did they commit a crime of lying to congress but because they're the ultra rich white guys they got you know even bigger paychecks but this was the first time that we've been lied to back in the one nine hundred thirty s. and one hundred thirty five was the time of the first publication was made in a scientific journal showing a clear association between exposure to asbestos and a deadly form of lung cancer called me the feeling. in one hundred fifty one my dad was in college on the g.i. bill and my mom got pregnant with me and so he dropped out of college and went to work in a steel mill because he had a new family he had to he had to provide for his kids the steel was coming out over rollers made up of specialists he was working in a cloud of supposed is a few years ago i was with him when he died of musical misery people you don't know

this as best as caused cancer it was a horrible horrible death to watch and this is something that was absolutely unless of. every industry knew the dangers but they covered it up and you know the iroquois had this notion that any any decisions that are made have to consider its consequences on the seventh generation the europeans have a concept called the precautionary principle where you before you rule roll a new product out into the workplace you've got to prove that it's safe here in the united states we do it the other way around we say oh yeah roll their product out and if people start dropping dead then you're going to have to stop you know i wonder if michael chertoff would be willing to stand next to one of his scanners forty hours a week with this guy would he stand next to one of his scanners for forty hours a week somehow i doubt which is why he's lobbied to prevent t.s.a. agents to even have those meters could that be. frankly is stereo is killing us

with regard to security and our short term profit based thinking with regard to products in general and the workplace is killing us as well we need to re-evaluate both of them and we need to do it now. after the break a delayed take on my idea to resolve the debt limit debate is starting to gain a lot of traction on capitol hill and even on fox news. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here.

i think. even one well. we have the government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because of the freedom. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lack of sleep you think you understand it and then he lives something else hears you some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry we're going to the big picture.

for. it's just. it's the good the bad and the very very enough for it is ugly the good of the city of san francisco according to a new survey by the siemens corporation and the economist intelligence unit san francisco is the greenest city in north america survey explored consumption habits recent attitudes toward renewable living as well as water and energy efficiency and

hoover and new york followed san francisco in the ratings course this is just another reason for the right wingers to eight san francisco which must mean the bay city is doing something right the back rush limbaugh on his radio show yesterday lynne paul's weighed in on president obama's demands on the debt ceiling debate he had this to say in reference to closing tax loopholes loopholes for millionaires like him and billionaires like you'd like to be but we want obama to stop stealing from our children and he refuses as you would expect he's a burglar all liberals are glitters. all liberals are thieves that's what they do it is who they are you know what i'll give lynn pols the benefit of the doubt here after all if i made four hundred million bucks like him then i might you know actually i don't even think them i think the way he does but just olympos listeners are clear his show is geared to people who are worth four hundred million dollars and if you're in the middle class then rush limbaugh along with the

republican party just wants to screw you and the very very ugly dr marcus bachmann if you thought the show bachmann had some far out anti-gay views you should hear what are others been has to say and progress uncovered a seminar conducted by dr marcus bachmann maybe back or even last summer in which he compared gays to barbarians who need to be educated and disappoint and he didn't stop there we have a responsibility as parents and the poor working. naturally courage but. thought and feeling moved into the action step yeah three do. looks like michele bachmann really is the better path in that marriage he's a very strange guy and that's very very ugly.

you may remember a few weeks ago i weighed in on the debt ceiling debate by talking about a little known power that secretary of the treasury tim geithner has to prevent our nation from defaulting on a on our debt i referred to it as president obama's secret weapon to make republicans agree to a debt limit increase take a look. racially secretary tim geithner has the sole authority to determine how our debt obligations are met by deciding which bills to pay and when to pay them so if republicans really want to play hardball the president can direct tim geithner to play hardball right back at. is there cannibalizing federal pension funds he could cut into federal assistance to states whose republican senators and congressman are blocking a limit on the debt increase hey john boehner you don't want to raise the debt ceiling that's fine but kiss all that federal money ohio gets every day by using

that money to pay off our debt no more highway funds no more medicaid funds nowhere education funds no more nothing oh you're out of business. the next day glenn beck's web site the blaze posted a creatively edited version of my take on their website with the headline lib talkers calls on obama to star people in red states which isn't exactly true i was hoping president obama would get the message about how to force republicans to have a little skin in the game in the debt ceiling negotiations not exactly calling for mass starvation of people in ohio but you know that's what back does which is fine i saw the usual uptick in death threats that happen whenever they mention the funny thing about this is yesterday someone on t.v. echoed pretty much the exact same thing i'd said a week or so ago about geithner's power to pick and choose who or what gets paid if the debt ceiling isn't raised and it came from the most unlikely of places where

human fox news take a look. there will come a time when there will be enough money to fund all government departments and agencies which would mean real disruption it's the administration will then get to decide which programs are funded and which are not and will surely blame republicans for any fallout that the democrats in the white house have a certain advantage in that they get to decide when when the money runs short which agencies and departments get funded and which do not and they will be able to pick and choose in such a way as to put maximum pressure on republican lawmakers on the hill one senator i know of has told his leaders that if for example the agriculture the program were not able to fund the fish and meat poultry and. fictions which would effectively shut down it industry because you have to have expected me to sail that would be the moment he caved and voted to increase the debt limit so that's the. part of all this is i still think it's a great idea on august third the day after the deadline our nation will owe thirty

two billion dollars it will only have about twelve billion dollars in revenue to pay up and means about twenty billion dollars will need to be cut out immediately in just one day and as we know now figuring out which bills get paid which ones get pushed off is solely up to treasury secretary tim geithner and president obama so if the republicans really want to play hardball on the debt limit and president obama should hold them accountable and put their favorite programs on the chopping block first that could mean cutting off payments to john boehner zeph thirty five pet project now payments to the bomb making factory in oklahoma now welfare payments and into the oil coal and natural gas industries and close all the federal buildings named after ronald reagan whose policies brought us this disaster once folks in eric cantor's virginia district home of the headquarters of most of our nation's defense contractors see their payments cut off you can bet cantor will have a new interest in raising the damn debt ceiling so let's push the put the real consequences

of their obstructionism in their face and watch the republicans blink and in the meantime we can sit back and watch people's heads explode in the republican echo chamber. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to time having dot com free speech dot org and archie dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are links to tom harkin's out this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free thom hartmann i phone or i pad app at the app store you can send us feedback at twitter at underscore hartland on facebook at tom underscore arbonne on our blogs message boards and telephone front line all it's all part of doc and don't forget democracy begins with you when you show up to get active tag your it will see the.

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