well missing your congress member we may have found them eighty one lawmakers ate half their bags for an all expense paid trip to israel the white house and the mainstream press made this a part of their itinerary. start a war on terror check kill some of bin ladin track lead billions of dollars from the us economy chat chat chat so why are we still fighting that war against.

problems that a lot of these kids don't know once they get in it's hard to get out the lights camera combat so while the military engages young americans with hollywood movies and video games lie isn't anyone pressing the reset button and pentagon recruitment . getting us thursday august eleventh and lucy catherine of reporting live out of washington d.c. and of course you're watching our t.v. well it certainly has been an august like no other summer like no other in fact now the american economy is unfortunately in crisis our suburbs are falling into poverty schools are struggling cities are on the edge of bankruptcy and jobs well those are few and far in between but congress extremes lawmakers are steamed elected politicians they're out on their annual summer break now i do want to give

our elected politicians some credit they have been working very very hard on a number of critical issues for example working to avert the first ever downgrade of our prized aaa credit rating not to mention a few others like balancing the budget solving the unemployment crisis and maybe wrapping up a few wars now if you get all of information your. nation from cable news like i do know that this crisis thankfully all of these prices have been averted we can finally move on to the stories that actually matter like these. we're being told that the three people in custody are in fact the three siblings of the daugherty gang the f.b.i. is now part of the investigation looking for robyn gardner she's a thirty five year old woman who was on vacation with a man she had met online before she vanished were about to see charlotte's new face with the very first time that's right with absolutely nothing else going on in the world right now i think it's absolutely fair to say that congress deserves a much needed break i mean why exhaust yourself with dealing with those people who

put you into office when in fact you can spend an entire week relaxing right here take a look. at twenty two cities. and it's a beautiful place i've been there but according to news reports eighty one u.s. lawmakers and their spouses mind you have chosen to spend about a week relaxing in israel troops that are being paid for by a foundation set up by a pac which is of course a pro israel lobby group now israel does happen to be the single largest foreign recipient of u.s. aid dollars so of course there's no conflict of interest there and while twenty percent of our lawmakers of the u.s. congress maybe in israel and it may seem like a lot of people that's in fact how many people it takes to repair ties between the two countries which are broken take a listen. oh who treats and still be friends i can tell you that

they can hardly remember those in uniform for their kids i can hardly remember the two people free but poor tom we can support a good musical pollution and in middle school did you come to the struggle to convince around us if you didn't work well you know ok well he was talking about the obama administration the reason that eighty one lawmakers absolutely have to take this trip is because of the rest of the congress you see those guys want to come back and convince the other three hundred fifty four members of congress to stop hating on israel after all nobody wants a repeat of that disastrous reception that israel's prime minister got last i think you visit at capitol hill. like i said from august like no other well joining us now for more on the story

from our l.a. studio is estee chandler she is the organizer of the los angeles chapter of the jewish voice for peace the sarcasm aside i do want to start off by by asking to speak as an american citizen taking israeli palestinian issues the politics out of the equation for a moment these shenanigans that we saw here in congress in fact did help spark a major market sell off fears of a double dip recession and nearly a fifth of the american congress is off to visit a single country whose population is less than that of new york city in terms of size as a citizen and what's your reaction. well as a citizen you know like you said i'm dismayed by it i feel like congress people should be back in their districts talking to their own constituents about the problems they face about the mortgage crisis and how many americans are being forced into foreclosure with shady documents it seems odd that they would be going

on this trip funded as you say by a pact to israel when there is no crisis in that relationship what america funds for apac are billions of dollars of military funding the industrial military complex where no one would think i mean you know we are talking about a new cycle here and that twenty percent of the american congress going on a weeklong trip to a foreign country paid for essentially by a lobby of that country would be at least somewhat newsworthy especially when top congressional leaders of both parties are leading the strips why do you think this is not does not seem to be on the radar of the mainstream press it's very discouraging the only mainstream media that i've heard report it is n.p.r. . the. us media doesn't seem to be covering in an honest way many of the things that go on there i haven't seen the

stories about the giant protests that have now reached three hundred thousand people in israel where they're going out in the streets and asking for more of their tax dollars to be spent on them as opposed to maintaining this brutal occupation of the palestinians this continued separation of peoples with their separation walls to keep ghazi and separated from the people who live in the west bank to keep the israeli jewish israeli separate from other palestinian communities in israel the mainstream media seems to be lacking in reporting the actual facts on the ground there not just now but for a long time now well and it is kind of our ironic you mention the protests have been going on in israel in part because the israelis have been protesting the the high cost of living in that country of course americans have been protesting the

same sort of thing not in the same numbers but our lawmakers are over there instead but that's part of the strips go we do know that israel is a close ally of the united states and one number i read was about ten percent of all congressional sees overseas trips have been to israel even though it's one of nearly two hundred countries in the world it's not unusual but why do you think at this point in time such a large number what would prompt apac to make this bigger push to get more lawmakers over there what's the crux issue at hand right now. well it would seem that when we really need funding back here at home to deal with our own conkling infrastructure our need for more education dollars our need for health care reform that israel wants to make sure that we continue to give upwards of three billion dollars a year which doesn't aid israeli citizens it aids again military contractors it's you know the same problems we have there here it sees me they have there it looks

like the arab spring might be becoming an israeli summer and if we can get the citizenry of america behind this and pressure our lawmakers to come back home and deal with the problems that we have here in our own communities and if the israelis can keep up pressuring their lawmakers to stop spending such a high percentage of their tax dollars on a brutal occupation and deal with their domestic needs then maybe we can actually make some progress you know one of the issues that's obviously supposed to come up next month in the united nations general assembly is the palestinian statehood issue do you think that perhaps that that somehow factors into this seemingly bigger push by the organization to get more lawmakers into israel. absolutely that's what we're reading that one of the big pushes to get so many people there was to make sure that they use their veto power as they have in the

u.n. to stop the palestinians from being declared a state i think actually it would be a brilliant move by israel if they support it it would even the playing field for the negotiations it would the negotiations have been stuck and it could possibly be a great catalyst for moving things forward for saying now that we have two entities representing two people let's sit down and figure out how we can live together after all it's not a giant piece of land it is a battle over land and if they can figure out how to live together peacefully which is what the majority of the citizens both palestinians and israelis see they seek peace security democracy for all citizens israeli and palestinian alike the thing is though it does who confusing because maybe you can answer this question for me i

mean is there any question was there ever any question that the united states. wouldn't support what would somehow suddenly turn around and support. an independent palestinian state next month i mean was that really up in question. now of course not but you know they want to make sure they want to make sure that the military money continues to flow as i said we have great domestic needs to spend our tax hours here at home and i'm sure that israel wants to make sure that there are no cut backs in what we sent to them in military support. well you know i guess i don't really know what else to say i mean i hope these i hope these folks have a nice vacation and i hope that at some point somebody here in washington remembers that there are some issues that are going on in this country right here right now that need to be dealt with and start working on those thank you so much that was as the chandler organizer for the los angeles chapter of the jewish voice for peace

thank you so much now in this very day back in two thousand and three they don't forces took command of peacekeeping in afghanistan it was the organization's first out of area deployment as of today at least one thousand six hundred eighteen american soldiers have perished in that war that is according to new numbers from the associated press today so ten years into a war that has cost the taxpayers at least two billion dollars a week not to mention the other conflicts the united states is still in broiled in we have libya iraq yemen somalia the list goes on and i think now that we're dealing with this unprecedented financial economic crisis all across the globe it is time to take a look at where these conflicts have left us and the underlying motives beyond continuing the process joining us now for more on this issue is asia times correspondent pepe escobar pepe it is a great to have you back it's been a while since we've have you on the program. let's start off by taking a little pulse check on how the efforts in afghanistan have been going we just saw

first the shooting down of the chinook helicopter pretty devastating but that's in some ways an on anomaly what would you say the overall measure of success has been when it comes to afghanistan. ok let's start with the yoko administration search it basically didn't work so we have a surge that is going to last roughly a year and a half just like the surge in iraq it was sold to obama basically by pentagon generals and general david petraeus. as a as the star general in selling. it didn't work just like it didn't work in iraq because in iraq the conditions are completely different in iraq the surge was not the main reason that the violence increase there were a can compare nation of of reasons including not the army deciding not to stop the effect that the shiites had already more or less conquered baghdad and of course the six cases full of money that was transferred from the americans to sunni

leaders tribal leaders plus the fact that al qaeda in iraq they revealed themselves and had a little bit of power politically crazy. in afghanistan it's different because in afghanistan it's a nationalist resistance movement it's not only the taliban in afghanistan it's warlords it's loosely natwar it's it's tribal warlords as well they're more or less united to expel the foreign invader which is the story of afghanistan as a collection of warring tribes that when they're not fighting themselves they're fighting a foreign invader so that's why designers have been spending ad billions of dollars on foreign aid on humanitarian projects working out no no because that most of the money doesn't go to many terror projects because. before the big get to the community spirit supposed to help did they are blown dirt by ministers

and functionaries in kabul serve these ministers are more or less ruled by gangs in kabul in fact saw the little bit of money that trickles down to a brutal acts like an old building schools or some highways it's not enough and when you when you. make a comparison between american help for the stroke x. and actually chinese or indian involvement direct involvement with some communities it's an enormous difference for instance india built a real world into initiative in western afghanistan has nothing to do with american or international aid the chinese want to make their own or projects independently for disinter national aid structure which they know that once he reaches kabal you lose track of the funds so the population in different provinces in afghanistan

could be pushed specially gushed most of the time when a person's but it has iris touch it's an annoyance in respect they never see. the actual fruits of the international involvement so it's no wonder that in the years the lesser evil effect is the taliban because they promise law and order just like when they were in bar from ninety six to two thousand and one educate in europe but i don't want to run out of time here and at the same time afghanistan is has of course been the longest war that the united states has been involved in but as we continue our efforts in afghanistan there are other conflicts other trouble areas that are propping up obviously we've talked i've interviewed you about libya at length somalia is another when there was a great story they came out just this week on talk of jeremy scahill reporting that show that this cia is now only playing contractors mercenary forces the financial aid to do their work on the ground there and we have this issue of syria we're now

hearing the obama administration is on the verge of saying that assad must go finally whatever that means if you were the president of the united states if you were the president i would stay if you were dealing with economic crisis you had all of these conflicts in front of you how would you allocate your resources what's the point of calling for assad to go if you can't afford to pay for that i'm going conflicts that we're still in got them you think this is the question from china should be posing to president obama directly and in fact the chinese are posing the question in that directly all the time last week there was a harsh condemnation after their sealing of pants on my look at it took place in washington and almost destroyed the american economy because of their bickering in washington which is typical that the chinese indians expect they want a solution to afghanistan that involves all the players and it is meet the americans themselves the russians the afghans that pakistanis sitting down and

discuss america's. there's a buy it in so mile it's even worse because in somalia. context like we see american and repeat about to famine in somalia nobody puts this into context the famine was caused along many reasons by defect to the united states via its european interfere with so why that has been interfered since two thousand and six and this government that is in mogadishu is the puppets it's your p.l.o. live in american aligned government so al shabaab yet it's not this. eager structure that is going to back to united states out of mogadishu or from southern somalia this is completely ridiculous and there are a lot of five hundred fighters at it off course he when they see that foreign intervention be a very leery of international aid mechanisms that are trying to go to somalia now

to alleviate offended because they don't trust these people just like they don't trust any sort of intervention and they know because the americans are pretty intervening for over twenty years in fact and some of the weeping anchors that you've mentioned were anderson cooper of c.n.n. of course who was wearing a bulletproof vest as poor innocent starving children were in a shopping high and unfortunate we're out of time but as of our thank you so much for your time as always for that have public enemy number one summit in london does not seem to have brought this country any closer to the end of the war on terror but it does seem to have given kollywood plenty of fodder for yet another blockbuster film and the same team that's behind heart lock arms actually scheduled to release a new movie on the bin laden raid featuring seal team six right before a presidential election and surprise surprise a republican somewhere is up in arms now this specific republican as the head of the home house homeland security committee is peter king and he's furious just outraged because he heard that obama is personally photocopying top pentagon

secrets to help that hollywood team out are. something like that but according to king this movie is pure propaganda and according to king it is worthy of an official investigation a house committee investigation unfortunately according to the mainstream media this issue this fight if you will is apparently worthy of breathless coverage because it really in fact there does seem to be a larger problem at hand that has nothing to do with party politics everything however to do with opponents war of perception now that's not according to me that is according to radio host david sirota who's the author of back to our future how the one nine hundred eighty s. explain the world we live in now and here's his take. what peter king's criticism really brings up use and granted he doesn't come at this from a principled position as you say he comes at it from a partisan position with this brings up is the larger collusion between hollywood and the pentagon it gives almost no coverage almost no scrutiny and so what we have

here is perhaps inadvertently because of a serendipitous alignment of partisan interests we have perhaps the opportunity to look more deeply at that corrosion between the pentagon and hollywood and how that collusion really works and it's worked this way for decades although really one on steroids in the one nine hundred eighty s. is that the pentagon and the larger u.s. national security apparatus grants and denies access to military hardware military both military planes military information it grants and denies that access to that that information based on whether a filmmaker is prepared to make a pro-war protest to go on a pro-government movie war and antiwar or highly critical piece of filmmaking so literally quite literally the pentagon is very open about who the pentagon will go on and it screenwriters scripts what they're about the military if those screenwriters and the studios want to have access to be able to let's say photograph planes or tanks or aircraft carriers the best example of this of course

is the movie top gun and top gun was granted a huge amount of access to the military planes and taxpayer subsidized rates because the filmmakers of the movie submitted their scripts to pentagon editors for the pentagon to write it to make sure it was perfectly mimicking what the pentagon one of the movie to say that is the chaps but i guess the sergeant tried to but i have to play devil's advocate here i mean you know the pentagon is an institution that is tasked with protecting the united states it is in its best interest to do whatever is necessary in order to do that and that includes getting people to you can be interested in signing up for it because remember we have an all launch air military force so. what's wrong with that i mean it's in the pentagon interest to to show its wars to show itself in a positive light why should the military be expected to grant access to some anti military filmmaker well i was a product of the pentagon promoting its message affirmatively that is

a pentagon advertisement it pays for pentagon press releases that's promoting itself affirmatively and the pentagon is going to do that it has to do that and i have no problem with it but i have a problem with is the cheerio and hardware that is inherently public property the pentagon does not own that the pentagon does not exclusively on that plane we as taxpayers all own that the pentagon thereby denying or selectively denying access to that based on what a journalist or a filmmaker wants to do with that information based on the content based on the ideology based on the politics of the journalist who wants to cover the pentagon that is a use of government power that frankly tramples the first amendment that saying that this public property can only be seen or only be used by people who want to mimic the pentagon's precise line that's a different story in the pentagon simply promoting itself but can we expect

journalists to perhaps highlight this kind of you know i was in quite a bit of research before we did this interview and one thing that struck me is that there really aren't a lot of stories about this new york times ran something over the summer when this came out but why do you think there isn't a lot of coverage about this collusion as you call it in the press because it serves the financial interests of two of the most powerful financial actors in the american economy obviously the pentagon and then the larger entertainment industry the pentagon using and effectively subsidizing the entertainment industry creates a vested interest for the entertainment industry. which of course in many cases only solution organizations creates a vested interest in those news organizations not to call this into question and that was david sirota the author of back to the future. we've heard david sirota describe what he called the military entertainment complex which some say is used

to fuel recruitment for the military industrial complex and it takes big money to make war look like a lucrative career and as archie is honest i see a church in europe course this is how it all plays out. a hunch for american youth . apart down the next american ever more importantly to a robust business machine is operating at one capacity in the us the strength to lead. from televised ads in hollywood blockbusters. to video games real american presidents donning soldiers the real patriots each of them as. to what it means to be a soldier sailor airman marine and coastguardsman image of the american he is portrayed as that of the invisible hero times where one of the number one interest payment spots in the big apple attracts millions from around the world and across

the west apart from the flashing lights of the billboards there's a recruitment center right here one of hundreds just in new york the mesmerizing technique luring young americans in conserving are more sophisticated than ever before sponsoring the video game trade and so he thought tournaments i mean they going up to these young kids who perform well and say the u.s. military needs to see your skills at this video game the first fifteen or sixteen or seventeen year old this is something that's very basic it's a cruel deceptive type of recruitment they want to use all they have this tools they can to make being in the military has cool is possible now it's in a much harder for edward pages dedicated ten years to being a u.s. soldier he thought it was the honorable thing to do if they presented the military for what it was i don't think anyone would join but they do join having played one computer game and seen one war movie too many there's no second chances and you can

you can resell again you can restart a movie there's no second chances when you are actually out there and your life is at risk for something that most of these young men have no idea really the true reason why they're going out there but it turns from a. these freedoms are realized and military. reduce the world that are currently off limits when it is often too late the problem is a lot of these kids don't know once they get in it's hard to get out first come the way out is suicide a military report says eighty percent of soldiers in afghanistan have seen a friend killed or injured the gore of war which we were placing its promise glory yet nothing stops the military propaganda campaign now is spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year recruiting groups and recruiting people glorifying war glorifying the killing of people whether it's necessary or not a dire economy or school also comes in handy for the country there's

a joke in the military that the best recruiter is an economic downturn and that recruiter is raging on what happened after two thousand and eight that solve their problem was the desperation of millions of americans we had an economic crisis we've had unemployment zoom out no matter the times the power of the pentagon the eternal american leaders do not become presence by challenging american national security council in a national security state nor the military industrial complex they just don't do it meaning during and more young americans into more wars with no happy end or game over it's tight and by future cannot arts the new york. and that's it for this hour here on r.t. america but of course the news does not end with this broadcast looking more stories and details on our website just had to r.t. dot com slash usa and don't be chained to the how it's to catch all of our shows all of our reports as always are available on your laptop or smartphone or you

travel you can subscribe for free by going to youtube dot com slash r.t. america and don't forget about me going to get in touch with me to weigh in and any other stories that you saw this evening or maybe bring our attention to some other stories that we should be following to be shy just follow me on twitter it's at least one word and of course we will be back here in a bit but stay tuned because there's more news and commentary all coming up right ahead.