the look back at the past seven days top stories and the latest developments this is the weekly on r.t. good to have you with us. it was a tragedy that claimed the lives of thousands in an instant and later brought two wars with an even more devastating death toll the united states is marking a decade since the nine eleven attacks terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the twin towers of the world trade center in new york in the pentagon in washington the fourth plane came down in the state of pennsylvania and then being held at ground zero in new york and all across america it was the worst strike on u.s. soil in history and united a nation if the term a nation to seek out the perpetrators and prevent more deaths but the american led invasion of afghanistan that followed nine eleven has claimed thousands more lives in what's now the longest conflict in u.s. history and is out is going to reports the killing hasn't stopped. it started as a war on terror spawned by the deadliest terrorist attack in history either whether

she were the enemy that's clear but the circle of america's enemies grew quickly and included nations that had nothing to do with nine eleven they were defined by george bush as the axis of evil some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since september the eleventh. but we know their true nature. north korea's regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction. while starving a citizens. iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror while an unelected few repressed the iranian people's hope for freedom. iraq and change the font of trust to lead toward america and to support terror two years after nine eleven the us invaded iraq on the grounds that he had weapons of mass destruction and was doing business with al qaida grounds which proved to be false hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians have died since the invasion they use the moment in in

the wake of nine eleven to divert from afghanistan our real target should have been our real target and go to iraq it also was the low hanging fruit north korea was far more dangerous but too difficult one hundred thousand casualties were predicted by the corner on both sides so would be destroyed iran was too difficult seventy million people not fractured like the iraqis and the sunni and shia christian and other as for the motives behind invading iraq some top or oil iraq right now is sitting on probably two hundred billion barrels maybe three hundred billion barrels that's correct zone or report mo he plans to be a thirteen million barrels per day production capacity in seven years that surpasses saudi arabia now you know why dick cheney went to war in iraq others blame america's self assigned role as the world's policeman the driving idea behind it is that it had to monex debility of the idea is that the but world is going to be more secure place overall if there is a a unocal or world

a sole remaining superpower much of what has happened post nine eleven in the name of responding to nine eleven has been a pretext as terrorism was no longer the only reason for landing on washington's enemy list the us had even more far reaching plans on the table former vice president dick cheney says he urged the bush administration to bomb syria at. one time because of its alleged nuclear weapons program a move which experts say would have had disastrous effects on the region president obama was elected on hopes that he would and the endless wars overseas which most americans are opposed to but he continues and adds one more and the oil rich nation libya and this time in the name of removing an evil dictator. some worry syria could be next we have an executive power that is beyond any check by the people by

the congress or by the courts for war we can go toward the drop of a coin we've reached the point now where the president of the united states can kill people for state purposes any time he or she feels the need since nine eleven america's war on terror has crossed many borders from pakistan to yemen and other countries the chase for a handful of terrorists has turned the lives of entire nations upside down we're talking about hundreds of thousands of innocent lives taken by the decade of constant war and many worry that a tragedy as great as nine eleven has served as a pretext for an even greater tragedy one that has no end in sight i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . well for more about the legacy and implications of the nine eleven attacks i can now cross live to the u.s. and talk a little and she could tell me a thanks very much indeed for being with us here on this was the most terrorist attack the world ever seen so was the reaction by the

u.s. against afghanistan and iraq justified. well i think that certainly against iraq is it was not justified because there was no link between iraq and nine eleven again if that is a little bit long complicated story you know there you know clearly man had been harboring al qaeda and osama bin laden's and there was an argument from from going in and cleaning out. but that ought to have been an extremely limited and surgical operation and the u.s. should have got you know betty very quickly instead we be a kind of stuck in a quagmire there and i think that is a huge problem for the u.s. and for the rest of the world too so in effect by putting in perspective something like six thousand two hundred american soldiers died have died so far in iraq and afghanistan in effect the terrorists one of rolled in there. you know in a sense yes they did because you know be arranged for america to have

such a huge overreaction to those who want a bag that they in fact succeeded in stopping america from within the country as opposed to from outside a you know it's be a hand try to get america to you know launch the kind of ten year war that it has launched by simply a conventional attack they would not have succeeded so yes in a sense a pink till you know huge overreaction that they got an american doing gaijin who has been you know has given them a victory of sorts and george w. bush made the war on terror which that's the label of so many give this the war on terror he made it some did something like exalted almost divine he kept saying it's god's will and so on was that a way of convincing the american people to wage war to know that we're talking about all the loss of life do you think that argument is still accepted by the americans. where you know i think that george w.

bush you know i don't buy this whole idea that you know he actually part that this was some kind of. you know mission ordained by god i do think he believed very strongly that what he was doing was the right thing to do that doesn't mean he was right i think he did believe that he was right i don't believe that the war in iraq was for oil because if it were for oil you know and then it would have been bent over the united states to keep gardening you know saddam hussein and getting cheap oil no i think you really exaggerated the threat that. those who buy nine eleven that the you know they just started flailing around and it was a completely irrational response but i think it was at the same time you know response that they honestly believed was merited what about the response now after what we've seen happening in iraq and afghanistan what we're now seeing in libya many would say that the campaign led by nato has resulted in a victory

a success or would you say otherwise that we could actually see something similar to what we're seeing in afghanistan and iraq with prolong the conflict and instability you know that's a very good question and you know i don't think anybody really knows the answer to that right now you don't know in libya it is slightly different in that the u.s. is not directly in war right now at least now if the situation deteriorates and you know we've seen some revenge killing by the rebel forces against you know black africans who are supposedly aiding the duffy i think in that situation and continue it was then they you might for humanitarian reasons be put in and aunts to intervene and then it could well become another quagmire and how dumb is that gannon stand and you know on the other interventions there isn't any good precedent left for the u.s. not to intervene you know we have established we have established a president you know that the u.s.

has to be you know the police of. the global car and if it is called the forum to play the global cup again in. syria i don't see on what basis it can really refuse so there's a danger it can get involved in this quagmire but we have to wait and see and just finally there is a contradiction isn't there in the foreign policy here there is washington saying is committed to defending democratic values in any country and we've seen obviously the intervention in libya and also a lot of vocal pressure on syria but what about the likes of yemen and bahrain for some reason off the radar just briefly explain that you know now that's a very good question i mean i think there is a double standard now again you know in yemen and bahrain in libya you know that we've laid out there was a huge cry from the european community to intervene and the u.s. going to go dragged into into syria because the europeans had aided the united states in their ghana stance and so it was sort of a quid pro quo and you know but yeah but that absolutely raises

a double standard for the united states then why not yemen why not about rain. in fact the regime has been even more draconian you know than gadhafi had initially been you know with his people so yeah question really interesting she could talk to you wish we had more time but sadly time is upon us thank you for joining us live there she can tell me are joining us live there in detroit good to talk to you about. a suicide bombing in afghanistan as wounded more than seventy american soldiers and killed two civilians it's being seen as the taliban's way of marking a decade since nine eleven and the movement issued a statement after sunday's attack denying it had anything to do with events in the u.s. ten years ago and nearly ten years after the u.s. led coalition invaded afghanistan it doesn't seem any closer to winning the war there with the taliban still relentless something we've just been discussing with our guest a few minutes ago the conflicts estimated to have cost over ten thousand afghan civilians their lives as they're often caught in the crossfire and as u.s. combat troops begin their gradual withdrawal from the country most locals don't

even know why foreign forces came in the first place. helmand in southern afghanistan is the province that has borne the brunt of the fighting between the taliban and coalition forces. what would afghans in this war torn province think about nine eleven and its consequences. while on patrol with the marines i get a first opportunity to ask a couple of young afghan men what they know about nine eleven but those who are going to look forward with. never see if can you show them a few more and can us them do they know where it is we don't know if that's because because we're a former neighborhood about i need to support the world or start becoming. the two young men and clearly never heard of nine eleven. but maybe the elders at a local show would have more to say you know you know see. this ng i just can see the smoke from the buildings and that's

a that's only thing i can say when you guys show this picture saying it so i think that was a call what if i just got here i would be surprised but having been here now for six months this is pretty much the stone ages where we are and what to do about their reactions. so the guy who said it was kabul was clearly never going to kabul and it just shows you how isolated they are even in their own country. understand. that you know you don't think you know you're going to america afghanistan come to this point and then get the airplane from here to attack in the united states but you know how much. you're going to it was nice to go from iraq to then here is a lot easier to understand you know why you're here and what do you see at that picture you know it's good picture mine yourself because what you're there to see afghans looking at it in this context while wearing the uniform appear in the right . to back. down make and saying we're going to help you to discern one building and to destroy us how many funding and this is we

going to help you where is the help. work your way down what they're saying to give it to our kids are going to go up fighting and they do it to their own kids in a paper that i don't invade and. i do sympathize or understand what you're some were saying it's sick. even just from the weather we've had recently people losing their homes and nobody to help on so you know when you have when you can feed yourself the earth how yourself are you going to care about somebody you know six thousand miles away. so i can understand that this is ended up out of the top of the list with that i never thought to ask those questions of anybody here so why we're here amazingly in a country where for ten years a war has been fought with nine eleven as its root cause and justification it turns out not only were the villages oblivious to nine eleven but so were the afghan police and even some of the translators working with the u.s. military and you don't know that is for you to say that i have no idea about syria that we haven't seen these pictures before. a survey taken in twenty ten by the

international council on security and development found that ninety two percent of afghan men in helmand and other afghan provinces had no idea what nine eleven was with american troops set to start with during this year it seems likely that they will leave afghanistan without the vast majority of afghans ever having really understood why they came in the first place adam plates from afghanistan for. well for full coverage of the ten year anniversary of the nine eleven tragedy go to our website dot com where we provide you with the latest updates interviews and videos and at the moments we're bringing you live pictures from rome just one of the many cities around the world holding special events to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the attacks. and see that the coliseum has been illuminated in remembrance of those that died and you can watch the pictures from rome they're streaming live on our website at r.t. dot com. the terrorist attack that became synonymous with.

the senseless slaughter of it was three people stopped for. a vision of a living. ten years old just. to. look back at nine eleven to see. this week russia's sporting world was rocked to its core when one of its best hockey teams was all but wiped out in a blink of an eye they died on wednesday when looking more to vegas levels plane crashed on takeoff on saturday thousands gathered at the team's stadium to say their final goodbyes to the victims and sean thomas witnessed a city in mourning. waves of emotion poor through jaroslav as residents realize the full weight of the tragedy that country ordered the lives of some of the city's brightest stars but ended up with the fans of this team for many years our whole family including our little child went to all their games for us is

their operable loss but it's like losing a family member. i knew one of the players he was my neighbor and he was a great person he's got two little kids left how could this happen when we saw the news on t.v. i just burst into tears. at just after four in the afternoon on wednesday the charter plane carrying almost the entire jaroslava locomotive k h l hockey team crashed shortly after takeoff bursting into a ball of flame after clipping a runway antenna forty three of the forty five on board perished to look at mostly we heard the plane takeoff so we told our granddaughter look there's going to be an airplane then i heard a bang and my daughter told me mom it's falling down to the side then came the flames and the smoke and we wanted to run away but we didn't know where to run then we went to the river and saw the plane with us in the wake of the tragedy of what the mayor put in ordered an immediate and thorough investigation as president

medvedev led a country in mourning visiting the crash site and paying his respects. meanwhile fans of the three time championship winning jaroslava locomotive team made their voices heard in a show of solidarity and support. as you can see from the flowers candles and mementos left here at the stadium the loss of jaroslava locomotive was a huge blow to this community but due to the international nature of this team it was a larger loss for russia and the rest of the world as well my friends with the plan you guys have put together a couple of years ago and of course one just just want to give my condolences to the families of all of that stuff by the ceremonies to honor the players were held in minsk in bratislava of somber reflections from those who knew the players well. after to have all demitra told me he actually wants to quit hockey that he wants to play a little bit more and then leave and spend time with his family so this last conversation

came back to my head when i heard about the crash and i want to only him at least by lighting this candle for not only him but everybody who died i would like to express my condolences to his family to his children and wife. saturday marked the end of an official three day mourning period as thousands poured into the stadium to view fourteen coffins on display and say their final goodbyes we soon it was an idea that we have buried our friends the people who brought us joy and played for our country this is an irreplaceable loss for the people of us level and of our country. and you know this level sean thomas r.t. . coming up to twenty minutes past the hour now and still to come for you here on r.t. tensions boiling over in greece as angry as respond with. an announcement made by the prime minister on the state of the country's economy. but first twenty seven people reported have been killed by syrian security forces backed by troops in

several towns across the country this comes as the arab league announced it's reaching the. president bashar al assad promised reforms the plan outlines proposals to bring an end to the bloodshed release prisoners and hold elections within three years the us and e.u. of imposed sanctions on syria and of calling for the un security council to condemn violence in the country the united nations says more than two thousand have died in the uprising since mid march on authorities in damascus blamed groups for the last . meanwhile russia researching both sides to start talking to avoid another libya style conflict moscow plans to send a fact finding mission to syria to get firsthand information on the areas hit by violence the decision was announced after members of the syrian opposition visited the russian capital requesting international speaking on sidelines of international policy forum in the russian. president said he's concerned about. the situation is far from simplistic. the resolutions we would approve to send

a strong message to the syrian regime should in fact be addressed to both sides things aren't just black and white and the anti-government protesters in syria are not followers of some refined european models of democracy some of them are to put it straight extremists and some might even be called terrorists the situation is not that simple and we have to take into account the balance of different forces and interests russia may support certain moves but only if they don't boil down to the one sided condemnation of the government and president we should send a strong message calling on all the conflicting parties to come to the negotiating table start talks and stop the bloodshed. in libya the head of the country's interim government has arrived in the capital tripoli for the first time since it fell to rebel forces most of the country is now controlled by the national transitional council but. putting up fierce resistance in bani walid one of the colonel's last strongholds nato airstrikes continue to assist the rebels leader was on the run and now on interpol's wanted list he's claimed in recent messages that

he's still in the country the fighters have been given until saturday to surrender to the new leadership in streets across the country celebrations over the end of the old regime have been replaced by fear. reports. a city celebrates more than ten days than even capital has been read joisting in the dictator's fall. he wanted to hand. he's portrayed here in the central square for his rules forty second anniversary but we put our flag up instead we won we are so happy without him. it seems in the last weeks rebel fighters have fired bullets in the air the were shot during this sort of tripoli early albums. reveal phenol very very forward. mr gaddafi. duffy's victor thought. he told old to be war love me would that be broken we know you would see

love him all of us what a president is that we don't know or get that bit of what i like with a lower case but away from jubilant crowds we meet those who are not so pleased a thought of money lives in tripoli's abu salim district historically pro khadafi when the rebels arrived his sister was badly injured she's still in hospital in tunisia other one doesn't want to show his face on camera and ceased want to hidden location for the interview he says revolution has brought much fear in its wake. there is no peace there is no safety in the city we don't want our children outside when it's dark we are afraid we always wait for something bad when gadhafi was here at least we didn't have to sleep a wink what we do know. of the rahman says he also want to change and a brighter future for his country but not base way. people are dying on both sides

of the cities destroyed no one cares do they seriously think that they changed it for the better don't lie to yourself just look around is that what you wanted. and what is around is a scene of widespread destruction and social chaos the badly damaged buildings made by the rising stink of garbage and decomposing bodies youngsters roam the streets barely old enough to understand that what they carry our weapons not toys many shops schools and hospitals are closed while the cities symmetries growing bigger and bigger. shortly after tripoli fell into rebel hands the national transitional council libya's new authority claimed it was moving here from benghazi two weeks have passed and there is still no sign of order being restored the city is

functioning by itself and treading a fine line between freedom and anneke. river national. tripoli libya. greece will impose a new one off property tax to make up for the shortfall in its budget this comes after the prime minister vowed to save his debt stricken country from bankruptcy in a key speech on the economy where more than twenty five thousand people joined together to protest against tougher starting measures on saturday angry demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police to disperse the crowd to protest and say they are fed up with cuts to pensions and salaries and increased taxes imposed to secure international rescue loans all of europe has been struggling with the sovereign debt crisis a columnist and a list p. to build thinks that the euro zone has too many people flaws to survive. it may indeed be getting if not too late and certainly very late in the day in order to institute of financial government for europe the system could collapse before it is

politically possible to put these sorts of measures in place but at the same time although parliaments if you like don't want europe to collapse there is a growing feeling both within parliament and also. amongst the people who elect parliament and that's certainly true of germany the most pros european all of the of all of the countries but there is a certain impatience away in up is it really worth giving up a sovereignty and b. possibly a lot of money in order to save a system that was falsely designed right from the beginning it is certainly a question that parliaments are going to be putting to each other over the next coming months. peterbilt talking to a little earlier this week here on r t well let's have a quick look at some news making headlines around the world today. in a world update and swedish police have arrested four people in the city of gothenburg on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack hundreds of people were evacuated from the city's center for the arrests however the swedish authorities decided not to raise the terror alert level

which has been at the elevated mark since november officials have not yet released any further information regarding the suspected. ties in a region of zanzibar is begun three days of mourning for the victims of a ferry disaster the claimed as many as two hundred forty lives many more still missing after losing power in rough seas the ship began taking on water eventually capsizing survivors say it was overloaded with both cargo and passengers many of whom were children meanwhile rescue teams have resume their search but hopes of finding more survivors fading by the hour is the country's worst maritime disaster in fifteen years. of the storm nate has reached mexico's gulf coast with officials of open shelters as a precaution forecasters say the gale force winds have been strengthened as expected and the chances of it becoming a hurricane were reducing meanwhile an intensified air and sea search failed to find ten because he went missing there was no word from a dozen fisherman who disappeared aboard shrimping boats much of the u.s.

east coast is still recovering from last week's hurricane irene which left more than fifty day. well plenty more ahead for you this sunday evening and interview and lots of action in the sports business in the way for you a little later before that i'll be back with headlines stay with us live in moscow .

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are on the day. the official. from the. video. feed.

it's the weekly live from moscow this is a top stories now in the south america decade since the tragedy of nine eleven which united a nation but brought about true of the bloodiest walls of the twenty first century and we bring you live coverage live pictures of. ground zero in me. in afghanistan which was invaded by the u.s. shortly off to. another deadly suicide bombing. most afghan civilians don't even know why that country was occupied by foreign troops. and rushed. to the country's top national ice hockey team and wiped out in a plane crash in the blink of an eye. on the international community not to take sides in syria's internal violence as president.