they've overthrown gadhafi they're going to have a proxy of client government in tripoli the next step is syria and so would go as the u.s. moves down its chap list of arab enemies what about the people who live in country are they really better off. and it's easy to get caught up in the fog of war and even easier to lose hold of the truth so in this libya lottery is the war really over and if so who came out on top we'll bring you a report from the ground there. they're taking the same risks with investor you know investors' money depositors' money that they were taking before and why

because they know they'll be bailed out if there's a problem more money whole problem but in the lehman brothers case it was no money more problems so three years later has anything really changed or is mainstream just a personal piggy back to the rough system. this is some really hard because if you're living friends. oh i understand you had me at hello and then you lost me when you started doing a daytime talk show so if the american mainstream media becomes america's comic relief comedians it seems are left to tell the news so why this war between headlines and of course life. if there's a september fifteenth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm christine freeze out and you are watching our team. one thing i want to start off by taking a look at the latest in the arab spring it has been a huge year in terms of protests on the streets of revolution and of leaders many of them longtime friend of means of the u.s. being overthrown now in some cases the u.s. has chosen to back some of these movements including the rebels in libya some are also starting to wonder if possibly syria could be next now u.s. leaders recently made clear their condemnation of syria's president bashar al assad were quote america's decision to take sides or some unexpected and unwanted results are to correspondent i had a chance you can take a look and has this report as nations in the middle east and north africa are torn between the struggle to bring about change and the struggle not to let the changes ruin their lives washington views the arab spring as an opportunity to finally see some of its longtime foes crumble you know iran is not an arab country the arab

spring to spread to me actually. and i think in many ways it's a matter of time before that kind of change. and revolution occurred and under the umbrella of arab revolutions washington is also beating the drums of regime change in syria iran's closest ally in the region violence within the country has been widely condemned countries like russia and china call for both sides in syria to talk and end the bloodshed while america is blaming assad alone i think assad stays just like the darfur number and let's hope the pressure assad is next and they've overthrown khadafi they're going to have a proxy or client government in tripoli the next step is syria they want to overthrow syria and actually take advantage of any movement that exists in syria to overthrow the assad government now they have a more democratic government a more humane government but a government that is allied with the united states and after syria the next target

will be iran itself watching regimes go down one by one american politicians are filled with new hopes and aspirations some went as far as to predict the arab spring would spread all across the world what this is all about is the arab spring and bashar assad is next and even places like china russia and other places they are very uneasy this is about people aspiring for freedom and that's where the libyan people are just achieved. it's wishful thinking on the part of john mccain but it speaks volumes to where the real orientation is in washington not just of the republicans but the democrats too so they would like to overthrow the government in china they would like to overthrow the government in russia they would like to overthrow the government in venezuela and cuba or wherever people are independent of the dictates of washington but when it comes to syria and iran washington doesn't seem to be just fantasizing about revolutions by throwing its support behind revolution makers and we say washington is seeking to increase its

influence and control in these countries let's look at how things are painting the controlled part. so far eject thousands protest against the u.s. backed military there that's still in power last week a gyptian storm peace really embassy enraged by the killing of five egypt border guards in lead here washington leadership is taking over put the country is at risk of plunging into tribal war syria the opposition includes those with radical agendas so the aftermath of the so-called arab spring remains very murky and difficult yet washington seems to be using the early spring to fulfill its long time goals but the fear is it might end up getting the opposite of what it wishes for and undermining the whole region i'm going to shut down reporting from washington r.t. so from u.s. involvement in iraq afghanistan libya and now potentially syria what is the truth behind the action to get some perspective on this i spoke to asia times

correspondent pepe escobar as the u.s. continues to throw its support behind revolution makers i asked him to give me his take on at the current state of foreign affairs here's what he had to say. well it's the hypocrisy of the very young twenty first century of course if you are. shiites much of your it because it's free and you have a military base and then the country by ray alternately no intervention if you have a dictator that it's been relatively friendly to the west but not to independence and he has loads of oil and he sits in the strategic northern africa then the country libya then you get nato intervention if you have a country in the middle east that opals with israel and has a russian military base in the mediterranean name the country syria your next so this is this is how it works it depends on the degree of independence of the

dictator if it's one of our bastards but if it's a bastard that we can rely on that was not the case with gaddafi and if everything is geared towards the pentagon's full spectrum dominance this means the pentagon wants to control what they call the arc of instability from north africa going through the middle east to central asia so expect major interventions you know archie sat down with russian ambassador to the u.n. to tally churkin to get his take on the u.s. role in syria and what is possibly ahead i want to play a little piece of that interview for you and how do you respond to all of what some critics. gloss this is not their intention to use military force well incidentally we have to remind them that statements in the sure has from them a value source when we were working on that resolution libya which we're very

quickly forgotten about in libya. so i mean what do you think of that he's saying it's hard to trust you know a partner here look at mr churchill mr glover of course they are right and remember mr gorbachev twenty years ago when he was assured by george bush father that nato would never try to take over their countries from the iron curtain they were never told their extract so the emerging russian see what happened and gorbachev has been talking about this endlessly for the past when the of course you cannot trust the pentagon and nato need to and now. i would say is the global robot got. what's on my arm of the you leave interest in my eyes but you well then they can go anywhere they can go to central asia afghanistan they can go to northern africa in libya they might go to the mediterranean for the live guns in

syria and then john mccain and a neo cons in the us or say look one day we don't intervene in china's well this is not exactly wishful thinking this is what's behind what we learned a few hours ago that the mid-south shield is going to be deployed in poland soon in romania and perhaps soon enough in just three years in parity as well which is a very close ally to russia so nature was in circling the planet with their militias and that was asia times correspondent pathway escobar. and as i mentioned earlier in the newscast there are some major new developments in libya where for the first time since the nato led mission there began western leaders are on the ground british prime minister gave david cameron and french president nicolas sarkozy are there in a show of support are they pledged to keep up the nato bombing in tel the last of the gadhafi loyalists have surrendered now based on the footage we've seen it appears that could be soon with the national transitional council appearing to be

in control and with tripoli and rebel hands that r.t.d. also has a correspondent on the ground in tripoli are he's on maria maria for notion that she joins me a little while ago to bring us what she sees as happening. well creasing british prime minister and french president he leave is used sad indeed to show their support for the national transitional council and his new authorities financial political and of course military support these two leaders have become the first foreign hads of state to visit khadafi freely but not surprisingly though these two nato countries have played a prominent a crucial role in the libyan revolution backed by the alliance we chair a bench will lead to the fall of gadhafi and to the end all for the almost forty two year long dictatorship here illegally both accorsi and cameron have emphasized

their countries will continue helping the national transitional council supporting the radicals especially they've pointed out that nato will continue its mission on the ground and they will continue warming duffy's apparently could not face a military facilities here in lead here for as long as it is necessary to protect civilians and it nature is certainty you know operating here in leave here in the areas still held by conduct his forces where fighting continues between the rebels and gadhafi loyalists and we're here talking about at least for get off the strongholds in food in his hometown save six hundred kilometers east of the capital tripoli and bani walid the area two hundred kilometers south of the capital tripoli known for its ardent supporter of the embattled colonel actually many are very skeptical about this mission saying that it's no longer aimed at protecting civilians actually be able to rather as the one aimed at helping the rebels take

control of the rest of the country they are virtually controlling the majority of the country but the still remain several pockets at least for as i sat held by khadafi is force. and we're using you mentioned bani walid as well as search in terms of places where the rebels actually do not have control i think this is important to point out because it's very different than some of the accounts that we've seen some of the video that we've seen of celebrations going on there talk a little bit about. you know the fear that still exists on both sides and also your take on the national transitional council. and to what extent do you think that they are a unified front. and yet see if you're right the timing of the space of this very strange because it looks like. a leader

. came to. tripoli to leave here to take part celebrations of the rebels while fighting still continued and people are still dying from both sides as you've just citing deed that was actually correspondent maria for notion or with the very latest from tripoli well i also want to say to you happy anniversary this one of an events that you could say change the world or at least brought the global economy to its knees it was three years ago today after all that lehman brothers america's fourth largest bank filed for bankruptcy and collapse under a six billion dollars toxic debt well today we take a look back from then to now and i want to ask a few questions number one how have things changed since then going back to who has been held responsible and most importantly what have we learned largely correspondent marina point nine takes a look at all these questions and also some of the disheartening answers. lehman

brothers has filed for bankruptcy stocks all around the world are tanking because of the crisis on wall street the more things change the more they stay the same how will lehman's bankruptcy filing really change the landscape of the entire banking industry in two thousand and eight wall street's bad bets and risky speculation led to the collapse of america's housing market and a financial crisis around the globe today banks have grown more powerful and profitable while the threat of a double dip recession has deepened the part of the problem was too big to fail and of part of the problem was high dependence on the financial sector if you fast forward three years we have even bigger financial institutions on which we're at least equally dependent so the structural problems are probably worse and certainly not a whole lot better washington saved wall street with nearly one trillion dollars in government bailout yet in the past three years critics say that washington has

failed to effectively regulate wall street the financial industry can still trade bundle debt and bet the same way it did thirty six months ago we still have the say the only difference is greater they are worse is because that. has been trillions of dollars worth of different subsidies that were really in a worse position than we were before this was a cover up. of america's great recession has chipped away at the middle class exacerbated luminousness and resulted in at least fourteen million unemployed citizens. just last month zero jobs not one was created meantime wall street executives broke records last year pulling in one hundred forty nine billion dollars in pay in compensation according to analysts the u.s. is approaching its highest level of inequality since world war one if you're not in the top ten or twenty percent you're significantly poorer than you were in two

thousand. name and in two thousand and eight you were making one sixteenth as much money as the wealthiest people in the united states we've seen you know corporate profits made profits record breaking profits in some cases three years after the crisis and why is that they're taking the same risks with investor you know investors' money pozieres money that they were taking before and why because they know they'll be bailed out if there's a problem in two thousand and eight u.s. credit agencies fail to forecast the problem reading lehman as a secure investment just one week before its historic bankruptcy very little has changed their business model for the only thing that really has changed is that there's what's more skepticism towards them the collapse of lehman brothers ignited a perfect storm of economic distress in new york around the world yet three years later problems that caused the crisis remain unsolved many economists are

predicting that this needs another economic collapse isn't just probable it's inevitable. we're not artsy we're all right to add to this i've got to tell you another disturbing story in the works kind of that when that happened today a thirty one year old man arrested in london earlier a guy you could say how bit of a gambling problem just how much money did he lose while working as a trader at the investment bank u.b.s. oh just two billion dollars here's a statement that this was banking giant put out they said quote we regret to inform you that yesterday we uncovered a case of unauthorized trading by a trader in the investment bank we have reported it to the markets in line with regulatory disclosure obligations a matter is still being investigated but we currently estimated a loss on the trades to be around two billion u.s. dollars this is one of the largest mess ups in the history of these financial institutions and i wanted to help talk about this and talk about some of those

questions that i asked. earlier about just how far we've come since the collapse of lehman brothers well earlier i spoke to somebody with a little experience in that field carl damage or from the market ticker three years removed from the collapse of lehman i asked if we were worse off and if so i people aren't doing anything to make things better here's his take those and surprise me there was a huge dislocation in the currency markets when the swiss government and also if they were going to pay the swiss francs the euro and i was curious as a sign that it occurred when we were going to see that blow up inevitably had to a compromise that i think we just got a lot of our answers though this person allegedly was a trader in equities he moves in the market came immediately following that announcement were extraordinarily violent and to have expected that somebody wouldn't get it out of there was a lot of realistic so i'm not surprised that it occurred i am surprised after two

thousand and eight in lehman brothers that we still have institutions who can't manage to handle fundamental and basic risk controls it's ridiculous i think it's a really important point and kind of the point to something that one of the gas in the report that we've also said that you know the structure of the system is not only not better than three years ago but it is actually worse and you know while it seems to me if something is drastically wrong with a structure you were carried then you make it stand stronger than before which may or may not involve tearing it down and rebuilding it from the foundation so i got to ask you a couple things do you agree first of all that things are indeed worse than three years ago and if so why aren't people working to fix that. they're worse in some places and better in a few others american banks who arguably have somewhat less leverage than they go before lehman brothers blew up not dramatically less but. they've also become better at hiding the risk which of course is one of the things that everybody's

concerned about european banks on the other hand haven't taken down much of any risk at all and what we've now seen is that the fantasy you be able to claim that you have assets that are going to be perfectly thawing if they're held for five years or ten years or a horror long but today there was nothing you know is coming back to bite people now in europe just as it did here in the united states and not only did we not fix it in the united states after lehman brothers we actually institutionalized their practice in the early part of two thousand and nine when our accounting standards board was effectively extorted by congress you know another criticism comes in the way the story has been told to the public you know it's confusing to a lot of people to understand to connect the dots between the lehman brothers collapse and you know them losing their home and in some ways it seems to me that this is what the big banks want so they can spin their own story and regarding that story i mean many believe and point out that the same people telling the story to post financial crisis story by the same people who had

a hand in creating the crisis in the first place why is this the case. essentially what you had happen here in the united states and around the world is a thirty year period on yet we did not put up one single quarter of economic growth you know experience from nine hundred eighty to two thousand and nine where we increased output in the economy faster than we increased the debt that was taken on throughout the economy as a whole that cannot go on forever just like you cannot oil your credit card and spend more money than you make every day for years and years and years and not eventually go bankrupt and that was karl denninger from the market. well still ahead here on our team for real hard hitting questions and groundbreaking investigation these days the mainstream media news is acting more like a laugh factory leaving comedians like jon stewart pick up the slack and actually report the headline so what's with this media mash up.

we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i didn't tell the truth. i may confess and i am wrong get a sense that i love rap and hip hop music and. it was kind of it but yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without us you just play.

what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of thing. made who can you trust no one. is to view you with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism school sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. all right i want to take a look now at yet another example of the changing landscape of mainstream media news or should i say a lack of news let's talk about anderson cooper he has always been known for being at the center of the action from the earthquake in haiti to the revolution in egypt he has also been for so long one of the most trusted reporters in news well that all seems to be changing take a look i'm telling you snooki is one impossibly lucky and usually spunky freakishly tanned beer guzzling juice head not so loving but tara bodied plane size money

making machine we really want to do a show of cover a broad range of topics. you know all the real housewives of beverly beverly hills by the names like you believe. this is a really good because if you think money. spray tanning with snooki i don't know if this is actually a laughing matter do you really need to spray on an eight pack to get people to watch well it seems like gone are the days of hard hitting questions and in-depth reporting and while the news takes a turn toward comedy and if you use that term loosely who then is left to bring americans their daily headlines well it seems it's the comedians. i was surprised in meeting the people that i've met in the military how a political they truly are how it really is so much more mission based and fraternal it's about their brothers and sisters and executing the task that they've

been given so i think as you saw on the trip that we were on together is they care so much about who they're with who they're fighting with in many ways that's why they are there they understand what they're doing for their country they understand their mission is one of a role reversal right well earlier i spoke to georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers about why we're seeing this media mix up. it's no accident that people are backing away from mainstream media the three networks and the cable networks coverage of supposedly serious issues analysis investigative reporting by looking at you know outlets like our t.v. or independent news sites on the internet or even social media based news because of this stuff because basically what they're doing is it's this whole source called brandon hantz meant they figure he can go from this hard hitting reporter who's in

haiti to a daytime talk show but we're not talking about the same demographics here but talk show demographic there and they don't care about rescuing children in haiti or what's going on and to hear square this is a demographic where you see the commercials that are played they're usually trial lawyers or for diploma mills or something like that or if i may be quezon sexist it's a twenty four to say sixty year old female demographic and it's largely either an educated or under-educated of something i mean back a ten twenty years ago that people who did what anderson cooper did who paid their he was the one on the front line you know maybe they were also white house reporter or whatever and they then went on to be evening anchors not to go hand in with and actually do you think this is part of a larger trend here oh yes i mean this is this is the total of deconstruction of the us media and this is this we've talked about this before and it just keeps it's

a gift that keeps on giving i don't think you could get any worse you can do you would see him move on to maybe taking over from wolf blitzer for the situation room that's not happening and those are protected he's our flattening out you know so what is the next best thing in terms of what you know i have friends the time warner the program to kick my butt but the next best thing for the time warner people in charge can do is to say what have brandon hantz meant will move him into his own show during the daytime which has nothing to do. with the hard news that he's really known for and again that's a tough transition but in their minds you know they can introduce him to a new audience he can seem more accessible and more like a regular guy and you know he started off with about you know a pretty good share about a million point three people watching he and amy winehouse his family but then it it devolved from that to kathy griffin then and then snotty and that's what he has to do to keep an audience he does not he's not dr phil he's not dr oz he doesn't

have the hook he's going to have to make it more of a kind of a silly variety show i mean certainly it's one thing to want to expand your horizons and try different things but i just can't help thinking i mean this is the same guy who was the only non c.b.s. reporter to be able to do the segment on sixty more there and then you see this let's turn it around and look at the other side jon stewart i mean every single night you know you turn on and you're seeing doc being connected you know by jon stewart the daily show producers that are really holding our lawmakers accountable based on this putting a face to face bright back things that they said he's very smart shirtless with snooki who can't even pronounce his name we're going to call mr anderson what he did i mean what what what part with with jon stewart writing the job that we always sort of charged journalists rescuing which is holding the lawmakers accountable interviewing heavy hitters like admiral mike mullen what's happening when you

stephen colbert is doing it to me can't make him out there basically they're not really all they're doing is occupying the space but these guys once did you know occupied that's all it is it's not anything more complicated these people have abdicated their role to do investigative reporting to cover the news that people don't necessarily are uncomfortable with you know are and are not about say the. the propaganda arm of the republican party that some so far has become so you could do you question as wide open field and you have you know comedians that can move into that because they have lucy on kind of hipster audience as expanded so now they have the freedom to do this and that was chris chambers journalism professor at georgetown university and that's going to do it for now one i thank you so much for watching and if you want to see more on the stories that we covered that are forward slash us.