since they stand for the same policies he was explaining his much publicized withdrawal from the race and during an interview with the russian media. and terror in libya thousands are driven from their homes in the coastal city of syria as fighting intensifies between pro and anti kadafi forces showing no signs of letting up the city is suffering heavy shelling and a tank fire with nato warplanes flying overhead the red cross with warnings of the dire humanitarian situation on the ground. next we head to our washington studio now to discuss the death of a suspected senior al qaeda operative killed by the cia that's now going to show.

welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey we live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at the killing of anwar the lucky what i mean for al qaeda most importantly excessive presidential powers jeremy scahill is going to join us for that what then should the department of homeland security be abolished some argue that that's one government agency full of unnecessary waste that we could do without and then as the eurozone moves closer to increasing their bailout fund we're going to look at what obstacles still stand in the way and what the chances are that the fund is even going to be enough business insiders joe weisenthal hash it out with us or have all that and more getting a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. wasn't sure you've heard by now this morning the reports came in that u.s.

born muslim cleric anwar allah locky had been killed in yemen now this was the first attempt on his life by the us but i guess this time the cia and special ops forces had enough intelligence to make sure the drone hit the right target so the mainstream media obviously very dutifully reported the news as another big victory in our war on terror but take a very careful look to see what's missing from their coverage. one of all kind as top recruiters who once preached at a mosque in virginia and california he was called the internet bin ladin because of his skills of recruiting terrorists online just two of the world's most wanted terrorists our dad. who was killed by a missile from a u.s. drone he was considered one of the biggest terrorist threats to u.s. homeland security and more level locky the head of al qaeda in yemen killed in a u.s. drone strike two predator drones equipped with hellfire missiles took out. now

to start with let me point out who the second person was that was killed samir khan an american citizen of pakistani origin who was the editor of inspire. magazine but so here we have every mainstream media outlet reporting on the death of one of the worst terrorists in the world and their banners say american born on the bottom and yet not a single one of them bothered to mention that this raises some very very serious legal issues i guess not all that surprising considering that they've never shown any concern over the fact that this president place an american citizen on this fascination list but now that this u.s. citizen where a lockie and one other have actually been assassinated by their own government you think they just might do you understand the magnitude of what was just done here you have one man the president of the united states that just decided that he can singlehandedly order the death of a u.s. citizen without asking any court without any form of due process whatsoever that is exactly the type of thing that our constitution is supposed to protect against so

essentially king obama just tore that constitution right up trampled all over it decided that he is above it that sets an incredibly dangerous precedent and the problem here is that people are actually cheering this jet cheering it as a positive step in our war on terror cheering is yet another victory for this president but what happens when it's not somebody that the government is labeled as a terrorist or gets killed or executed should i say what happens when someone else when it's not obama that's deciding on ordering executions is the left suddenly going to come out of the woodwork say that it's insane that it's dangerous it's excessive use of power if there are any objections at that point they won't matter because the president has already been set you can't pick and choose with something like this it doesn't matter by the law he was a bad guy he deserved to be in jail for the rest of his life none of that is ever going to be resolved now we didn't take into the courts we just kids justice and constitutional protections good bye but the mainstream media well what do they have to say about it. luly nothing they just regurgitate the official report told the

official line talk about what a victorious moment this is for our war on terror and for the president. completely blind to the fact that the standards of this country are changing before their very eyes so much for a government watchdog you know i think this is a sad day for this country not a celebre tory want but that's something that the mainstream media is apparently more than happy to miss. now aside from the glaring legal concerns of the us government assassinating one of its own citizens without any means of due process we have to examine some of the other claims that have been made about on while locky and his role in al-qaeda here's what president obama had to say about it today. the death of a lock is a major blow to al qaida as most active operational affiliate a lot he was the leader of external operations for al qaeda in the arabian

peninsula. in that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent americans. now in the past the government is using state secrets privilege to hide any real evidence that they may have about a lock is a legit operational role so why now is it being treated this fact or earlier i caught up with jeremy scahill national security reporter for the nation magazine and author of the book blackwater the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army i first asked him if you have the same reaction that i did to the media coverage today about the lack of questioning about the due process for the killing of an american citizen. right i mean for there are there are two sort of glaring media errors here in my view one is anwar locky was not the leader of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula most yemen experts people that have spent much time there have reviewed it including former u.s. officials say that he is a fairly mid-level management within al qaeda he's far more important to the u.s. counterterrorism community than he is to anyone in yemen or anyone in the arab

world for that matter secondly though we have an almost an utter lack of discussion in this country to date of the fact that president obama has served as judge jury and executioner of a u.s. citizen i'm not here to defend anwar locky or anything that that man did with his life but i am here to say that we should be a nation that follows its own laws and subscribes to the rule of law and we can have our own government assassinate our own citizen on a non declared battlefield where he's not directly engaging with american forces in hostilities that's a sad day for america when we don't have a very rigorous debate about that ideally before we kill our own citizens now i couldn't agree with you more there now when it comes to you know what you say is a glaring media error in terms of overestimating the lock ease influence how high up he is in al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is also something that we hear coming from the president himself who comes out and says that we have just dealt a decisive blow to al qaeda you know who else is responsible for some of the

misinformation. well i mean first of all so the president used the title for that i haven't found anyone in the counterterrorism community that has ever heard him labeled with such an official position within a q a p but it's you know i would say that part of it is the u.s. media system that relies on anonymous officials who never have to be held accountable for the statements that they make of the propaganda that they feed to c.n.n. or other networks on the one hand on the other hand though it's lazy journalism it's you know if i had a dollar for every time somebody sent me a tweet today trying to proclaim their vast expertise on adora locky because they read something on wikipedia. that would be a millionaire but i maybe would have twenty thirty bucks you know the fact is that most of the people yapping about anwar locky had never heard of him or if they did they probably knew something that was factually incorrect you know the reality is that most credible sources say that this was a guy whose primary threat to the united states was his ability to go on youtube

and preach his message of hatred and let's also remember and no one wants to talk about this on moral locky after nine eleven it was a mainstay in the news hour with jim lehrer he was in the washington post as a voice of moderation condemning nine eleven but also condemning u.s. policy so it's quite likely that anwar lock himself was radicalized as a result of what was perceived widely in the muslim world to be a war against islam we don't spend a lot of time studying or talking about blowback in this country but we should because you could make a reasonable case that he was a product of u.s. policy he seemed to be a guy that was very much critical of nine eleven up to the u.s. invasion of iraq and now aside from the fact that of course there are a lot of you tube videos out there that the u.s. government tried to get taken down and some of which they did speaking in very good english and of course you know preaching his philosophy is there ever any direct proof will we ever seen the government disclose any direct proof that he's

a. actually been behind any plot society and maybe being an inspirational people like. the fort hood shooter is there any direct proof that he was involved with a christmas tree or excuse me at the shoe bomber or with any other plot out there a bomb or underwear bomber thank you well let me just take these in part because you asked a couple questions here first on the issue of major nidal hasan who is the alleged fort hood shooter he hasn't been prosecuted yet so you know we have to be careful about that because we do have a system of justice in this country that's supposed to be respected as far as the communications between a locket asan go they took place before he was the this incident took place in fort hood and investigators that reviewed those e-mails said that there was nothing indicating that a lockie had directed him to take part in that action and that their discussions were of a more spiritual nature about the koran lucky did praise major nidal hasan after the fort hood shootings but again that's not any evidence that he was involved that

the most serious allegation against a lockie is that he provided operational support to the alleged underwear bomber that you were referring to earlier but there has been no evidence and certainly no evidence that would stand up in a court of law other than hearsay to indicate that that's true that's why it would have been important to have a trial or an indictment but the obama administration is hiding behind state secrets much like the bush administration did when the center for constitutional rights of the a.c.l.u. represented his father in a u.s. court the prime motivation for them representing him was to say to the government if you're going to assert the right to kill one of your own citizens we demand to see the evidence against him and that case was dismissed on state secret grounds and so the obama administration saying we have this evidence we just can't show it to you because it's too sensitive do you think that there's any chance that they might release that information now or that you know if there were another lawsuit they were to take place they won't be able to claim state secrets anymore because let's face it they already went and killed them. i you know i wouldn't expect to

see any sort of mother. a load of proof against anwar a lockie i mean the fact is that president obama is not going to be under any pressure from anyone that matters to his administration to produce such evidence he has normalized policies that would have been the source of scorn and denunciation from liberals the nation policy the bombing multiple countries the intervening around the world he's normalized it in a way that a president mccain would not have been able to do so i think that short of the usual suspects who do horrible things like defend prisoners at guantanamo stand up against warrantless wiretapping that supported by the democrats and the republicans short of that clik of uncouth people no one is going to be raising any ruckus about this capitol hill only six members to rep who said it was bill last year attempting to just say that the u.s. should not assassinate its own citizens without due process i mean that gives you a sense of where things are in this country a half a dozen members of the u.s. congress dared to sign

a piece of paper that said we don't believe in assassinating our own citizens without due process and i'm happy that you brought that up because yesterday on our show we were discussing an op ed by legal scholar john terry who not only talked about obama's horrible civil liberties record but he actually said that obama just may have killed the civil liberties movement here you know something that we saw a lot of organization for a lot of passion for towards the end of the bush administration there was hope obama ran as a presidential candidate and promised to abide by the rule of law and i wonder if you agree with that that he's killed the civil liberties movement that no one ever is going to really stand up and away the finger anymore. i don't know that i would go as far as to say that he's killed the civil liberties movement i do think though that given that he is a constitutional law expert his policies have been shockingly terrible given what we've seen unfold and both domestically and internationally but i the reason that i say i disagree with that is because i know those are very brave people from these legal organizations that have been fighting for so long and they are not going to

be giving up. anytime soon and they get hammered for it all the time at times accused of being terrorists or operatives for the republican party i was accused today repeatedly of being a g.o.p. troll because i had the audacity to have the exact same position on president obama's targeted killing that i had on president bush's so i mean i think that those people that believe in the rule of law and due process as a matter of principle are going to hold it under both the democratic and republican administrations so whether or not a president obama completely killed that movement you know i think that's a debatable question i like to believe though that there are people that believe so deeply in this country they're going to continue to fight even if it becomes politically unpopular as it as it has under president obama now some people tried to argue that legally under the authorization of the use of military force it may have been ok for after president obama to go after our lackey because he was fighting for a foreign power here i'm wondering what your take is on that i mean define fighting for a foreign power do they have evidence that they have evidence that anwar locky was

himself in gauged in hostilities against the united states he was not on a battlefield of course under various rules of law combatants have a right to kill other combatants the united states i think is on very shaky legal grounds with that congressional authorization for the use of military force and applying it to al qaeda in the arabian peninsula an organization that did not exist in eleven and was very much an outgrowth of u.s. policy attacking afghanistan and other countries around the world muslim countries around the world so i mean it's a subject of much hot debate in a way it's irrelevant because this president has solidified it as a bipartisan right of both democratic and republican presidents to kill whoever they want with whatever legal justification they choose to to apply and i you know unfortunately the obama administration is also playing legal acrobatics much the way the bush administration did in defending these policies so you know the legal argument at the end of the day is we're not going to win that one because there are

. one's in control of writing the laws and manipulating the law to fit their missions it should be the other way around where you have a principle and then you see how it applies to the actions you want to take where we just apply the law retroactively to the actions you want to take and argue that the way it should be i think there's a very serious case to be made even under their law or their interpretation of the authorization for the use of military force that he was not a legitimate target and that's what the center for an a.c.l.u. have tried to argue and i think that they're right i don't believe as horrible of a person as anwar a lockie was i don't believe that the authorization was legitimate to kill him i just want to ask you one last thing to do you think that this changes the relationship with yemen at all and then of course when we've seen people protesting in other countries say libya we decided to go and stage a humanitarian intervention and again not so much because of course even depending on help work with us to help give information on the ground now might that change. i think that the vast majority of yemenis would say that the you know the greatest

threat that they face is ali abdullah saleh the u.s. backed president. was barely known to anyone if you if you look at the reporting of laura kasem off of the new york times or other reporters that are in yemen today there's some hilarious tweets coming out of that where people are saying was he was a lucky was he that used car salesman was he the refrigerator repair guy and people not knowing who he was so what i think this solidifies in the eyes of many in yemen is that the u.s. is firmly in bed and remains firmly in bed with ali abdullah saleh who just returned from from exile in saudi arabia where he was getting medical treatment after he was very nearly killed the u.s. sends a message in its statement thanking the yemenis to that they remain with this utterly despised dictator that's ruled yemen for thirty years and i jam and i thank you so much for joining us tonight. thank you. i said to come tonight we often highlight wasteful spending by the defense department on the shelf that's now

a few more examples of questionable thanks accounts that make and should define a homeland security be a polished and i think that i think it's. three . three. three. three. four your media drug free media r t dot com.

well whistleblower within the state department to shed light on get more instances of wasteful spending by the u.s. in iraq state department employee peter van buren was in iraq from two thousand and nine to two thousand and ten it's part of a provincial reconstruction team so interrupt van buren came across several unnecessary projects are being funded by us to taxpayer dollars take for instance a children's art calendar a local baghdad school children entered a contest for the best artwork for a calendar that calendar was then distributed to a nearby neighborhood but the rest of the calendars all ended up going to the state department employees and the price tag was only eighteen thousand dollars or how about a local gym for cider city residents that was redecorated with a large mirror all that apparently looks like a man competing in a mr universe contest price tag on that one twenty two thousand dollars disadvantaged iraqi women were treated to a french pastry class thanks to the state department all the classes were taught by volunteers there is still a bill of ten thousand dollars to be paid now those are just

a few of the examples that van buren decided to highlight of your tax dollars being spent to win hearts and minds of course and i'm going mention all these projects in his book we meant well however his work has fallen under the scrutiny of state department officials ever since he riposte had a wiki leaks cable on his personal blog and subsequent blog post man baron explains how he has been interrogated by the bureau of diplomatic security and was ordered to have any further tweets facebook posts or blog posts approved before being shared the earlier he spoke with r t's lauren lyster. about the government's continuing efforts to silence whistleblowers point to point realize that they couldn't stop the publication of my pool they wanted to send a message the easiest books to stop are the ones that are never written and so for my colleagues out there who are seeing things and making notes and thinking about their own books watching the treatment that state or ms given me sends a very clear signal that if you do want to publish a book you're going to pay a very heavy price for it perhaps your career. of a baron joins

a group of former government employees people like tony shaffer frequent guest on this show and ishmael jones a former interrogator who also is under the magnifying glass after their own books were shed light upon unpopular acts within the military and the cia now the way i see it van buren is just the latest example of the obama administration's crackdown on whistle blowing none of the information that he wrote about was classified and as for the wiki leaks cable that was already publicly available on the web so why is this man being targeted or perhaps van buren said it best to make an example out of him to prevent similar issues from annoying the government in the future. now defense spending on weapons systems our wars abroad those aren't the only areas where we see a lot of waste and discussed the massive amount of money that's also spent on homeland security here at home we haven't spoken to john mueller what his new book found by using cost benefit analysis that in order to justify the increase in homeland security spending post nine eleven we would have to deter prevent foil or protect against one thousand six hundred sixty seven attacks per day or or for

a year excuse me or four attacks per day but now some are arguing that we not only should take a discerning look at spending maybe we should abolish the department of homeland security altogether so without the smarts and would it ever really happen joining me to discuss it is jeanne healey vice president at the cato institute and columnist for the washington examiner jeanne thanks so much for being here and i make sure you know so what do you say department home security you just you want to get rid of it you want to abolish it. absolutely it's one of the worst domestic legacies of nine eleven it's a giant bureaucracy of fear that it's mostly been devoted to harassing in a sin airline travelers groping pre-schoolers i think we can definitely do without it but how would you sell that to the american people because at the end of the day unfortunately i think what we've seen time and time again is that people are willing to be harassed they're willing to give up a lot of civil liberties if they think that something is keeping them safe and especially when you have stories like yesterday another terror plot that was foiled

by the f.b.i. despite the fact that maybe the f.b.i. had a little bit of a hand in creating it themselves well yes like most of the terror plots since nine eleven the majority of my think this is actually the they never got operational and a lot of times it involves an f.b.i. informant who's actually grew seeing the plot along but i think to your original question i think look i know abolishing v.h.s. would be an uphill battle but on like other wasteful inefficient on necessary departments this is one that gives people the business end of the state every time they every time they travel you know that this is an agency that the most visible part of it puts you to a choice when you travel you know the government is either going to look at you naked or feel you up and it's your choice i think this is causing a lot of resentment and i think you're increasingly seeing even republicans looking

at cutting some of this but so to you it's more about the principle here that you don't like what the department of homeland security is doing rather than the money and the waste because i mean we probably could just pick a few weapon systems write a few contracts that have been awarded by congress that would add up to you know the same amount if not more of what has been spent on homeland security the last ten years yeah that's right it's not the biggest line item in the federal budget and there are a lot of departments that would like to get rid of that waste money i think some. of the spending in the homeland security department though more than wasteful it actually encourages infringements on civil liberties i mean everyone knows the famous stories about kids being. you know found old at the airport and so on but what's also been going on through the homeland security grant program thirty four billion dollars over the last nine years is the building up slowly at the local level of the militarized surveillance state you have grants going to

localities for security cameras there's a fishing village in alaska that has twenty four hundred people and eighty security cameras you have small towns so throughout the country getting homeland security grants to get armored personnel carriers which are going to be used in no knock drug raids and so this is a little more concerning a little more dangerous than say like a small business administration grant so i think it's worth the emphasis on this kind of spending you know that's something that we talk about often on the show too if you could say this over militarization of police forces the use excessive use of force and of swat teams in general when it comes to nonviolent right drug raids but i'm just wondering do you think that this is something that the better handled by private industry because that it would just be a blanket here is a ton of money with it what you want. well i don't think you could probably find some homeland security grants that were useful you can find things we've gone after

nine eleven that definitely made sense or hardening cockpit doors for example but i don't think there should be so who's going to handle that if the problem homeland security doesn't exist anymore well i think. first of all when you abolish the department of homeland security you do get rid of janet napolitano his job but you do not abolish every responsibility for public safety for the federal government i mean a protection against terrorism is a serious responsibility. the federal government meaning agencies to do that kind of thing are not within the d.h.s.s. now the f.b.i. is not within within the d.h.s.s. now you know the you on we'll the combination of twenty two agencies that have responsibilities from everything from counterfeiting to you know disaster relief and it doesn't make any sense going to go into other agencies then making those golden age i think even bigger well what i think you would have some things

completely abolished you have say the air marshal service completely abolished the homeland security grant program basically abolished and then you would have things like we're still going to coast guard which is within the homeland security. organization now. but i think one thing the one benefit that you would get out of it is you get rid of this horrible germanic soviet term homeland security that has become like this talisman so you know it's as a colleague of mine puts it it allows people to wrap pork barrel spending in red white and blue i think if you swallow it just to go into that because they're running out of time too i just want to ask you what you think the chances are of this happening because everyone always talks about how polarized congress is these days but there is always a lot of bipartisan consensus when it comes to things like increasing defense spending and homeland security spending and of course you know allowing the patriot act to keep on going well i'm not naive this is like i said this is an uphill battle it will be done tomorrow for example the house just voted to freeze for it

to stop funding on their three point four billion dollar you know pyramid complex in the you know new homeland security headquarters so there is some movement in this direction you know my job is to point out what i think would be the right thing to do in hopefully eventually when there's nothing else left to do congress will come along our jeanne i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight we'll see if this idea you know. as an attraction congress obviously is in a cutting mood unfortunately i think that often they're just not putting their sights on the areas that actually you know deserve to be glanced at and maybe homeland security is one of those but they have to deal with the whole fear aspect that they will have to sell to the americans thanks so much thank you. now still to come tonight he claims the occupy wall street protesters are talking the wrong people his comments. and george soros has a three step plan to stop the great depression at work we're going to hash out now

. in broadcasting live or direct from our central studios. glad to have you with us let's take a look at your top headlines on the war behalf and nato troops in kosovo impose a shoot to kill policy after bulldozing barricades erected by angry ethnic serbs over the seizure of a disputed checkpoint trouble reignited in the region after pristina sent in troops to take control of a border post leading to serbia two weeks ago the move infuriated the mostly service north of the breakaway republic who say kosovar albanians are trampling on their rights. and these are not. true any politician any political force made.