own free book and flooded video for your media project a freebie deodato our tetons tom. down but not defeated the occupy wall street movement continues to gain even more momentum today but the louder the scream the more they seem to be dismissed by some but r t is listening and we're there in new york as we speak. and as protesters rally against wasteful government spending where has all the money gone we had overseas for some answers as the u.s. marks ten years in afghanistan plus this new numbers do you believe.

in have a taste of. it. but as soldiers search for their home away from home is the u.s. getting too comfortable in a country it promised to leave we'll take a look at the continuing presence of american troops in afghanistan. good evening it's friday october seventh at seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm laurin leicester and you're watching our t. now it is friday and occupy wall street is still going strong in new york the third week of friday's that we've seen protesters ranging from the hundreds camping out to the thousands on the street speaking out against inequality and grievances over the financial system now this movement continues to grow we've seen demonstrations in cities the ones you see behind me also including st louis gallois san francisco

you see los angeles there also boston and chicago there's also demonstrations in philadelphia we've also seen a sympathetic movement protesting in washington d.c. this week and our viewers have been sending us stuff chad subtle meyer a viewer sent these photos of occupy portland. there you can see their criticism of the koch brothers who are believed to be behind the tea party are supporting them eat the rich obviously some criticism towards the wealthy they're a commentary on inequality i suppose an aggressive one and more there you can see the clear. criticism very similar from east coast to west coast and we just want to take an opportunity to to state that as your stuff because we want to post it here on our web site or area so you can put it on our facebook at facebook dot com slash r t america you can also tweet us at r t underscore america or you can reply with videos on our you tube comment so as this is all going on protesters are still in the lower manhattan and the corporate media today isn't

paying much attention not too much they're paying more attention to the stuff behind the name they may be shown some shots here and there of the protests but a lot of other stories are getting more attention occupy wall street not getting top billing r.t. interview hip hop artist really probably about this about occupy wall street and here's what he had to say about the media job in the media for katrina media critic we're going to get you because i was. with this. with the you know what would you do there's got to be a reason. there's got to be a reason and yet the mainstream media outlets are trying to brush off the movement maybe not paying attention to numbers or maybe characterizing the movement as anarchist and unfocused just organized well our own correspondent and its profits are going to in new york she has been covering this and she walked through the camp to see if there's any truth to those claims that we've heard by the corporate media . these are. people you know. accused of

being i don't know kissed and disorganized the occupy wall street in count one is far from chaotic it is set up like a small village in up into themed sections way better organized than i bought it would be. they really have it set up so that there isn't a clear leader in the organization and the way that it's done but at the same drive . every part seems to be handled by someone a medical area staffed by volunteers provides on the spot assistance or comfort area supply sweaters and boy gets to keep demonstrators warm as the season gets chilly or while the donated sleeping bags pile up as the number of protesters close because we just took a chinatown bus if you're from richmond virginia. the kitchen providing a traditional american breakfast bread bagels and peanut butter and jelly plant foods are used to filter water here we have breakfast seven thirty in the morning

people don't know. cereal we have lunch. we have snacks continually throughout the day is your dinner at seven thirty the media center has been broadcasting a live stream from day one of the protests for already three weeks videos film during clashes with police are posted online from these laptops you've got people coming to run it in here i mean panicky you know adrenaline rush with cameras i got footage i got footage you know processing food is getting it online and simultaneously having people tweet you know in facebook what our social media using social media and to. get the message out to what's happening as quick as possible right feeds of the protests are being followed by supporters across the u.s. and the world for the viewership really goes. to keep a steady constant you know provision information is also spread in more traditional ways the status board helps protesters keep up to date with all the. we should develop is day twenty one of occupy wall street zero chance of rate the number of

arrests of each of over eight hundred thirty for. a library area let's protesters relax and educate themselves literature tastes fiction nonfiction magazines related searches and we got c.d.'s d.v.d.'s ago documentaries hope people are wall street finds itself in being a peaceful grassroots democratic movement without leaders there are just different decisions made by different groups if there's a to be some decision that's going to supposedly speak on bart on behalf of everyone here but now we need to have an evening general assembly and need to be consensus on by everyone here all of the many cooks in the kitchen and here to cook up one thing the revolution of change in america the situation or archie. and talk more about this earlier i spoke with some people who have a lot of insight into the movement that's spreading coast to coast also the

coverage of it berg and nicky schiller they are protesters and also members of the occupy wall street media team and vlad used to be a derivative of a derivatives trader in the past he was he worked on wall street and so i had to ask him about that for us i asked him a simple question how do you go from market on wall street to occupying it here's what he had to say. honestly i was i was inside the whole system for quite a while when i was from with ninety's into through the which doesn't it. was always pretty apparent the amount of corruption that was insidious and it just never actually at the time it's just the early on in my career realized that the amount of greed and corruption for the actually destabilized the entire world. is the structure of the pie world. is that i used all the money i was making working in the drivetrain to sort of fund the movement by developing all these techniques to coach a jap system by spreading freedom of information that the system tries to keep

close and you know i just want to stay on this for one more minute because a lot of people you don't often get to talk to someone inside wall street who will say what was going on that was so corrupt could you just tell us what you think is really wrong that's going on i mean there's a lot of things around which we're going to try to get it so that i mean again i mean in terms of just one big example. well how we got here right if you think about it the whole the potential explosion that was followed by a huge financial bailout. double scored by banks basically prints and take money and they printed big money using derivatives by. basically bribing the. rating agencies to issue ratings on these new minted securities that are bought and pushed everything into the pension upon into and this is a big government that will call a price

a securities and. that was done through combination of things one of them was the people who are at the top of this who should actually have no clue what was going on recently or local was going on so it raises a question of how some of the managers have gotten their jobs will place a promotion was obviously not efficient and that was the system in place actually with people worries and questions about how things work they would do basically just push the size of the rock the boat type thing so i think a lot of there was enough conspiracy probably as such but maybe like human nature i don't buy that handbag is the type of thinking we're very good at making from the from the punch-bowl going on and that's probably had a lot to do with the culture or excessive compensation not doing much big now in energy very much the culture of what. it was and everything else was. so glad let me get in here because by design corrupt by design let me get in here because i

want to get back to that but i want to bring it into the conversation because you were talking about not biting the hand that feeds you and speaking of one of the reasons why you guys are doing this live stream that i thought was so that you could get the reality out there that you feel the mainstream media isn't covering what do you think the mainstream media is missing here. i mean. somebody in the me maybe. covered what's going on. that is where and he works is the only turn. to weakness of the media to there that this was from the real and the bodies but as a result trusting to bleed to death even these cultural activities. happening that is so i mean this is this turn of. the town for the people who are glued to the bodies to the plan vlad what how would you

characterize what is going on on the streets of new york right now how would you characterize this occupy wall street movement. well i mean it's changing every day it's calling for literally or in terms of what's out of the streets of new york there was huge a lot of support. because of people there's so much. people discovering more more about what's going on because there's a huge outpouring of support and will more people coming to the square you know and i'm just curious do you think a follow up on your wall street background is that corporate culture kind of corruption and greed and now trying to bite the hand that feeds you had a big bonus does that continue on the street to your knowledge. i'm sure it's is what that whole thing i mean that that this particular it was probably going to qualify this protest is not needed just about wall street was just a very nice symbol to focus on i think this protest and what's happening now with all these occupations around the country is about the future of our society and

watch it is just one of many many problems and we. know it well you're going to question what you think that what you say that the prime time stuck at that is an apology and a country inequality is a huge focus is a huge issue i mean the realities are when you thought i mean the reason this is happening now and not to take two years ago is because and it's you can notice it's happening with the economic conditions that are really deteriorating for the population at large the population reduced us to wake up americans are beginning to wake up out of the reason they're waking up is because they're beginning to realize that the children are going to graduate from college just basically in terms of service for the rest though i have because of the loans that are going to be kicked out of their house to in the process of being kicked out of the house by private banks so and so and so on but the issues of inequality that's what's happening that's something the pressure the square so the capital square is actually that you're spreading because when the squares are taken over which is what happens

basically is the probably data set up that the date of the few simple rules right and one of those rules is that world war. there you have it the quality on the streets of new york amidst inequality in this country that was glad to expert and if you still are of the occupy wall street media team now for the latest on what's going on actually out there at occupy wall street you've got to follow our intrepid producer lucy cavanagh if you already do you know that she is a very active tweeter and very good and she's in the midst of the action in new york covering these protests as you can see here are some of her latest tweets which i can't read too well to hopefully you can on the screen but go follow her to read them all first hand as they come in for the latest hottest news from occupy wall street what you need to know you're not going to stay on the corporate media and she can get it he is faster then probably even we can right here so follow lucy at lucy cavanagh for the up to the minute action there this weekend to now from

unrest at home to under us to brought this week marks the ten year anniversary of the war in afghanistan and at the end the combat mission will continue indefinitely protesters here in washington are trying to do something about it they've launched a protest against the war their message is similar to occupy wall street demonstrations that we're seeing spread across the nation and our chief correspondent liz wahl here in d.c. she takes us to freedom plaza where the protest sparked up this week and also look at the true cost of war that these people are protesting. afghanistan ten years later. more shooting more bloodshed and not an end in sight the guys there are in afghanistan fighting hard to help us the coalition forces were ten years old when this war started the expense of the war in afghanistan is staggering it cost the lives of nearly seventeen hundred u.s.

soldiers an estimated thirty four thousand afghan troops and civilian dad and nearly half a trillion dollars poured into war and today anti-war activists say enough is enough it's being. carried out on the backs of the poor and on the working class. thousands gather at freedom plaza in washington d.c. demanding an end to the wars we want the war to stop now and one way is to stop the funding of the war in iraq and afghanistan and we hope that's what the people will really put the pressure on our leaders to do. the protests sparked this week marked both the ten year anniversary of the war in afghanistan and the first week of the new federal budget a budget which funnels an enormous amount of cash and so wars in the military budget is fifty five percent of federal discretionary spending if you had the intelligence budget in the national security budget at sixty six percent these

protesters say the wars in the middle east are being fought at the expense of the middle class and pushing people into poverty after the budget is austerity for everything except for the military and so that's why you see home was advocates unemployed out activist poverty activist kind of activists i know. protesters here say they no longer have a voice in washington and this is their only chance of being heard it is only through civil disobedience and mass protest that we have any and i'm not saying we'll succeed but we have any hope. returning the country to what the constitution calls that consent of the governor. elected leaders listen and act demonstrators say they'll be camped out here until they see some change from washington. thoughtfully break down the list of u.s. achievements in afghanistan occupy a country for over a decade spend half

a trillion dollars on occupation and it's being conservative check achieved a fragile and reversible those are quotes gains check so as the afghanistan war reaches its tenth anniversary are we any closer to an end for more i spoke with lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer senior fellow for the center for advanced defense studies he's also author of this book operation dark heart i asked him after eighteen hundred american deaths and a half a trillion dollars of u.s. spending conservatively speaking what has this war gotten the u.s. taxpayer here's his response. frankly nothing never in my book my book actually covers a tipping point two thousand and three we actually achieved our major military objectives by two thousand and three what you've seen since then is just especially are dealing with a culture we don't fully understand and if i may be so bold to say following the same failed path the soviets dollars in their occupation there's

a great series of articles called the bear one over the mouth but apparently the pentagon leadership didn't bother to read which really showed how it was still a taxi drivers and share the urban areas to basically modernize the culture and some hope that they would become a twenty first century society they've not done that frankly nor should we set out to do that it's not our job and i know this sounds really harsh not our job to to make. the lives of the afghan people better our job was to ensure the terrorist attacks cannot be mounted from there and that's what we did in zero three frankly everything since then has been a waste and yet at the same time the united states is still there and not only is the us there but as i mentioned in my opening the u.s. is expanding and building a one hundred million dollar prison on bob graham terribly why are they continuing in this direction for their allies the real answer is that you have a momentum of bureaucracy which just doesn't like to admit it's wrong you have

reader after leader make their their name and this even you know betray us has left and i at least so because they have not achieved any any of their own stated objectives the pentagon or state said several times that they stop the momentum of the taliban well that's just not true it's false and frankly it would never never be possible until we actually deal with the root of instability which is pakistan so ever it's like the weather everybody talks about it but nobody is doing about it the issue of how we decide we're going to get serious is really pakistan the afghan government knows that we know that the mole and bodily within the last two weeks that the pakistani intelligence service has been helping the atomic bomb frankly my book was. yes by the pentagon last year at this time because they didn't want to admit that back my book talks about it in great detail so basically you have a pentagon which is committed to a pale course and they are not always doubling down the other crippling down on things that they know they cannot win but that now people are talking about pakistan and you've heard that kind of coming on that on the drums of war over that

i cannae network which was blamed for the attack on that and that and the same thing and afghans are sad and you have heard more talk about concerns over pakistan with united states supposed to be moving out of afghanistan but are you just calling for more war and just living that all about no not at all it's time we leave if it were up to me for president obama i would declare victory that we actually did back in zero three you know or i let it go this is a deal you have to see regional solutions one of the things i talk about my book and tribunal process did say was we need to seek a northern ireland peace process for all parties come to the table and all people with an interest actually sit down and work with this this is not an american issue this is truly a pakistan afghan india iran issue and frankly there should be work with those people who live there to find a path forward conny that work frankly was something we the americans use during the time we were facing the soviets so we as americans in the neighborhoods we are

we have pretended otherwise to the realities which we face so this is what i'm talking about i'm talking about not doubling down what we're doing i would stop the building of the president prison right now if i could the idea is we have to actually accept the realities for what they are that military force is not the solution and step back from the table right now frankly we've got to look at the back to back the last terrorism attacks have been either been inspired or planned by belches the times square bomber actually was trained in pakistan so we've got to accept the reality for what it is and what is wishful thinking some help thinking that if we stay in afghanistan long enough we can modernize that country and along the lines of what. are saying you know pull out let the pakistan afghanistan deal with these issues themselves now you hear reports even now on the tenth anniversary people saying oh look out there could be a civil war in afghanistan are you saying if that's the case so what let them deal with it perfectly already is we're just the ones caught in the middle the karzai

the northern alliance the karzai government are not our friends or ryan crocker the current ambassador said during his hearings that the cars are corruption because there's a second insurgency so we're caught in the middle so what i'm saying is it's inevitable the two sides are going to take thought before we got there they were right after really we're the ones being focused on is the quote unquote occupiers anytime there's an occupier with the soviets were saying it's all forces come together and focus on us these are world war these are warlike tribes which are always we just extract ourselves a little bit at a really great point that you make up about that and that have been said in a past that get us as well empires go to die and the u.s. going to go that direction this is where they are going to fire the about it one of the key points that you just kind of refer to the afghan people are under british self-government we have to accept that we there's a lot of things we can do to help the tribes let's remember how we want we want by the fact that and forty two days we have had the afghan bullish it forces defeat

the taliban it wasn't us it wasn't an invasion so let's go back to how we won that victory and let things go in that direction when i was there no three or we were seen as being a right to spend it not as occupiers and so now over the past eight years it's changed now we're the issue we just are back to let things go to let the water kind of rise to a stature level and let the people there try to start living their lives without any influence from us other than making sure that they cannot mount attacks against us that's it and a lot more people than just you saying that the senate chamber i mean you have sixty two percent of people according to a new c.b.s. poll that say that they want troops out of afghanistan now we haven't seen thousands of protesters and washington d. . see according to one of them that was just here on my show who are protesting the u.s. wars and the u.s. still being in afghanistan what does it take for that to affect the decisions of top brass and the president of the united states well i don't know i don't want to take this or because frankly people like me who have been there have not been

consulted on what this thing is not being to do so this is solution is this we've got this back and let's look at the issues for what they really are until we do that we'll begin to have people doubling down to play down the same bad policies this is what we have to avoid and an important lesson to heed in the tenth anniversary of the war in afghanistan that was author of the book operation dark heart and senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer. so the question has all the time and effort been worth it well let's see what people on the streets think that's what laurie harkness of the resident did she hit up time where to see what everybody had to say. it's been ten years since the us found afghanistan as a prelude to an ongoing war later has it been worth it this week let's talk about that. so what are they doing there for ten years i don't know what the hell

are they doing i don't know it's probably another vietnam. war where the problem is not a winner. the other side's going to win it's just a case of more and more americans and others dying i think it's clear cut see that it's not worth it i don't see it go and i don't really see anything changing even if we stay there another hundred years it was worth it to hunt down al qaeda i think we did there at the start with our special forces and for the past nine years i don't think we've accomplished much at all the controversial question there is present constant situation of the press the proses i think that we have to make a statement that we aren't able to. say things sitting down that we have a voice and whether it's there's more peaceful ways to present that probably have to go on for ten years that you take a stand for ten years it's a hornet's nest there's no winner over there. we're in there with them but what do

we have to do. well eventually begin to bring peace and i mean that's such a nebulous thing right like i we really bringing peace to afghanistan well only time will tell you know i don't really know enough about it to say whether it was worth it and i know you think that's crazy that your country's been at war for ten years and you don't know anything about it that is a problem. but yeah most americans feel that way you know i'm sure a lot of americans there were pro and anti i look at this i mean for for a war there for that long i mean i better be for something and we better be getting something out of it. i think that's going to happen. it seems like most people don't feel like the u.s. war in afghanistan has been worth it unfortunately no one in power seems to be listening.

now to going to subject peter van buren works for the state department had for two decades and he's written a new book called we met well how i helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the iraqi people he was in iraq as part of the civilian surge where you help try to buy the love of iraq ease to win the war with projects like examples he gives are putting on a play about donkeys for thousands of dollars i asked him about his experiences in iraq and also what it meant for afghanistan first i ask him to tell us what you and feel his book about iraq. the idea was probably good in the abstract we were going to go to iraq and we were going to win over the iraqis hearts and minds if you will soft power counterinsurgency whatever term you prefer to use they all circle back to the same thing we can't win these wars simply by killing people and breaking things we didn't learn that message in vietnam we are

trying to learn it in the middle east but every step forward seems to put us to the steps back the idea is that after the shooting is done we still need to go in explain to people how their country is different how they may want to change the way they live talk about democracy talk about a capitalist economy talk about a free press and try to get them to understand the good side of america and there is a good side out there the problem is we do it in a clumsy way that's disorganized and so instead of affecting people's lives in a positive way we do end up spending too much money on donkey plays and some of the silly projects that you saw earlier in the broadcast here so it doesn't work it can work but it didn't work in this case we were hampered by a number of problems primarily it was that we were fighting the war when your time everyone was assigned to iraq for a one year contract and so everything was done on a short term basis there was enormous pressure to show short term results what do you have for us this week when is that project initial some results when can we

bring some journal southall see things take some pictures out there so the actual hard work of development the idea of building a base slowly over time that creates the possibility of a pyramid just wasn't in the equation a long term vision just by all of the year that the u.s. is banned in iraq and in afghanistan i want to ask you to apply your experience and what you saw to afghanistan where the u.s. is trying to win hearts and minds that in a pail the original top subtitled report was lessons for afghanistan harm the reconstruction of iraq and we need to change. had to put the blame on me how i helped lose the battle myself so it's my fault i'm sorry i'm not the lessons are there and the reason i wrote the book was not so much to tell you what happened in iraq but to lay out some lessons for afghanistan for libya for somalia for yemen for wherever else we're going to try to do this because the idea of reforming societies and reconstructing them in the mideast is not.