people after all the work we've done there's nothing else we could do with such a bill to take military action then of course you take military action it is unacceptable for iran to have a nuclear weapon and the us is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen even if it means going to war with iran but given the media outlets and down drones in assassinated scientists begs the question has the war already begun. i would like to extend my most sincere condolences. well sometimes sorry isn't enough pakistan is hitting the brakes on its relationship with the us and closing key supply road staff get on the stand and now russia might have to do

the same with the us keeps taking advantage will dig into the root of the problem. and while the american military deals with a literal roadblocks the e.u. has got its share of financial palls to deal with on the bumpy road to recovery but with threats mounting of a massive credit downgrade is the e.u. on life support it's thirty three cured by media stimulus two and a half to three may half million talk about lifestyles of the rich and famous meanwhile millions are struggling to make it through the day even scratching lottery tickets trying to get lucky they seem worlds apart but this great americans of night is well within walking distance. it's tuesday december sixth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching artsy. well tension between tehran and the west continue to ask. late recent events show both countries are engaging in

a dangerous a political game just this weekend iran claims to have shot down a u.s. drone flying over the country on the same day explosions outside the british embassy in bahrain this after the u.s. claims iran is behind a plot to kill a saudi ambassador and to washington right here on u.s. soil there's been a series of other mysterious explosions as well as assassinations of key scientists meanwhile the u.s. is cracking down on the country there was a series of sanctions all this all this has some asking are we already at war with iran let's take a look at some of the headlines on the web today because of the headlines from the daily mail the atlantic and newsmax all of them asking the very same question are we already at war with the country now officials on both sides have not shied away from rallying to go to war how can you forget senator john mccain's performance a few years back but over the old beach boys song bomb iran.

anyway. and more recently republican presidential candidates have said that we aren't being aggressive enough with iran take mitt romney for example to recognize the greatest threat that america in the world faces faced was a nuclear iran and he did not do what was necessary to get iran to be dissuaded from their nuclear folly what he should have done to speak out with dissidents took to the streets and say america is with you and we're going to cool the bases to encourage the dissidents but with everything that has happened is this proof that a covert war is already taking place to talk more about this i spoke to anthony shaffer director for x. turn all communications center for advanced defense studies i asked him if we are already in a covert war with iran here is his take. well i think it's pretty clear that these are no accidents to quote a line from jaws this is no boating accident the idea is yes i think everybody has equities here there are issues relating to military which i think there's no

practical way i know you hear a lot of saber rattling look there's over three hundred sites that have been identified as potential nuclear really nuclear related sites in iran so no country is going to go in to start bombing things at random secondly we really not determine what we want to do here let's remember one of the things about iran these are persians these are arabs they're more western european than they are arab and the people is mr romney just stated you know in july of two thousand and ten to to rise up that's what we should be focusing on helping the people gain freedom not on what the government is doing other than to try to help the government go away right and you know we are we are seeing these covert more more low key operations do you think that this could be a pretext to an all out war again i just don't know how anybody would be able to sustain war iran's a very large location and let's remember one of the key factors here for everyone no matter who you are there the third largest producer of oil on the planet so if

anything happens to that supply all the resources all prices go up so anybody who's considering military action i don't think fully understands the secondary and tertiary effects of a military action and how bad that would be for everybody so we really aren't a position he did because of the draw downs of forces from afghanistan and iraq or the practical application of force being that that you would lose at least for disrupt one third of the oil supplies to the planet i just don't think there's any way we can do it militarily at this point and even if it's not feasible or not practical why then are we seeing that this language in this post on both sides it seems like we are heading in that direction we're a nonpartisan think tank we don't take the right or left and one of the things that i think you're seeing here is one side. the republicans essentially taking up this reduced republican party a lot of conservative but frankly the idea here is that they're not thinking this through they are saying what they think the base wants to hear and not actually

looking at this saying logically if x. y. and z. does not mean you have to bomb them you have to find a way to essentially make sure that the nuclear weapons if these are established can't be used against us in the best way of doing that is by government reform government changes letting the people become free and i think a free society would not be so predisposed to having this against the west i think that's the way we should look at this and i want to ask you what with all this talk that we are seeing that gives the indication that war at least is definitely not off the table who stands to benefit from going to war with iran well that's a good question it's an excellent question and frankly no one if the iranians are attacked they may have capability right now to retaliate against the israelis against other targets in the middle east the saudis would be one of those the saudis the sunni shia thing is still an issue so therefore there's really no benefit to going to war now the question becomes what will the iranians do hall

aggressive will they become and frankly we do believe that they are doing things to be aggressive the developing e.m.p. weapons and nuclear weapons which could be used but again that the idea of them using them would not be in their benefit either because they would be devastated if they use for a nuclear weapon or any and first they will be devastated so i think there's no doubt upside for anyone using military force at this point in time we do see israel . at least prepping right gearing up salute at war with iran right and if that happens is it inevitable that the glass is going to follow suit and also be at war the first part of question absolutely this they fire the jerk-o. two missile about three four weeks ago showing that they have this ability to launch missiles clearly i've talked to folks who are on the ground there they are clearly worried blood. the very question you ask me what will we follow with is what they don't even know frankly i don't know if we know the why no one really has been able to ascertain what the white house would do with bush's come to shove on

this issue so i think that's the one thing perhaps even this ambiguity of policy may be helping by the fact no one really knows what will happen and while we are seeing this push to go to war on both ends not everyone is on board i want to play you a sign here from from iran per. iran does not have an air force that can come here they don't have they can't make enough gasoline for themselves and here we are you know you're going to use these they're doing up this case like just like we did to wrap up the more propaganda there was no al qaida you know racked nuclear weapons and we had to go read and i'm sure you supported that war as well it's time we call when it's time it's trillions. i just want to get your reaction to that he kind of called out some of the other candidates for playing into this war propaganda well i've debated representative paul i think he's a good guy we debated john stossel show on fox news all back you know i don't agree on everything but this is an area that i think he is more right than the other

candidates again we've got to understand not only the fact that maybe they do have a nuclear weapons program that they are developing but what are you trying to achieve and if you use military force what are the downsides let's remember we had a huge downside of invading iraq things that people i think all argued after the fact that the intel wasn't there to justify the military action and frankly the benefit of us going in has never been proven to anybody so i think that's ron paul's position i think he's correct in this in this area of his debate now but i also want to ask you to kind of take a step back and beyond iran to take a look at the region tension is mounting not only with iran and afghanistan right and pakistan especially after the u.s. accidentally. struck hello twenty four or twenty four pakistani is. pakistan is now taking action they're telling the us to get out to get their drones out of there and now in the region we are seeing this growing anti american sentiment what is behind this well it's hard for us to be both daddy warbucks and

the bad guy in pakistan but that's what we are we're the one paying the bill the same time we're being derived from what we're doing and just right here earlier today it turns out that there was a fire exchange of gunfire in kashmir between the indians and pakistanis this is the issue we continue to understand the indians are the real issue with pakistanis so we've got to figure out how to deal with that realistically and get us out from being in the middle of this whole conflict where that issue right now frankly those are the things when you look at the which are larger and last question you're back on iran how imminent do you think war is that what with all this that we're seeing . are we talking weeks or days i don't think anything is going to happen this month i think that the israelis are in a timeline there of their own timeline and i think if anything will happen to be late january early february the soonest but the concern is obviously will they be able to made a nuclear weapon to a missile that's the big piece that we're looking for now as soon as the years really think that may happen i think they may take action scary stuff anthony thank

you so much for weighing in on this and i was anthony shaffer and director for accidental communications center for advanced defense studies. well still ahead on our it's he on the brink of collapse the european union has reached a breaking point this week a massive credit downgrade is even possible even probable very soon that is unless they can get their financial ducks in a row in fast we'll speak to economist max bradwell about what this means for the global economy next. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here see some other part of it and realize everything you saw you don't know the time our city. thanks.

to the counseling i'm lauren lyster. the collapse of the euro zone growing in an imminent today fifteen euro zone countries now on standby after being told a massive credit downgrade is possible in the near future in response the euro crisis a new political alliance is threatening to impose a set of rules on their fellow eurozone countries the so-called more cozy deal well that is germany's angela merkel and france's sarkozy they are demanding automatic sanctions for nations that fail to balance their budgets to talk more about the crisis in the euro zone i spoke to senior analyst at green cross capital max fred

wolf with standard and poor's putting fifteen countries on alert i asked him a simple question what would the significance of such a massive downgrade mean take a listen. but the alert means is that there's a fifty fifty chance that a downgrade action will be taken in the next ninety days if there isn't some kind of action to ameliorate the problems if we saw anything like a fifteen nation downgrade particularly the downgrades of france and germany that are bundled into that as well as austria we would have an event much larger than lehman brothers that would cascade to the global markets and would push a teetering and very vulnerable european monetary union into true crisis there's been a sort of sense that the e.c.b. the i.m.f. sovereign policymakers in many of the european countries believed and conducted themselves as though they had more time than they did while the financial markets screamed out as did critics you don't have more time you don't have more time and they kind of leisurely looked at their watches and tried to do what was good for them domestically politically and acted like they had time that there was every

indication did not actually exist and can we talk about in the event that this this does happen and it looks like a very likely that it will happen and how the situation in the e.u. can affect confidence and global economies and even here in the u.s. i don't think we're in a near term fifteen country downgrade what we are going to see is a smaller more unified european union probably with some of the marginal states that were struggling here which have the highest debt burdens no longer part of the mechanism the question is do we get a stronger smaller more unified with fiscal as well as monetary union europe and if so how do we get there how orderly how voluntary how disorderly how valan involuntary and how much time and effort do german authorities and i.m.f. and e.c.b. authorities spend trying to force through a wish list of policy concessions from other countries while the clock runs out and the sands grow short and the hourglass. and you know certainly whatever happens

could it will have a global impact world leaders are concerned some are even pointing fingers here is nigel farage he is the co president for the europe of freedom and democracy that group expressing his anger at the situation you are in denial by any objective measure the euro is a failure i do is actually respect someone who was being shown out of you lot one of those the alter is not of you because none of you have been elected none of you actually have any democratic legitimacy for the roles that you currently hold within this crisis so i mean just your reaction to that is the euro a failure is this whole system for first seventeen countries was it a little too ambitious of the europe is the euro's in terrible shape as you're a brit large there are already heading into a recession with global ramifications i think it is important to talk about how serious the crisis is and also to remember that british and american commentators

have successfully forecasted one hundred of the twelve actual problems that the euro has had and there have been a number of folks rooting against the euro sometimes quite unwisely on their own behalf the crisis is real it's very serious the future will be different than the past but the total apocalypse scenario is still highly avoidable and i don't think the entire euro experiment is a disaster i think that's premature and has a dose of good will coming along with the analysis to people that are trying to avoid. the leaders of germany and france they have this new ritual vision for the euro zone could we talk about the significance of this alliance and how going to really help to tackle the euro crisis. well sure germany is the anchor but france is also hugely important in this sort of a franco german alliance which is historically interesting here with uncle and merkel and nicolas sarkozy kind of taking a front position here what they have sort of spent several very painful very expensive very destructive weeks doing is trying to push through

a wish list of fiscal control policies on their weaker partners under the guise of making this a precondition to a bailout the longer they wait the more expensive the bailout is and the bigger problem the less assured it is to work and that was senior analyst for green cross capital max fred well. and now to the u.s. economy we know that one in six americans are currently living in poverty and although the recent mass occupy wall street protests have been calling for an end to wealth inequality in the u.s. those voices continue to be ignored artie's on the stasi a church takes us to new york where the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than anywhere else in america. diamonds worth millions of dollars apiece the earrings are four hundred to six hundred thousand and the necklace is two million to three million cheaper deals at pawn shops for those slightly less well off. shoppers with big wallets allude in by the most

glamorous items and ninety nine cents stores for customers count pennies. this is a change i'm thinking i don't know why pay me and i give them in the state of new york is home to around nineteen million people it's worth three hundred eighty thousand millionaires and seventy billion as live meanwhile three million people on food stamps new york city is split into two different worlds the richest and poorest districts in the united states are right here. prosperity and poverty brushing by each other on a daily basis although many seem to be blissfully unaware it's been promulgated by our new leader obama and i think it's a tragedy that he's making and we miss you in an election this year economic inequality in the big apple has reached crisis levels the gap used to be between the rich and the poor it's now the tween super rich and increasingly the super poor

people who are just not making in our society the idea and they did it strike luxury for those who can afford it is a plenty new york social clubs just play hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art the finest interiors and one of a kind cosmetic services it's going rejuvenation it's very private. used to be invitation only. it is the most innovative skin care business in the world auction houses tempt the rich with the most exquisite jewelry thirty three carat diamond elizabeth taylor diamond the estimate is two and a half to three and a half million. and we do expect it to achieve at least that we do expect everything to sell but to speculate on the final price is next to impossible well millions are spent here just across town money is only dreamed of and then if you catch a number you can win two hundred thousand ionizing because that's not for that but

people we already to people like awarded three couple of days ago three million pence and then a wink limos are passed with glam riders of the big apple i think they ought to go get jobs and there's a lot of jobs if you really want to work you can find work the seventy five year old grandmother of seven fixing her old car with her own bare hands begs to differ folks seem to think that you know somewhere nearby can get a job a new job these days but even with the biggest. meaning mother snipes works at a church and knows the face of poverty all too well because you know and some people you know their shame to the next step you have when you're trying to get. a living on saturday here although very visible in new york the extreme gap between those well off and those struggling is a trend all across the u.s.

thirty years ago the united states had less in the quality than most other advanced industrial countries today thirty years later we are the number one we have the most extreme inequality between rich and poor and it's scattered all over the country this is what made occupy wall street protests spill out and stick around on the streets of america things are really bad we're seeing our society's broken to face the thing is to face it huge challenge and i think people are graded. and it's a big change that's needed to improve the disparities make those who have done real well over the last thirty years. give some of that back. why as some of us argue for taxes on rich rich people in this country this is not happening any time soon more than half of the members of congress are millionaires though they're very wealthy people and then all their campaigns are funded by big corporations by the wealthy they know that if they want to get reelected they're going to have to be

good to the people who have given money to their campaigns this leave behind those in need years when faced. with nothing left but to hope for miracles this holiday season. and it's a huge work in a party. and to talk more about this i spoke to writer and activist jessica greca as we just saw some americans seem to be living in a dichotomy one between the haves and the have nots so i asked jesse what is this deep divide have to say about the economic state of the u.s. today here is a sick. i believe that our state of economic strength is crippled in a large sense because if there are millions upon millions of americans who go without health care without access to affordable education without i mean literally on food stamps and losing their homes if american families are economically horrible then the america itself is on a level economically grab and we've seen over the last you know two three decades stagnation of wages at the same time the cost of living standards are going through

the roof when we ask our leaders to defend us they refuse to the cater to the rich they pander to the edge and they literally just turn their back on millions of working class people so to me this is a conversation about not only america's future but the world's future because what type of world we want to be what type of country want to be are we going to be a country that allows one sixth of children to live in poverty while the same time we have half of congress more than ever congress just dying to find new ways to talk cut taxes for the wealthiest among us to me it's a matter of values and my values say that i protect my family i protect my community i protect and favor my country and it makes me question what their values really are and we are seeing this growing income inequality gap this wealth disparity gap can you talk a little bit about what is contributing to this that's going gap this this disappearing that whole class well i think it's a combination of the union busting has been going on since the days of reagan and even before that is since reagan has really stepped into overdrive and now this

congress many republican state houses are engaging the same sort of union busting that makes it more difficult for people like myself to get wage increases to get benefits that i can use to strengthen my family at the same time we've flattened the tax rate we've cut taxes on the which left and right since bush we flatten the tax rate away that costs more for working class people as the wealthy and corporations pay less in taxes the burden is shift on the people like myself you know when this year i made ten thousand dollars i worked like crazy to find a job and then when i got a job i worked like crazy to keep it and we have an economic system that despite. my education despite my hard work i'm not getting anything out of it other than higher credit card rates now the guys who are c.e.o.'s of these companies their salaries are government exorbitantly since the seventy's could anybody say that c.e.o.'s are working two hundred fifty times harder than they were in the seventy's they are today certainly not but americans are working longer hours for less pay with less benefits and we've seen this gap expanded such

a way that it's no longer sustainable and i want to bring up something this a mayor in france his name is patrick many which minucci i don't know if i'm pronouncing that correctly but he was actually quoted the other day as saying i don't want he doesn't want his town to become. big to drop to the level of crime and poverty levels in his city he doesn't want to become the next bronx he doesn't want to become the bronx kind of symbolizing that the bronx is this all time low exactly what you don't want your city to become and it seems like people around the world are recognizing this this income inequality gap that we have in the u.s. and so if these politicians are noticing it why why is it that politicians here in the us seem to be turning a blind eye to this this gap was one of the reasons i really enjoyed coming on russia today because i feel that the american media is honest with the american public but that foreign news providers such as russia today and other stores. are

allowed to see a little bit clearer i'm a new yorker myself i've been up in the bronx mediators france i want to be the guy to bash the french but at the same time i think it's a start we appear to be people around the world that the state of our economy as a nation is no longer tenable if we have millions of people moving out of the middle class and into the ranks of the poor at the same time that wealthy people or ten times world view than they were a generation ago if that says to me that we no longer have the sense of values as a country we need to return to that seems spirit that built the middle class during the fifty's and sixty's. and people certainly are angry. that's why we're seeing these occupy wall street protests across the nation i know that you've been taking part of them since the second or third day and today is kind of a unique that way because you are taking it directly to congress and i understand that you were outside of john boehner his office today tell us what happened what kind of reaction you were getting. for they talking to you and what what what what

what went down there was lucky enough to make conversation with a few members of congress some of them understand we're working class people are coming from right now we or suffering with jobs without pay increases at the same time that the wealthy have it better than ever so people who are honest understand the message and people who actually exist to to turn corporate welfare back to their benefactors that fund their campaigns the wealthiest one percent have their own there are the members of congress that are understanding oh there certainly are but at the same time we need to apply pressure to both parties i don't want to coddle the democratic party or the republican party i think they should both be made aware of the fact that people are hurting at a time where there are gridlock and where they can accomplish anything you know i haven't seen a jobs commission i've seen a deficit commission but not a jobs commission where's that coming from so john boehner is all of those the doors closed people are standing in the hallway waveform people come and go but they're wabi as the rest of us don't quite get to say and i think that's indicative

of the entire divide across america right now. ok great and so well what is your ultimate goal with taking this. to the congress. in zuccotti park that that's on wall street occupy wall street we're now taking it directly to the government what is what is the goal in taking it to the actual steps of congress what wall street in washington d.c. are very much joined at the hip in the what i call corporatism i think the end goal for our why wall street should be changing laws and i'm old wants to and i want to continue we should constantly party pressure on politicians who. goal is to change laws to reform wall street to insist on real campaign finance reform progressive taxation that taxes those who have the most money and give breaks to the people who have a politician is going to treat the goals the change was intended who are power and if that is what we're aiming for we're doing the right thing and it's not a surprise to me that they're attacking us jesse thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on all this that was writer and activist jesse and. well tonight thanks to

cell phone video we have another case of a questionable police action in california it centers around a transgender woman and her showdown with the rangers from the bureau of land management take a look at her run in with officers and noticed she has her hands up there in the entire incident. for no reason not to leesburg saudi. forty three year old brock fun talley from san diego she was tasered not once but twice last month while on a photo shoot in the desert she was tasered once in the chest she claims after rangers discovered she was born a man she was tasered in the crotch brooks on telly told san diego station that the rangers became upset after she refused to lie down on the ground so what led to this dramatic confrontation after being handcuffed and taken to jail she was charged with public drunkenness.