people after all the work we've done there's nothing else we could do but such will take military action that 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 blitz down drones and assassinated scientists it begs the question has the war already begun. i would like to extend my most sincere condolences. well sometimes sorry just isn't enough pakistan is hitting the brakes on its relationship with the u.s. and closing key supply roads to afghanistan 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 literal roadblocks the e.u. has got some of its share of financial potholes 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 thirty three cure submitted two and a half to three may house millions 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 may seem worlds apart but this great americans have died as well within walking distance. it is tuesday december sixth eight pm in washington d.c. you're watching our t.v. . well we begin tonight with a question is the u.s.

close to war with iran tension between tehran and the west continue to escalate recent events show both countries are engaging in a dangerous 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 and bahrain. this up to the u.s. claims iran is behind a plot to kill a saudi ambassador 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 through a series of sanctions all of 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 these are the headlines from the daily mail the atlantic and newsmax all of them asked the very same question are we already at war with iran 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. you know that old beach boys song bomb iran.

anyway and more recently republican presidential candidates have said that we aren't being aggressive enough but iran take mitt romney for example to recognize the greatest threat that america in the world faces and placed 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 when dissidents took to the streets and say america is with you and we're going to covert bases to encourage the dissidents but with everything that has happened is this proof that a covert war is already happening lot of answer that i spoke to author terry kelly here is his take. i think that full of a number of years western intelligence agencies have been active inside that country there's been enough evidence to suggest that and the pressure is building up the regime in tehran to comply with the needs of the west already it's

already what are they going to invade are they going to use the israelis to knock out the nuclear reactors i mean that would be so we are rational on the part of the american ruling elite that my i my opinion has been now for several years that the pentagon in particular is not in favor of starting a new war against a concrete which has quite where little organized army navy and air force and a country in which if they would begin a war the war would spread very rapidly into iraq into probably isro bio lebannon and the gloves would be off and of going to start the iranians can fight back on four different from tears and we are saying that israel is gearing up to go to war with iran and israel does take that step do you think that the u.s.

will follow suit and also go to war. i think the last i read about the u.s. response to that was mr panetta us response from the pentagon that the united states was completely opposed to any unilateral of terex on iran by israeli made quite a strong statement for him one assumes that that is the u. fisher u.s. position in which case they were lobby in favor of it because no one will believe that the israeli regime carried out an attack on iran without a green light from the united states even if they do it in the u.s. arsenal given the green light no one in the region will believe that so for the united states to stop this about his what they wish to do they will have to intervene forcefully with the israelis but my own feeling is that these really is really already isolated in that region with the events in egypt and other parts of

the arab world was very hard before before launching an attack on iran's nuclear reactor schools that would be a declaration of war and you know we are seeing leaders on both sides kind of cracking down and and using harsh rhetoric almost step pushing to go to war or at least. prevent diplomatic talks from happening between the two countries and i want to ask who stands to benefit from going to war with iran well to be perfectly frank my own opinion is that going to war in against iran would be against the interests of the united states in that creature i mean d's release are obsessed with the iranian nuclear reactors because they want to preserve their own nuclear monopoly in that region but that maybe it is really for

us though it's foolish even on their part why should they have a monopoly but. it can't be in the crew of the united states to do you frank iran and i mean the iranians have a perfect right to do what they're doing even though they say they've been not surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons israel has nuclear weapons spark a star has nuclear weapons india has nuclear weapons china has nuclear weapons united states vessels armed with nuclear weapons patrol those seeds so the uranium mines are right to be noticed and these days people acquire nuclear weapons as a method of so defense it's. ok and. i want to ask you this because we are seeing this increased tension between the two countries especially in the wake of these recent events most recently there was a drone that landed and iran iran claims that they shot it down the u.s.

hasn't verified this but i mean could this be seen as an act of an act of war well i regard grooms as an act of or even the american lawyers backing the obama administration have been defending them and saying that it's a legitimate activity for the united states to do that is the question is did the united states launched a drone if indeed it was launched or was at these rallies are they testing the waters for something else that has what it seems like jimmy and that was author tariq ali. and as we just discussed made as recent deadly air strikes in pakistan have had some serious repercussions putting the u.s. is ongoing mission in afghanistan in danger by cutting off much needed supply routes to the country washington may have to shift gears and go into a different direction in order to reach the country mainly through russia arcade guy and yet again has more. supplies are would keep

a war running nato actions have put all operations in afghanistan in danger after attacks that killed twenty four pakistani soldiers islam apart cut off one of the alliances major supply routes to again this time. i would like to extend my most sincere condolences. but still pakistan washington's condolences were not enough to repeated incursions by the u.s. military in pakistan really left no choice and also the humiliation that the pakistani military faced in front of its own soldiers and the pakistani people left no choice before the government this time but to cut off the supply line was relations between the u.s. and pakistan as unstable as ever in order to keep the warring of ghana's stand running nato relies more on its other major supply route coming from the more. here it is the northern distribution network you see all these blue lines and here is

the route that pakistan shut down now the northern supply network was thought it when russia agreed to provide this territory and air space for transit of non-lethal supplies to nato troops in afghanistan it proved to be a very reliable route more reliable than pakistan now it accounts for half of nato as non-lethal supplies on trucks railroads and by air supplies prabal through russian territory from europe and from russia's far east all the way to afghanistan and the reliance on this route is set to expand in the last three years russia's cooperation on of ghana sent has been key to nato operations there. i sat down with professor michael lee haas who stressed he was speaking in a personal capacity the u.s. has a very tenuous kind of placement. in afghanistan and it is highly vulnerable it's highly vulnerable to pakistanis but it's more

vulnerable to russia i mean if russia were to withdraw its permission for us to use its rail lines we would be in a very difficult position in afghanistan the northern supply network could now be in danger because of a failure in diplomacy moscow says because washington turned down all of its proposals on the missile defense issue russia might have to resort to other arguments including its cooperation with nato on afghanistan but he put it through their processes which are critically important for russia which are about russia's national security one of them is needed expansion into russian borders and the fact that washington goes ahead with a robust missile shield program in europe without taking into consideration russia's concerns gives moscow the right to use any leverage it has to be heard by its partner but even the mere possibility that russia could cut off the northern supply route threatens the viability of all western operations in afghanistan nato risks leaving almost one hundred forty thousand of its troops in afghanistan

without vital supplies if diplomacy doesn't win the day with pakistan it's about people there being fed up with russia it's about their national security if washington does not seriously address the concerns of its partners even the best partnership can fade i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . and now to the u.s. economy we know that one in six americans are currently living in poverty are these on a southie a chair going to 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 aggressive shoppers with big wallets lured in by the most glamorous items and ninety nine cents stores for customers count pennies

a half and i love it when this is all change i'm thinking i don't know it might be any and i give them the pin this state of new york is home to around nineteen million people it's worth three hundred eighty thousand millionaires and seventy billionaires 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. perspire ready and poverty brushing by each other on a daily basis although many seem to be blissfully unaware it's being promulgated by our new leader obama and i think it's a tragedy that he's making them in their shoe 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 the super rich and increasingly the super poor people who are just not making in our society the idea nobody is trying to

help luxury for those who can afford it is a plenty new york social clubs display hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art the finest interiors and one of a kind cosmetics services it's skin 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 while millions are spent here just across town money is only dreamed of. if you catch a number you can win two hundred thousand dollars buying a nice because that's no fun at ball people we all are reaching people like the wallace three by

a couple of days ago. present the wing limos are packed 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 so maybe if i can get a job in new jobs these days even the p.p.p. gives me that job meaning mother snipes works at a church and knows the face of poverty all too well but most of you know i mean some people are you know. except when trying to get. clothing on saturdays here although very visible in new york the extreme gap between those well off and those struggling is a trend all across the us thirty years ago the united states had less inequality than most other advanced industrial countries today thirty years later we have 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 is broken to face those things it's to face a huge challenge and i think people are rated. and it's big change that's needed to improve the disparity make those who have done real well over the over the last thirty years. give some of that back. that's why some of us argue for taxes on rich rich people in this country but this is not happening any time soon more than half of the members of congress are millionaires so they're very wealthy people and when all their campaigns are funded by big corporations by the wealthy you 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 leaves behind those in need are those who in fifty dollars are still the but nothing left but to hope for

a miracle this holiday season. and especially. and to talk more about this i spoke to activist and writer jesselyn greca as we just saw some americans seem to be living in this dichotomy between the haves and the have nots so i asked jesse what does this deep divide say about the economic state of the u.s. today here is his take. 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 me literally on food stamps and losing their homes if american families are economically than america itself is on a level economically crab can you talk a little bit about what is contributing to that that's going gap that disappearing that all class i think is a combination of the union busting that has been going on since the days of reagan

and even before that since reagan has really stepped into overdrive and now this congress and 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 flatten the tax rate we've cut taxes on the rich left and right since bush we flatten the tunnels right away that costs more for working class people as the wealthy and corporations pay less in taxes the burden it shifts on the people like myself you know last year i made ten thousand dollars i worked like crazy to find a job and then 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 of 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 expand in such a way that it's no longer seen able and i want to bring up something that a mayor and france. has name is patrick many 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. to big to drop the level of crime and poverty levels in a 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 income inequality gap that we have in the us 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 not honest with the american public but that foreign news providers such as russia today and other sources. are

allowed to say it a little bit clear i'm a new yorker myself i've been up in the bronx my experience on i want to be the guy to bash the french but at the same time i think it distorts the appearance of 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 are ten times well dear than they were a generation ago if that says to me that we no longer have the sense of values of the country we need to return to that same 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 day because you are taking it directly to congress and i understand that you are outside of john boehner the office today tell us what happened what kind of

reaction you're getting. where they talking to you and if not what what what what what went down there was lucky enough to make conversation with a few members of congress some of them understand that we're working class people are coming from right now that we are suffering without jobs without pain creases at the same time that the wealthy about it better than ever so people who are honest understand the message of people who are slowly exist to to turn corporate welfare. to their benefactors that fund their campaigns the wealthiest one percent have their own there are the members of congress that are understanding well there certainly are but at the same time we need to apply pressure to both parties i don't want to console 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 grid lines where they can accomplish anything that was writer and activist jesselyn greca. and the collapse of the euro zone and growing imminent today fifteen euro zone countries now on standby after being told

a mass credit downgrade is possible in the near future and response to the euro crisis a new political alliance is threatening to impose a set of rules on their fellow eurozone countries the so-called mirco z. deal that is germany in germany is angela merkel and france's are cozy 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 crest capital max fred wolf with standard and poor's putting fifteen countries on alert i asked him what is the significance of such a massive downgrade and what would mean take take a listen to what 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 as well as sending very damaging shock waves to the go global economy and global financial markets virtually instantaneously and smashing asset prices all over the world well you know certainly that sounds awful but we all knew that things were bad in the euro zone doesn't this just verify what we what we already know about the region. well yeah i mean verifies that we know there's a true there's a sort of seriously impaired situation that europe is kind of teetered buying small amounts of time at the crossroads between a different future which is highly viable and a real disastrous disorderly wind down of the european union experiment but we've teetered there for way too long 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 in global economies 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 in 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 that nigel farage is the co-president for the europe of freedom and democracy that group expressing his anger at the situation. you are all in denial by any objective measure the euro is a failure i do is actually responsible hooting shone out of you lot one of those the answer is none 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 the first seventeen countries was it a little too ambitious of the earth as in the euro is in terrible shape as is your 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 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 there if there still is a path forward so i don't think this is over but i think the situation grows more dire more perilous more expensive and more internationally problematic literally with each passing hour it would be nice to see people put aside their narrow political agendas and go for a solution here because we're all waiting in the balance and the you know it's the eleven and a half hour for sure how can this one be different from some of the other ones we've seen and can it be a real than you for a change. so we see e.c.b. euro wide and i.m.f. related summits all this week it's a huge week politically and the solution that is convincing to various increasingly skeptical participants needs to be produced by friday evening european time we see

tim geithner the us treasury secretary already there making positive statements of a the united states' support for the proposals coming out of the merkel sarkozy alliance be the urgency of the matter will see the global central bankers emerge and we're going to have to see a very credible long long term as well as immediate pattern of solutions that shore up the financial markets solve the liquidity crisis slamming into european banks and also produce for the first time credible long term commitments probably in the trillion euro plus range to rebuild and recently defy the union with additional commitment to a greater fiscal policy union to go along with the now kind of flailing monetary union as yet unsupported by fiscal unity well i guess we will wait and see what happens thank you so much for weighing in as that was senior analyst for green crest capital of wealth well tonight thanks to cell phone video we have another case of questionable police action in california at 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 their hands up there in the entire incident. for no reason at least brutality. forty three year old brooke found telly is from san diego she was tasered 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 a born a man she was tasered again in the crotch so what led to this dramatic confrontation after being handcuffed and taken to jail she was charged with public drunkenness brooks and teli is reportedly looking into filing a lawsuit as for the bureau of land management they claim the rangers did nothing wrong but doesn't look like police brutality so you are. going to leave it off with that for more of the stories we covered.