today there still believe the option of. what a protest nobody seems to know. that never appropriate to face quite hard the argument that they're being overly dramatic. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

book the capital account of my lord lester.

hi guys it's time for you said it i read it i take time to respond to my brilliant and engaging viewer comments on facebook twitter and you tube because you got something to say i listen now first i want to respond to your the watch our coverage of occupy the ports which attended the shutdown ports from portland to long beach alan becker commented on facebook just seems like the wrong target to me wouldn't be more logical to identify who caused the financial inequality and focus on them rather than have disruptions that affect those not involved and you know this is something that i discussed on my show last night with labor activist and investigative reporter tim sure rock i think that some people were concerned that the port action perhaps didn't target the people that are actually responsible for that financial crisis but rather the middle class support workers another concern was the action didn't have the endorsement of the union that it purported to help the international longshore and warehouse union now the occupiers and cells would say that they have the support of many rank and file longshoremen and it was the

union leadership who decided not to endorse the action although they did express their ideological support for the movement they would also say that the goal of the protests were to target the s.s.a. marine a shipping company that's locked in a labor dispute with some port truckers and is partly owned by wall street investment bank goldman sachs so to my viewer i understand your hesitation i have some too but the bottom line here is that the one percent possesses all the tools in the world to get their voices heard more most importantly that's money but the ninety nine percent on the other hand has to go out raise hell even to make a little tiny blip and that's just what they did earlier this week and next i would respond to viewer the watch my interview yesterday with rocky anderson presidential candidate from the newly formed justice party madness realm commented on you tube i'm glad someone finally got it however there is little chance for such a party to ever floors given how powerful the mass media is media blackout on occupy wall street ron paul and cetera however i hope that i'm wrong. and that he'll be able to push his party into the light and make his place in future

elections and you know i bring on quote unquote non-mainstream presidential candidates on the program as often as possible because if anybody has noticed the front runners people are actually allowed on every stage to debate and on every network well those are the people that have no new ideas no new solutions apart from maybe ron paul who's treated those just a lovable crank by the media somebody who was in second place in iowa right now he has only given a fraction of the coverage of the other candidates donald trump's fake debate got far more airtime then to the fact that ron paul is one point one tiny point behind newt gingrich in iowa now he also has a much stronger ground organization that new as liberty businessman is clearly more important but at least they semi include ron paul the conversation on stage because his numbers are so good that they actually have to gary johnson buddy roemer now rocky anderson well they may not as well excuse me they may as well not exist for the mainstream media when they're allowed on t.v. their ideas are treated by the m.s.m. like novelties like fun little by this guy abusers will never actually happen

because the mainstream media simply can't get their head above this guy to see outside of the beltway so i hope that people like rocky and buddy and gary continue to make noise and share their ideas with the country and i promise that they will always have a platform here on this show to do that and in fact we love to get them all together for a debate that we could host here r.t. and finally i want to respond to a viewer tone capone who tweeted to us at the lone show i feel like a fool just now discovering r.t. and yourself thank you for the voice most american media keeps muffled so hey there no need to feel like a fool i am very happy that you found us no matter how long it took but thank you keep watching and spread the word as of my rantings today i'll be back with more as usual next week. well this week president obama has been doing a bit of a victory tour if you will of the upcoming departure of all u.s. troops in iraq at the end of this year on monday he hosted prime iraqi prime minister nouri al maliki at the white house today here in the first lady of the troops at fort bragg repeating. over and over again welcome home now ending this

war was a campaign promise of the president's over i think we all know what really happened at the end breakdown of negotiations over legal immunity that resulted in iraq tony has to kind of get out let's get down to what really matters at the end of the day asking what kind of iraq we're leaving behind and who better to ask and the troops that are coming home right now so here to discuss this with me is jon soltz co-founder of the org john thanks so much for being here and welcome back i know that you just got back a couple of days ago and so when you left you know the other people that you were there with that you served with what's the feeling like is it kind of do you just want to get out over the burma's people call it or what is it i think you watch the speech today and you could see how happy. that a lot of guys there from the second airborne division second brigade was in iraq this year they were the last guys out protecting everybody else's as we redeployed i think everyone's tired so from the military standpoint everyone's excited that there was no extension i think for the guys left over which is the mission i was

working on planning for the sale of into the iraqis i was an advisor you know it was eerie i was my base i was waiting for my helicopter leave and there's a huge explosion and you're just like oh well you know they've blown up a bus minibus right inside the gate of the military base and killed about twenty people and so i think there's a lot of people on pins and needles as the u.s. military pulls out for the americans that are left over but for the troops that are holding out i think everyone inside the military with the exception of you know pentagon brass that sort of tried to bully the white house on an extension i think pretty much everyone is excited this is over but they're happy they're happy that it's over they're happy to be home does anybody feel like something was accomplished you know i mean what was what was the mission in iraq you could say we went in under false pretenses and weapons of mass destruction that we were very ill it's fairly successful in iraq doesn't actually mean america safer doesn't mean it was the right thing to do but we captured and killed saddam hussein or the iraqis killed him once we captured him we. topple the government we installed

a democracy so from a military standpoint there's a democracy left in iraq and that's a huge debate about the product of what democracy bring so the military we accomplished everything that we were asked to do which is why you know great for the public the public has not turned their back on the people who fought this war even if they don't agree with it now does a democracy make the united states safer but we're great at instilling the hardware we install democracies ok we have a democracy in the palestinian authority but it is elected hamas we have a democracy in lebanon but it you know has a hair from gaining control of a democracy in iraq they elected a government that's close to the iranian so the iranians have fought us through political software through understanding that just because we have a hardware of democracy doesn't mean that we get an electoral outcome that's beneficial to our long term policy goals and so in essence when you say that it's our own fault that there is now a government that is necessarily very favorable or very friendly to the united states i mean the prime minister in iraq has even said himself that he blames some of ron's influence over iraq on america because the model in other people's affairs

clearly his government is more friendly to iran than the saddam hussein regime was i mean saddam fought them for years so i think we missed our opportunity in iraq politically i mean you know look i think the younger officer corps that's what's coming up in the army now in twelve to fifteen years has done this professionally i think we have a different view than the counterinsurgency crowd in the counterinsurgency crowd believes we can spend all this money and put all these lives on the ground what does it get us i mean this is a fifth generation warfare which means the military is a piece of the political conversation so in iraq we've lost the opportunity to help the nationalists to help allowing the party with the kurds so in reality the result of the democracy is a guy like nouri al maliki who lived in damascus who you know put in power because of his alliance with tato solder who's a big anti-american. they have a hardline shia government that's in place because the nationalists who won the most seats in the election when he would have to build a government we couldn't get the kurds to. cook so we feel politically to assist

the people who would have been more beneficial to the americans when in creating government because we focus so much on surging in baghdad which is still the largest failure of the war because it just simply delayed the inevitable give us a looking at what we've seen in iraq looking at what's going on in afghanistan right now it really does seem like it and list situation do you think that this entire strategy of counterinsurgency is dead are we done trying there's a lot of around here it is not that i don't agree with that that support counterinsurgency look at its liberalism in foreign policy it's build democracy interventionism nation building it became republican foreign policy think that's what you say but does it actually work does it ever. really work it's not working out in afghanistan you can definitely say that you know some people will hail iraq as a success it works if it's a city propped up that isn't favorable to the country they decided to go there and try to install it the missions the point the mission the united states in iraq in afghanistan this counterinsurgency support democracy works it doesn't work for us cost way too much money cost way too many lives and it takes years to do so. you

know the administration kind of was throwing stuff at the wall they have a coin strategy in afghanistan they're counter-terror strategy and in pakistan the counter terror strategy has been a strategy that worked i mean going and using the drones i mean you had a guy who doesn't like drones earlier and i mean i'm a big fan i could care less iran has a robot dick cheney was sort of war over at the bottom line is that the counterterror strategy going after bin laden we don't need our troops that so the ministration you know the counter insurgency has been effective in afghanistan in the sense that nothing to do with the operations we're going to get let's go back to that since you made that point you know we talk about drone warfare it's something that just seems so much easier these days right because you don't have to actually get troops lives into the mix there aren't any lives that might possibly be sacrificed there and somebody just pushes a button from farther away by in that sense do you think that it also creates more and more discontent amongst the local populations is it one hundred thousand troops coming in and you know. all over their land or is it

a drone out of the sky firing at a house and killing innocent children other civilians and then you know it's something that the cia or the military will deny us going to tackle the question not a strategic question the tactical question is if you know what a terrorist a terrorist is someone who targets a civilian just because you're from a group doesn't mean you're a terrorist a terrorist is someone who purposely just kills civilians or. either of those options it's relative to how they operate tactically so if you have a hundred thousand troops invading a country and they kill innocent civilians with no rules of engagement for instance we saw what happened who killed. khadafi i mean was there a console to a kill gadhafi that way it would have been a work crime so we have rules that god are military and how absolutely certain some of those rules broken to become sure about cable's a scene from videos that there were also very dirty. doesn't reflect upon the entire u.s. military but that also shapes you know perception on the ground it does but you can't say that one will be more effective than the it's themselves executed yes

a drone that kills innocent civilians is less efficient than let's say troops on the ground my point is that you have a lot less people exposed and you can go places where you normally can't go no we can't put ground troops in pakistan that's for the world's number one bad guys around so do we invade troops countries with hundreds of thousands of troops and take casualties for years and spend trillions of dollars when we talk about cutting programs that affect americans or we could do it a lot more effectively in a lot cheaper where we have an issue with rules of engagement so we need better human and i don't really have a minute left so i just want to get one last bit in here to you is. there is drone warfare now the troops are coming out also contractors are everywhere and the same time we also have this heated rhetoric coming up about iran about the fact that they have a drone about covert operations and i just feel like haven't we learned our lesson that we don't need to do this exact same thing again look i don't support starting wars of robots i mean this idea that iran is going to invade iraq so it's completely false i mean they have they basically have a very friendly relationship with nouri al maliki the country most likely to invade . because the turks they've done it

a lot their closest allies in the region so that's that that's completely off the table in regards to contractors in iraq i'm aspecific we built these numbers there's a lot of contractors in iraq now because we replaced u.s. forces with contractors because there was always a lot of contracts in iraq so when the generals came to congress and said that one hundred thousand troops they never accounted for the extra seventy five thousand so there's one hundred fifty seven u.s. military they're going to be left in iraq after thirty one december they are twenty two they do not have weapons they carry passports this war is over from that standpoint they are there to issue a quick end to the iraqi army f. sixteen s m one a one tanks and items there are seven hundred fifty contractors that specifically support that mission all the other contractors that you hear about for that mission are third country nationals people from india guards around the gate from the guy in the butt look we've got a gun in iraq for years getting paid five hundred dollars a month to protect our bases all because we can't afford a counterinsurgency but to you does that not mean that that this war or whatever it is that this conflict was what every want to call it is not entirely over if you're going to have thousands of contractors war's over because the iraqis aren't done

fighting with each other ok now there are people there that are involved in it but this sense of an occupation of iraq is over i mean if you're a member of the u.s. military and you're in iraq on one january you don't have a weapon and you have a passport ok so. you can't carry a weapon unless the iraqi government authorized it so these people are there as a guest of iraq a government that's the huge difference now of course the iraq war wasn't over. it won't be over tomorrow will be over next year it wasn't over when we invaded i mean when we invaded iraq the iraqis we've always been at war ok i mean for a long time you had a lot of violence in the south for your saddam didn't control the terrain so you can't finish a war you didn't start ok we engaged within an iraqi conflict and we saw we sided with the shia and the kurds against the sunni leadership and that's what you have so the iraq war is not over because the iraqis are done fighting with each other and i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight out of time but happy to have you back i think in a long year thanks for filling us in. just ahead of the show tonight out of the current legislation one former senator. he's doing everything that he can to get

congress on his side put isn't right full time and that unhappy our marriage rates are still on the decline and should there be a nationwide cellphone ban was driving us into that. internal where military mechanisms do not work to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

if. i'm laurie mr. peterson to believe the repetition of. what a test nobody seems to know. that never appropriate

to face quite hard the argument that they're being overly dramatic. hi guys it's time for tonight's tool time of war and tonight we're giving it to former senator chris dodd by now you know that we have been vehemently opposed on this show the stop online piracy act even it is latest form because it simply gives the government too much power to block websites and it essentially kills a first memory it's on the web it's a bill that has been backed most prominently by the motion picture association of america a group that's also one are coveted award after writing a list of reasons why congress should back this bill but it's get back to dot after he left capitol hill as

a senator chris dodd has now taken on the new role coincidentally as chairman of the n.p.a. eight and on tuesday he lobbied in favor of sopa while speaking at the center for american progress and he explained their hollywood is pro internet we stand with those strongly who oppose foreign governments that would unilaterally block websites in the us deny the free flow of information and speech so i want to make it clear right at the outset that our fight against content theft is not a fight against technology it is a fight against criminals so ok chris we get it you want to get rid of all the super evil pirates that are out there is stealing the latest media coming out of hollywood however your claim that the fight is not against technology just not true of course it's against technology you want to block websites that have any type of ties to pirated material so how are efforts at censorship not against technology now chris does his very best to spin his desire for censorship censorship in the most benign way possible but you know he's not really going after the good ones only the criminals will be affected if you're a good internet user you've got nothing to worry about it's an argument that's used

to enforce censorship by dictators all over the world now the unfortunate truth here is that once the government has the power to censor it can censor anyone not just the real criminals and that was just one of god's ridiculous proclamations made yesterday according to tech dirt he also stated that the entire film industry . of spain egypt and sweet and are gone now we're assuming the dog was implying that blacks copyright law is to blame for the demise of the film industries however mike masnick prove that wells come it's just not true in fact the number of films produced in spain egypt and sweden in two thousand and i was an increase from previous years according to the un back in ninety five sweden only made seventeen films two thousand and nine forty one feature films and ninety six egypt produced twenty four films but in two thousand and nine that almost doubled to forty six and most importantly space the country with some of the loses copyright laws and an outspoken critic of america's copyright protection laws has also seen its film production triple over the past fifteen years so so much for the piracy killing the

international film industry well now the dog's comments have been officially debunked debunked it's time to remind everybody about what the former senator is really rallying for dot of the n.p.a. are encouraging legislation that will allow the attorney general to blacklist websites engaging the way they think any and any type of infringing activity without any kind of trial there or favor of the government having free rate over what stays on the web and wants companies like internet service providers to help police the online world targeting sites who share even link to anything that could remotely resemble copyright infringement but despite the growing outcry and opposition coming from major tech companies like google muscle and even the n.p.a. is carrying on with their lobbying efforts meanwhile chris dodd sold out to hollywood and is now arguing in favor of far reaching censorship legislation so tonight the former senator is our tool time winner.

ok guys it's time for happy hour joining me this evening is r.t. producer jenny churchill and jake for chief strategy officer at vision strategies dot com thanks for joining me guys. so let's start with our first to move a little fast today but i think we all know a rock guys are known for which is basically doing stupid stuff here's a good example. the. yeah all right here's another really stupid and i guess you could say this is just completely insensitive one sigma epsilon fraternity at the university of vermont they're now suspended underdressed a geisha because they passed out a survey asking people the question if you could rape anyone who would it be really i'm find this surprising and i'm kind of the school of thought when you get

a big group of guys together they do insanely stupid things for example congress or wall street. i think that's fair i was in a fraternity i think there are incredibly stupid things that happen when you do get guys together that's true if you do the thing right i think he would bowling balls down stairs and i kind of thing right but that's what happened in vermont is important like there's no excuse for making light of rape ever and there's just no excuse for it i don't think it's representative of all guys when you get to our promise here but there's just no excuse for that it's just it's just wrong it's just. all right move on to the next one. better think about it this what if nationally you can use your cell phone there is a ban on it in cars i mean this is something that's kind of been a long time coming and in certain states now like california where i'm from you have to use the hands free device but there's been a lot of funny stuff about how that basically just frees you up to do other things

. hey man i'm like it's like do you want to get your calligraphy. i suppose. so i didn't lay a national cell phone ban i think of a hands free device i think that are a way to go if you have the bluetooth this looks like n.t.s.b. striving for relevance to me i mean their argument was totally insane just talking in your car is unbelievably dangerous i'm sorry so does that mean that if someone's in my car we have to remain silent are you going to put like microphones in every car and if we have a conversation you're going to come after us or don't carry your kids in the dark matter what rossi is really really it is acting on force right but it's like some a step to seem so obvious like texting while driving and not looking at the road either so maybe it was the report that that washington post article is based on actually talks about how accidents and deaths are decreasing they're not increasing and so now you have a government agency overreaching to say we should implement new legislation that's

unnecessary we have way bigger problems to prod. ok let's move on to something that we really love here on this show we have another story that. i love living that thing ever. ok so microsoft co-founder paul allen who is also a philanthropist is basically planning a giant airplane that can in mid-flight launch a rocket and carry the cargo and the humans into orbit. using engines from six boeing seven forty seven's. basically if you can just be flying and suddenly say like oh i think an asteroid today we've got a good. girl you know nothing so that's scary to say ok mom would think about it the first time we're going to use we have no way to get

a human being into space right now we have no way to do that in the private sector making up for it i think it's a tragedy that our generation has no good success stories we have two disasters from our childhood in the challenger explosion in the columbia explosion and our later years but i'm personally i believe that we are on our way to our success story because we have businesses in space travel which wonderful brings a lot more money to go and get all serious about it i think that is really really like in the movie. i think it quickly reminds me of seeing on girl the twenty first century i had. all as with any kind in our director and i totally watched. forecasts of most governments to work so i really quickly let's talk about somebody who i just think is one of the funniest men on the planet and that would be ok. some people believe in evolution so people don't believe in it and that's ok i don't think they're stupid but i think most people that argue against evolution

sound really stupid. because most people are actually are you against this. like well. first stars for the viewers if you're not familiar with louis c.k. he's also funny and you know they're going to take them out but i like what he did he had this bold new experiment he released a whole video for only five dollars and guess what he did it all in his own right he didn't go through any middleman any big companies and he's making money off of it hung out of dollars hundreds a couple there i think the coolest part of this is that he put no restrictions on it in your tool time you were talking about the piracy act and he said you know what here it is five bucks do what you want with it and he's seen a lot of success and i think like other artists he realizes that when you you know trust your fans they will reward you really who did this a couple years ago if you remember they made their album priyanka donate money and this doesn't fly straight in the face of soap stars fly straight in the face of the media industry is trying to adhere to old ways they don't want to be free these men

are free and it's broken louis c.k. it's just great are you guys going to have anything for joining us that's it for tonight's show thanks for tuning in make sure to come back tomorrow my craigs is going to be on and meantime we are to follow us on facebook on twitter and you tube and coming up next he is the new. me leave. it to. you know how sometimes you see

a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. download the official t. have location on the phone oh i pod touch from the tops to. munch on life on the go. video on demand all teasing blindfold costs and says feeds now in the palm of your. question on the altie dot com. mission and free accreditation free in-store charge is free arranged.