both iraq and afghanistan so are the armed forces doing account of the issue and what can we all do to help and then as the occupy movement passes its three month anniversary more targeted actions are being planned specifically to occupy the iowa caucus so we can get all the details from gavin aronson on just what exactly the activists plan to do we'll have all that and more fit and i couldn't because of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. all right so once again surprise surprise congress is at a complete standstill they need to extend the payroll tax before january first in order for americans that really need it right now to get that break but as usual and sort of a really big about what's best for the country at the moment it's broken down into a he said she said partisan fight. your tax for human jeopardy here's a countdown clock right now a standoff in washington house lawmakers set to decide on

a two month extension of the payroll tax cut but republicans are saying no way they want a full year extension of that the house is expected to strike down the senate bill that extends the payroll tax cut for another two months house republicans say that's not long enough they actually want the full year guaranteed we thought we had a two month deal over the weekend but house republicans are rejecting the approved senate plan the clocks run and said it gave it a green light house republicans say forget about it they are done with any sort of short term fix and if a deal is it made by january first well one hundred sixty million american workers will see their paychecks shrink if this does not pass if it ends december thirty first this is what people will lose if you earn fifty thousand your taxes will rise by a thousand if you make up to one hundred twenty five thousand your household you will see your taxes rise by over twenty two hundred. all right now let me just point one little thing out before i get into the larger point of it all the mainstream media is so easily fallen into the traps that politicians have set to the reporting this

as if republicans really want to full year extension of the payroll tax democrats only want a measly little two months let's remind everybody that it was republicans at first who were opposed to extending it despite all their talk about not raising taxes then finally they decided to play and play the democrats they did it robert gibbs are totally cool with that year long extension the payroll tax as long as they still get what they want passed with it putting throwing the keystone x.l. pipeline into the mix which has absolutely nothing to do with the payroll tax so the same dirty game that we say please that we see played out here in washington over and over again so i'd appreciate it if the mainstream media didn't just act like both sides are totally equal on this one point and we point out what was really going on but then we get to the larger problem overall i mean at least they're warning audiences of what the consequences could be here the fact that across the board we're all going to take home less from our paychecks during these horrible economic times if the payroll tax is not extended but it's one thing when

you show a graph it's another to actually question those in power when you get the chance and you know the big cable networks get these chances every day all day long they bring on set of theirs they bring on representatives and they give them softball interviews and allow them to get away with partisan brinksmanship without taking any responsibility or any of the blame if you really cared you'd call them out you do write that he would remind them of some of the horrible stats that are out there for example a study that just came out from the national center on family homelessness they found that last year one point six million children were homeless living in shelters cars abandoned buildings and parks one point six million children comes out to about one in forty five kids and of the children affected forty two percent were under the age of six now it's sad it's horrible it's a. problem that needs to be combated but rather than throw these kinds of figures into the face of the politicians they interview every day the mainstream media is

completely content to play along to treat what's going on in washington the broken system that we have the corrupt politicians that we have elected who only serve the interests of those with deep pockets that contribute to their campaigns as corrupt they act like this is all a game and they love being spectators in it the mainstream media in fact really eggs the lot they want the two parties to just point fingers at each other and talk bad about each other to try and distract everybody from the grim realities of what's happening today and treat politics like it's a spectator sport now i say anough don't just join in on the horse race but call them out tell them that they're all failing but unfortunately that the mainstream media chooses to miss. just this past weekend the last u.s. forces withdrew across the border and left iraq secretary of defense leon panetta spoke to reporters and said that as difficult as the iraq war was the price has

been worth it to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world following day signs of that stability were a little hard to find the iraqi vice president tariq ali me who is a sunni was implicated in a string of assassinations and of leading a death squad that targeted police and government officials and the government ordered his arrest he has since accused the prime minister of using the war as a ploy to consolidate power so are those arguments that are leaving iraq better left better off becoming harder to leave by the day if you look at a recent zogby poll that will tell you how the iraqi people themselves feel forty two percent said that iraq is now worse off so why do our officials keep pettily mists of success here to discuss this with me is lawrence wilkerson retired united states army colonel and former chief of staff to call the bow or it's thanks so much for being here tonight thanks for so how do we look at this right the day. a after the troops all leave and it's this gigantic ceremony then suddenly now we have these sectarian rifts that are showing now we have the government essentially

falling apart people being accused of assassination attempts what do you say about that in two thousand and five those people at the central intelligence agency and the state department who knew the area really well experts in the area said and i'll never forget this if we stay there a year or if we stay there twenty years or if we stay there one hundred years the day we leave everything will go to hell i think they were right but so in that sense i mean the question here right is did we leave iraq any better off no went too early we should never have gone to iraq did we leave iraq any better off probably not let's just check things we left them some two hundred three hundred thousand people fewer because we killed them. we left them with lots of people hurt we left them with two and a half million people in their d asper a probably not to come home any time soon given what you just talked about we left them with virtually destroyed infrastructure which we only very peripherally didn't

think about we left them essentially. and a mass and it wouldn't it wouldn't so worse off for a start it was a we were the iraqi people here in southern ohio i don't you know iraq needs stability it needs some sort of economic future jobs for the people who are still median age around twenty twenty one and it needs something to give it a reasonable facsimile of participatory government that doesn't mean a jeffersonian democracy by any means but it means better than on an outright dictator are they going to get anything any one of those three probably not they would probably take the dictator if they would get the first one if they would get safety and security they would probably take the dictator and who the hell are we to say they should if stability and safety for the average iraqi only comes through that means but that's the thing right if you if you listen to what officials politicians here in the us say they think of the world as

a better place because saddam hussein is no longer and so here i want to get into what secretary defense leon panetta says today when he says that despite everything despite the lives lost the money spent it was worth it you know somebody in his position what is it supposed to say because on one hand you're welcoming home troops that are leaving and you want to tell them thank you for all the work that you've put in but do you necessarily have to say that there was worth i mean you know how do you balance how do you very delicate anyways and you know anyone in that leadership position whether it's robert gates before panetta or but now to now would have to say something positive for the troops i mean that's just the way you have to say it after all we've put those people's lives that race less than one percent of the country for the past eight nine years in going on in afghanistan most of them have served in afghanistan to this is a this is an atrocious situation for a country that claims it's ocracy and yet we've done it so you've got to say something to these troops you can't do

a great their service their courage the fact that they did what they did at the same. time you have to recognize if you're a sane and sober leader the fact that you probably aren't very good and never will be very good at state building you've made a mess in afghanistan a mess in iraq you made a mess in vietnam you made a mess in somalia how many times does america have to do this state building overseas before it understands that it is utterly incompetent at doing it and thus stop doing it. but then when you say that it's worth it if you choose to use those exact same words and essentially you're saying that hey we should go out and do this again i hope not i hope not and i know that most of the people in the military are very tired they know they've got a huge budget deficit coming they know they've got a huge repair bill for iraq and afghanistan in the sixty seventy billion dollars range they don't want any more of this they certainly don't want iran is another conflict on their on their sheet of music and i'm afraid that that's where some of

the neo conservatives and others in this country are trying to take us right now to yet another war in western asia yeah you and i have spoken about that at length too and you know i brought this up with you before too but with just one more time let's talk about the way that president obama is really playing office as well because he came campaigned against the war in iraq he was out there calling it stupid or dumb and now he wants it to look like it was a political victory how do you just turn around like that i think what he's trying to do is saying that he and i'm not trying to defend him but i think what he's trying to do is to say hey look i made a campaign promise and i've carried it out not only did i make that promise you carried out i care did out on the foundation of what the previous administration left me with which wasn't much so this is not something i'd lay at president obama's feet i think he had the characterization of the war exactly right when he was talking about it is the side that he wanted the troops to say that it was his defense secretary you know his administration was trying to negotiate with iraq to

get him to say past the deadline that's true but i think that was more of a residual presence not really war fighting presence not a threatening presence it was a presence that would say to molokai for example which is one of the reasons why he's moving right now because he doesn't have that presence ok if anything really goes wrong you know we still got a foothold here maleki is a very conspiratorial minded person anyway and he's moving right now in a very saddam hussein like way because. he lost the american protection and he feels like he's got to move blitzkrieg like in order to consolidate his power otherwise he will have all kinds of opposition that will allow him to exercise that power so part of the reason moloch he's doing this is that is that we left but is that a condemnation of president obama's leaving or our leaving you know we needed to get out we made a mess we didn't clean up that mess very well now we need to leave that mess and we need to really think hard about creating more misses in the world well if we want

to. talk about how perhaps obama didn't start iraq he was left out that what about what he started just now and you and i haven't gotten a chance to talk about this national defense authorization act which he at first said he was going to veto and then that he suddenly disappeared to disgrace a minor standing is that when carl levin thought the chairman of the senate armed services committee thought in the senate that the provision for it being a political to american citizens on american soil was stripped out the white house had it put back in which is just dumber the mud i can't understand how we'd want to go back to reconstruction days i mean that's the last time we destroyed policy called the white house that thinks that it's ok to assassinate u.s. citizens abroad without new due process in the case of anwar a lot of things so that's where i remember they want that it because there it is codifying powers that they've already disarming they have it's very true. i still don't think this last step in right now there are amendments in both houses i

understand to try and strip this back out and make it on us a political and that's smart but i understand it also only has about thirty or thirty six co-sponsors right now so it doesn't look like it's got a lot of well why don't we support it should have the support of five hundred thirty five congressmen if they want to exercise their rightful power in this democratic republic this is crazy this is insane or this is a road attorney and i'll tell you something else i don't think they're doing this based on their fear of terrorist. i really think they're doing this based on their ultimate fear of the occupy wall street coom other movements in this country which are going to deepen and become more profound in every city in this country if we do it in to a depression rather than a recession which with europe and our banks so heavily committed to one another is looking more and more like the future if that's the case these people are sort of you know hedging their bets against their own people by making their military

a part of the force they will call out against their own people and to me that's heinous and i guess that you know then you can just spread the word terrorism around a little more broadly or a little more loosely to right we'll see borders and i want environmental activists those people in occupy wall street movements across the country they're really associated with terrorism i mean that's the next move that's that's how you start this kind of stuff go back and check the career of j. edgar hoover and use any communism and you'll see what i'm talking about i want to bring up this is a i guess you could say kind of random to throw into the mix here but when we talk about our government attempting to combat terrorism and maybe in certain ways how they fail at it so poorly i have to bring up this example of so al-shabaab or now they have a new name too from somalia they have a twitter account as do the taliban as does al qaeda and so apparently now the government is trying to take that twitter account down and they call it twitter terrorism and it just seems childish and stupid to me is that that's going to solve

anything the social media media may be part of the next move in for infiltrating even us in addition to the terrorists that they pointedly want to go after we're looking at some of this right now with regard to cyber security and some of the things that government is doing to read your e-mail my e-mail to capture it and keep it and you know whom we mail to and who e-mails to us and so forth right now that's fully within the capacity of the government not just through the n.s.a. but through some of this technology they're developing to. protests are information networks and this is very dangerous very dangerous and no one's really taking a hard look at it in terms of constitutional principles because frankly people seem to have forgotten about constitutional principles especially the first ten amendments to the constitution and especially somebody who used to be a constitutional law professor in that who is now our commander in chief i want i want to be professed that's a good question but no it's a horrible developments and i guess you could say dark times in that sense lawrence

thank you so much for joining us tonight thanks for having. are coming up next we're going to have the latest on bradley manning's pretrial hearing and will take a closer look at a little discuss problems plaguing u.s. soldiers depression and suicide a staggering new numbers show the military battle with suicide is failing we're trying to find out what can be done to help our veterans. internet only 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 trying hard welcome to the big picture. if. you. look at the capital account of my lord mr.

peter don't believe the repetition of. what a test nobody seems to know. that never appropriate the face but hardly argument that they're being overly dramatic. well as day five of the pretrial hearing for bradley manning in fort meade at this point the government is wrapping up its case against the army private prosecution exit expected to call six more witnesses before turning over the stand of a defense which plans to only call three of its own witnesses and once both sides wrap up a military officer will determine if manning should be recommended for a court martial but before those closing arguments are made still a lot of material that the jury needs to review as you mentioned yesterday two

witnesses invoke their right not to testify meanwhile chat logs between manning and hacker adrian lamo were discovered on the accused laptop and limo actually took the stand today to confirm his conversations with the army private and the government is also present evidence of manning chatting with a user named julian a sauna and chat logs of communication with nathaniel frank who may also have ties to wiki leaks prosecution also released evidence of a text file supposedly written by manning the goes along with approximately five hundred thousand reports were found on a data cart and according to digital crimes investigator david shaver manning's file reads items of historical significance for two wars iraq and afghanistan and significant activities in between january first two thousand and four to december thirty first two thousand and nine this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of the twenty first century asymmetric warfare of the investigator also uncovered an exchange between manning and mathematician. or manning asks are you familiar with

wiki leaks and allegedly goes on to admit that he was the one who released the now famous collateral murder video something that limo also testified to in court today however during cross-examination with a computer forensics expert it was revealed the computer containing all of that information wasn't password protected meaning that anybody could have used manning's computer to send or receive those messages so while the proof of prosecution has a mounting it's evidence against the army private those of manning have also built up their side of what's being labeled as a three pronged defense lawyers reportedly plan to. because on three major issues the fact that manning was troubled and should never have had access to classified materials and security in his workplace was very relaxed and the real amount of damage if any at the leaked information had on national security as we've told you in the past the defense was originally hoping for almost fifty witnesses to help them present this trying to plant the government blocked majority those witnesses making the task of building a successful case much more difficult now there have been some revel revelations

about manning's mental stability during testimony today from former army specialist truly a showman showman it was not only involved in alter cation with the army private but she admitted that she recommended that he should not have been deployed to iraq during her testimony showmen detailed several instances where she was unsure about manning's mental stability and said that her calls for him to seek medical help were never answered by superiors and the mention of the past as hearing has been largely closed off to the public but as more details do emerge i'll be sure to share them with all of you there at home. well as the president u.s. military officials and veterans and their families celebrate the homecoming of troops in iraq doesn't mean that the hard part is over many veterans will face not only physical and psychological trauma p.t.s.d. but some will take their own lives and in fact last year more military personnel committed suicide they were killed in combat in iraq and afghanistan according to the department of defense four hundred fifty five troops died in hostile action last year and at least four hundred sixty eight active duty and reserve troops died

in suspected suicides so it's a growing problem that the armed services have been trying to counter for years and we've seen one suicide record broken after another one of the pentagon the families all of us have to do to try and stop it from happening and discuss this with me is and meet my d.l. each chief of staff of the veterans employment and training service i meet thanks so much for being here and i thank you now so i listed off a few statistics there just from the last year but unfortunately we have just been fighting these wars for the last year right if we think about the last ten years since september eleventh do you have you know i'm assuming much higher numbers for total numbers of suicides absolutely as you mentioned the numbers are both horrifying and staggering and. numbers have been increasing since the beginning of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. chris christie ending in about two thousand and nine starting to subside a little bit but still way too many military and veteran deaths since the start of

the iraq and afghanistan wars now is this something that we see more in one branch of the armed services than the other because some of the research that i was looking at showed that marines for example in two thousand and nine had the highest rate and so you know why might that be is that part of the puzzle and in figuring out why this is happening well i believe the problem is pervasive in all branches of the military and one death from suicide is one too maybe so looking at how the problem can be tackled and sold especially a candidate. i think the key to the effort to bring these numbers down are also tell me what exactly has been done because one of the main critiques that's been out there for a long time is that there just isn't this the attitude within the armed forces is not that you can go out and seek help because that makes you seem weak and soft and it might deter a lot of people from going out and trying to tell somebody trying to ask for help that's been changing not sure i'd like to break into three categories medical cultural and the transition support

a significant amount of resources and funds have been have been allocated to finding out what caused this suicide within the military community and a veteran community how best to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury within it within the active duty and in the veteran community as well second the cultural aspect which you've mentioned just recently there has been a feeling within the military community and a cultural expression that it's a sign of weakness to show any sort of mental infirmity now there's a change taking place has been taking place for several years and a lot of efforts made throughout the apartment offense to instill that. that physical fitness is important and mental fitness is just as important as the physical fitness aspect the third is probably the most important one we can affect the most is what we do to support our veterans when they return home from active

duty what we can do in terms of transitioning support not just helping veterans find jobs but helping them find meaningful careers and ways that they can serve in their community to community so they can feel that they have a mission much like you did in the military or you know i mean let's not forget the right now to the veterans who are coming home to very hard times economically and they have much higher unemployment rates but you know i think that we also have to look at what they're coming home to obviously this is not vietnam and i think that there is no. of respect out there and we always see the salute to supports to our troops but it's still not something that's really talked about a lot and this is something i harp on all the time is that last year the media collectively spent four percent or put four percent of their coverage towards the war in afghanistan right a war it's been going on for ten years now our longest war and so from the troops that you speak to do they get the impression that people are respectful they just don't really care. i think there's a lot of care out there in the community not just in the way that they don't care

about the wars that these men are fighting about where they just came back from well i think we have done a great job this country of separating the war from those who have served in the war and there's a strong support for our military community and our veteran community and not only respect but a belief of a debt of honor that we have to repay as a society to those who serve and sacrifice in our military for wars abroad regardless of wars abroad gardley as if we believe that those wars were were just and right so private sector companies government nonprofits are all working together to find ways to reintegrate veterans into the workforce into their communities and find a way to make that transition easier not easy but easier and hope hopefully alleviate the problem of suicides within the veteran community and that clearly this isn't something that will be solved easily with a two step formula but you say that part of the research is finding out why this is happening is there anything that that stands out you know as

a reason well the very basic fact that we are fighting the longest wars we have is a country in the history of this nation so many redeployment we have no means a lot of deployments. eight nine ten tours very long tours twelve fourteen eighteen months and that additional stress that each time each time a service member goes into active duty in the event it was back out into its rotation off so. that that that added factors is a big contributor plus we have we had over one point five million americans rotate in and out of iraq over the course of the last several years and just the sheer large numbers that we're talking about is also contributing contributing effect to this as well i last thing i want to ask you to though so do we focus more on perhaps doing you know it is a more of like a therapy type of relationship in terms of how we treat these true. or are we just giving them anti-depressants and dragging them up well i don't have

a medical degree but i think it's a combination of both is clearly a. medical component such as drug therapy treatment then there's also the social component such as creating a community within their home base where they come home to creating a support network both within government and government programs and also nonprofit and employer programs so that you have the holistic effect of creating this this network that can support a veteran no matter where they turn or a member of the activity or matter where they turn if they need help i mean on thank you so much for joining us tonight and it's definitely something that deserves you know to have more attention and more resources as many as possible really dedicated to it thanks so much thank you. i just ahead of the shellfish to hear from some of our viewers in the show and tell and let's tell you about another branch of the ninety nine percent movement off after the break we'll tell you what their goals are and we'll find out if their plan for the iowa caucus just might work.

if. you don't believe the repetition of. what a protest and nobody seems to know. but never a pepper sprayed the face by part of the argument that they're being overly dramatic. 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 realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard composedly.