high wall street protesters and it appears the men in blue are getting some top secret companions. and speaking of crackdowns more bloodshed on the streets of syria as thousands of anti-government protesters clashed with police all of this is unfolding as arab league observers prepare to arrive in the war torn country. during. war. and three gazan ots aboard the russian side hughes are headed to the international space station coming up we'll tell you the unique experiment they'll be conducting and why it's so important to mankind. it's wednesday december twenty first eight pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t.

. well from assassinated scientists have down drones to mysterious explosions some argue that the u.s. and israel are already and a covert war with iran and from the rhetoric we are hearing from republican presidential candidates and government leaders it seems there is a push for an all out war with the country take a look. i think our goal should be replacement of uranium dictatorship that madman to keep iran from having a nuclear weapon the right response to that would have been to go immediately after you've gone down and destroy it if we have an avowed mad man who uses that nuclear weapon to wife nations off the face of the earth iran's nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat. i would say to the government in iran today you have a very short time to solve this on your own and if you don't we will solve it for you and we frankly couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks but i think

the iranians have to believe as well that a particular leadership believe that america would consider taking military option we may be past the point of no return in the sense that iran does have inside the country everything it needs to produce a nuclear weapon the maximum covert operations. to block and disrupt the iranian program including taking out their scientists including breaking up their systems all of that covertly all of a deniable take everything at our disposal to make sure that iran does not have a nuclear weapon would i go to war to stop them from get in nuclear weapon if that's if that ultimately was what necessary they're one of the four state sponsors of terror in the world there are training camps she has training camps in central and south america they're working with the drug cartels and they are planning an assault on the united states that's what we know is going on right now. so it seems

the u.s. . is eager to engage in another war the justification this time being that iran is developing their nuclear weapons program and now the mainstream media is adding fuel to the fire and pushing to add other countries to the list of terrorism contenders it's all things to a documentary that portrays venezuela cuba and you were on as teaming up in mexico to plot terrorist attacks against u.s. interests here is a peek into that documentary titled the iranian threat it's produced by spanish language corporation univision. well univision investigation revealed in a reading conspiracy against the u.s. government. in mexico. showing latin america has become the new front line. washington to run and if. possible. global.

spent. we should add that univision that produced the documentary we just saw is owned by israeli american media mogul hamm saban but this documentary is being taken quite seriously by some right wing u.s. lawmakers it's being used as yet another weapon against the country providing justification for going to war with the country so what is behind the documentary and is this another attempt to keep the drums of war beating against iran to talk about this i was joined earlier by jamal of the policy director of the national iranian american council i started the conversation by asking how credible is this documentary. not credible at all it's it's completely ludicrous it's based on very. substantial evidence and i think that it's part of the war propaganda machine that we're seeing ramping up right now when it comes to iran. what is you're saying it's not credible so what is the agenda behind it. and

who is behind it well there has been this campaign sort of the perfect marriage for hawks in the u.s. of you know people who want to get tough on cuba venezuela people who want to get tough on iran they're driven by two of the most powerful lobbying groups in washington the you know cuban lobby and you know a packin israel lobby so linking iran and latin america is very convenient. the fact that it's not credible comes from you know if you watch the documentary they're saying that a team of student hackers was led by their leftist professor to make an offer to hack into the white house computer system and presented this to iran and this is somehow credible evidence of you know iranian terror plot. it's not credible at all and the state has commented on these things before and

basically said it's much that this is not this is not legitimate but it's still being used by u.s. lawmakers as an example. iran being a nuclear threats so would you say that this is another weapon to go to war with iran another justification to go to war with iran yes absolutely right now i think that a lot of these folks are on a quest for belly to go to war with iran and to say that iran is right there on our border is a very compelling way to ratchet up for your about iran and to make this case that we need to do something militarily to to address it but. i just you know we're seeing this propaganda machine we're seeing this coordinated campaign right now and the irony is that a lot of the hardliners in iran love this stuff you know after the judge came into office wanting to build this perception at least that iran was getting involved in

latin america and so there's a symbiotic relationship between hardliners in iran and hardliners in the united states to make it seem like this is actually happening when in reality you ron's presence in latin america is very minimal i want to take a moment to listen to what blix he is the former head of the international atomic energy agency what he had to say he compares iraq and iran and their potential to develop nuclear weapons mr blix he also led the u.n. weapons inspections team and iran prior to the iraq war let's take a listen. well there are some similarities in the. scale lation of the language and the threats. that we had in the case of iraq having case of iran on the other hand must remember that in the case of iraq they talked about. weapons that in fact did not exists today they are talking about iranian intentions

and they or they may not exist so how would you compare iraq and iran and terms of their capacity to develop nuclear weapons and could we see an iraq situation unfolding now in iran i think in terms of the politics are very similar i think we are seeing the same type of campaign that we saw in two thousand and two. i think it's very important that people understand what is the status of iran's nuclear program a majority of americans actually believe that iran has nuclear weapons they don't because of. documentaries like this one that spread these this misinformation. so i think it's very similar but the fact is you know leon panetta the defense secretary actually had to walk back some comments he made that iran could assemble a nuclear weapon within a year and had clarify that's not a timeline that starts until he ran actually makes the decision to pursue

a nuclear weapon and everything we've seen whether it's the reason i report whether it's u.s. intelligence reports continue to say you're wrong has not made that decision they're keeping the that option on the table to pursue a nuclear weapon just like the u.s. is keeping the option on the table to go to war with iran and i want to also play another clip for you this one from the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. john bolton on exactly this and i'll get your take on it afterwards. if north korea keeps its nuclear weapons capability if iran achieves nuclear weapons other countries would have a strong incentive to go nuclear as well so this problem of proliferation that that is the very definition of proliferation is each country gets a nuclear or chemical or biological warfare capability others have a strong incentive to do the same so i mean isn't that a bit extreme to say that you know every country will pursue these types of weapons

at just as a consequence of iran getting a hold of the i think it's very extreme and i think that that threat is being used used by saudi arabia for instance who recently said if you bomb gets a nuclear weapon we're going to pursue a nuclear weapon that that threat is being used to coerce the united states to take a more hawkish stance towards iran just like the israeli threat of military action is using to coerce the united states and the international community to take a more hawkish stance make it so that the options are very limited either you do what we want you to do on iran or there's going to be very bad consequences that we will create and speaking of hawkish stances that is the stance that a lot of g.o.p. candidates for presidential candidates are taking as we saw earlier we played a clip of the various g.o.p. candidates what can they possibly gain from showing that's hardline stance against iran and does the american public really support this this do or die mentality when it comes to iran i don't think the american public does support this i think that

this is a way for these candidates to appear tough on foreign policy when there are very few things that they can criticize the president on when it comes to being tough i mean this is a president who has you know killed more terrorists in drone strikes than any of his predecessors. but i think that the american people once this actually becomes something that is more part of the debate are going to say we don't want to go to war. we don't want to invest blood and treasure into this another military adventure in the middle east we don't want gas prices to soar out of control once those things actually get talked about i mean you'll notice a lot of these candidates will not go so far as to actually clearly layout what they're proposing it's mostly a difference in tone you know they say we'll do covert attacks publicly well one resurrections doing covert attacks are just not talking about it so i think it's really just a way to differentiate themselves from the president and i don't think it's

successful jamal thank you so much for weighing on and on this that was a jamal policy director of the national iranian american council. well still ahead on art the occupy wall street protesters claim their movement is being infiltrated by government secret agents coming up we'll tell you the dead giveaway protestors say points directly to the cia.

would be low and you are paying the freight about women not people are still being held there you know she says she's a. well as the cia behind the intense occupy wall street crackdown we may never know for sure as the agency is not they will bring any information on the subject by law the cia is not allowed to be involved in domestic matters only foreign intelligence issues but after seeing the organized almost military response to the demonstrations throughout the nation some are raising eyebrows as to what is behind the crackdown and who exactly is involved one agency d.c. based partnership for civil justice files or requests of the cia to get some answers but their quote request was denied now this raises many questions and tell

me answer them i spoke earlier to morrow of our hayden hillard executive director of the partnership for civil justice fund she told me what happened when she requested information from the cia under the freedom of information act take a look. we filed the partnership for civil justice fund filed a series of freedom of information act demands against different government agencies when we saw this quick succession of evictions and crackdowns on occupy encampments around the country and the central intelligence agency agency is one of the agencies that we ask that they release records that are in their possession related to the occupy movement and the involvement that they may have now there are a number of responses they could have given but the response they gave us is extremely disturbing they wrote back saying that they would refuse to process the request basically on the grounds that if the cia had any involvement it would have been illegal for it to have involvement and therefore their records system is not

constructed in a way that they could possibly search for their involvement and they refuse to process the request but aren't they by a lot under the freedom of information act or acquired to come up with these documents if they house them yes and they could have written back saying they were conducting a search they could have written back then they conducted a search and found nothing if there was nothing to find but what it says that they have to hide instead they wrote back they cited their authorizations under the law and the fact that they're not supposed to be engaged in domestic intelligence activity and then responded by saying therefore we won't process your request and that we are incapable of properly searching for any evidence of our activity now i know that this is on the heels of the associated press reports that have come out where they did their own investigative reports into the cia's involvement with the n.y.p.d. and then white t.v. in new york city has been as we know ground zero for occupy wall street now. after

their response that they're not giving you these documents do you think that they're trying to i guess records if they have them apparently they are trying to hide them i mean why not write back and say that they're conducting the search or that they conducted a search and if they genuinely didn't have anything they didn't have anything but they wrote back and said they would. if used to process the request so what indication and obviously something raised a suspicion where you wanted to get this information what indication are we seeing that the cia was in fact involved in the crackdown at these protests throughout the country well what we have seen this around the country in quick succession there was there were crackdowns an addiction is all around the united states we know that there's been coordination because there's been admissions from different government officials that there was coordination among different mayors offices employees agencies and they discussed talking points and tactics for dealing with the occupy movement and there's a real question as to federal involvement i mean i don't think anyone would credibly suggest that the federal government is not evaluating it is not looking at

is not considering how to deal with this massive movement taking over the united states and inspiring people worldwide of course they are so we have simply asked the cia and other federal agencies to turn over and make public their documents related to any coordination or involvement they have had in these crackdowns and that's where the partnership for civil justice fund is trying to obtain right now so if the cia is involved that raises a lot of serious or legal questions because that breaches both that the part that delko it and national legislation could we talk about the legal implications of this sure will the cia you know has a very ugly history of the united states of domestic surveillance going from certainly throughout the morrow the civil rights movement and it was exposed during the cointelpro period in the in the church committee hearings and the cia had operation chaos and other mechanisms where they were directly spying on people in the antiwar movement the black liberation movement and that conduct is barred by

law but as we've seen obviously the u.s. intelligence agencies have really run aggressively whyld over people's fundamental rights both in the united states and worldwide in the last decade and we've seen no effort from the government or. or this administration to restrain them the fact that the cia is operating in with the n.y.p.d. in new york city raises very significant issues as to whether or not they are currently at this moment in violation of fundamental laws restricting their conduct and we want to know what role they have with the occupy movement now we are dealing with the cia. they so who would be tasked with investigating the cia because obviously they can't investigate themselves so what would that would that look like well this is always a problem when agencies you know then turn to police themselves they're not very successful at it there are one way to do it is what we're doing this for the public to make a demand and for the public in the population to insist that the government make

public its records so people have a right to know what the government of the united states is doing and that's the step that we've taken that's the first step to make these demands if we need to go to court to obtain information and to try and get a judicial order forcing the government to open its records then we will we don't think that the government of the united states has a right to keep secret books on the people the united states so you are required to take a legal action against the cia yes we are now i understand that you also filed similar request with other agencies yes we have filed requests with the department of homeland security we have filed them with the f.b.i. with the park service from the department of justice as well we're also following requests all around the united states with local municipalities simply say agencies and mary's offices to get information on their coordination as well as they're dealing with the federal law enforcement authorities any response yet from those agencies we are actually getting some documents we expect shortly from the district of columbia and we expect others to also be producing or refusing to produce and if

they do we are prepared to take legal action to get this material and really quickly want to ask you what their response what we are seeing from this occupy wall street demonstrations and why the feds would get involved and why we saw such a strong almost military response to the movement well that's true we're seeing the miller. here are paramilitary response from police agencies in the united states and as we said this is a movement that's really inspiring people it's putting front and center to the fundamental injustices in society in the united states and around the world and people are demanding change and that's when to change happens when you see huge numbers of people taking to the streets and refusing to take no for an answer the government is really going to have to look at decide how they can handle it or if they can handle it because people have demands right now moves demands are not going to go away. and that was a mar overhead and hillary executive director of the partnership for civil justice fund. and while the u.s. is quickly trying to quell the protests at home it's allegedly fanning the flames

of protests in syria syria's opposition is divided over whether they need military help from outside to help fight against the government this after the country saw some of the fiercest battles in the nine month old crisis a reported one hundred sixty soldiers civilians and anti-government activists have been killed in the last three days making this one of the most deadly weeks since the protests began now this comes just one day before monitors from the arab league are due to arrive in the country to observe the events opposition leaders are hoping the arrival of the monitors will bring a resolution to the conflict before it turns into an all out war and the twenty two member arab league condemned the syrian regime a few months ago for the harsh crackdown of political opposition movement there the league is now threatening harsh economic sanctions meanwhile the u.n. security council voted unanimously today to extend the un peacekeeping force along the israeli syrian border after fears arose that chaos in the region could impact

its operations sara for it is on the grounds there in syria to bring us the latest . and the team from the arab league is expected to arrive in the country tomorrow that's the head of the observer mission that's expected here at the end of the month and of course that mission can come and moment t.c. really has from both sides of the conflict accounts at the death toll rising all the time in the city of homs the other day that's the main opposition city where we see say much of the fighting breaking out walls here with their excess in parts of the city where the fighting is much more concentrated and we went to travel today spouses it is the key dangers but even the cars we were visiting when the struggling on you could hear the sounds of heavy gunfire breaking out across the city the government of course and still maintaining that there's fighting and minutes and movement the opposition saying that the government had been operating

a crackdown policy on the protesters now i spoke to the foreign ministry spokesman the other day and he was saying that what's needed now from outside countries is that no one should be adding fuel to this fire and again he called for dialogue to be pushed in the situation if the outside warrant a neighboring country. to the award wants to help sooner get out of the crisis what we need is to help and provide the good offices to push the opposition who seeing north to say yes to come out on one thing but to discuss everything that are not there. you know what a discussion we had on the freedom of democracy now here in the capital of damascus the cities are made largely shells it's a far from the conflict here at the moment the signs of the economic sanctions that were imposed on the country by they have a lot last month taking it back now and taking nothing around to see

the deeds of the kicking out there be sure you see that g. today sanctions and high. because around the city today they would call them before the sanctions would put in place have now become much more frequent and a lot. longer as well. that was our to correspondent sara firth reporting from damascus coming up on our teeth are taking that trip to the international space station well tell you about the latest saw us lift off and the mission that lies ahead for the cars cars and ops aboard. thanks to we've already seen it. but what is the test of the body seems to know. that never

a pepper sprayed the face but more of the argument that they're being overly dramatic. with the capitol and now because i'm lauren lyster. a russian soyuz spacecraft carrying three future international space station crew

members blasted off this morning just in time for the holidays the rocket which is carrying some newly developed digital equipment is expected to reach the i assess on friday and the crew members will stay on board for six months to conduct experiments are in season he's now he was lucky enough to witness the launch take a look. why is rocket just about to blast off here from baikonur cosmodrome conflicts and let's take a look at this site. absolutely incredible there will reach the top speed of one point five kilometers per second

and i will have the rocket in orbit and much the ninety minutes from blast off that we just saw on board are three spacemen including russian cosmonaut and young go along with an american astronaut a new european astronaut from holland and they will be onboard the international space station for some six months of course that means they will be spending christmas and new year's there for some of them it's not the first time they'll be spending the holidays there we had a chance to speak to them just before takeoff and what they said were it was yes we'll have some kind of celebration of their commander will certainly have the christmas hats ready and we will take part in some kind of celebration to really do have a lot of work to do what they'll be doing there is conducting several some stuff thirty six or so experiments there and also be doing engineering research one of the experiments which is considered the most important in terms of research that's going on at the international space station is actually trying to find life forms on the outer surface of the i assess of course this is the only way now it's reach

to have crews reached i assess through the site space program because the u.s. nasa i should say of course grounded their shuttle missions to the i s s so it's seen. although this is the last mission to the i assess for two thousand and eleven we're hearing that will be several more missions in twenty twelve and now it's the only way to continue this very international what all spokesman say is a very important program for the international space community reporting from baikonur cosmodrome i'm used to now way for our team well that does it for now for more on the stories we covered a good hour to doubt com slash usa and check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also follow me on twitter was wall the big picture with thom hartmann is coming up in just a half hour tonight tom we'll speak to a nuclear expert who says that the disaster at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant has led to tens of thousands of deaths right here in the u.s.

so stay tuned for that but that's going to do it for the news i'll see you right back here tomorrow have a great night. and if you're. going to take free. storage. free. free. free. free blog video for your media project free media r t dot com. 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.