right here on the home front. and more bloodshed in syria as arab league monitors arrive in that war torn country today hundreds more die in what human rights activists describe as an organized massacre. it's thursday december twenty second five pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. . now that all american troops are officially out of iraq a look now at the u.s. legacy left behind nearly a decade later eight hundred billion dollars spent almost five thousand american military deaths and nearly one million iraqi civilians killed many say iraq is no better off today than it was before the u.s. invaded it a recent survey shows overall iraqis feel their country is in worse shape because

of the war six in ten iraqis fear a possible civil war increased foreign influence from neighbors terrorist threats and a bleak economic outlook who then benefited from the war certainly not iraqis according to the poll when asked who benefited the most fifty four percent of iraqis say the united states fifty eight percent say saudi arabia and fifty percent say iran only four percent say the iraqi people benefited the most from the war but president obama is touting the pullout as a victory fulfilled promise he made during his campaign one of the most extraordinary chapters in the history of the american military. to want iraq's future will be in the hands of its people america's war in iraq will be old. bud just today several bombs rocked baghdad killing at least

sixty nine people the explosions appear to have hit mostly shiite sections of the city it's the worst violence iraq has seen in months no one has claimed responsibility but it's believed sunni insurgents are behind it here you are looking at scenes from the chaos today ambulances and police rushing from scene to scene and smoke clouds billowed out of the various blast sites as many as twelve bombs exploded in what was clearly an organized attack well amid the increased violence what did the u.s. really accomplish in the war in iraq tell me analyze this earlier i was joined by brian becker he is the national coordinator of the answer coalition after a decade of fighting in hopes of bringing about a free and democratic country asked him if the u.s. has come even close to accomplishing this here's his take. well i don't think those were the real objectives of the united states those are the slogans under which the bush administration carried out the invasion in march two thousand and three it was a pretest an excuse they can never say well we're invading a country occupying

a country bombing a country because we want to dominate the region dominate its vast oil resources in the case of iraq the united states has been at war against iraq not simply since march two thousand and three when the us invaded but since august one thousand nine hundred when the us imposed economic sanctions on iraq and identified regime change then and later as its primary goal during the period of the sanctions prior to the invasion in march two thousand and three according to the un's own statistics a million people mainly babies in their grandparents the most vulnerable died because the united states government as a matter of policy deprived their country of food and medicine this is a twenty year long war and despite all of that president obama is handling this as a victory he promised to get the troops out before the end of the year he had fulfilling that promise how can this really be considered a victory or is it all part of a political game you know as the election mayor well it's it's not

a victory for the united states the the goal was to impose in baghdad. a pliable quiet regime in a country that had been pacified so the united states could not only dominate its oil but have a main ally or client in this oil rich region that's clearly not the case most importantly though it's been a great national tragedy for the people of iraq not only have maybe more than a million died hundreds of thousands certainly but five million people were made into refugees almost every family has somebody they lost there's tons of widows and orphans in iraq and the country's been shredded along ethno sectarian lines previously unified country is now fighting itself as a consequence of the u.s. strategy was which was to divide and conquer joseph biden the vice president appointed by bush to be the point man for a rag he himself. the advocate of the partition of iraq the breaking up of the country. and that appears to be what we are seeing today amid. the bombings we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a little bit first i want to play

a clip from you from senator john mccain and his reaction to the removal of troops there so it was pretty obvious that if we did not have a residual force there that things could unravel very quickly all of us knew that the president campaigned saying he would bring around the end of the war they've already got propaganda out there called promises kept and he made some very interesting comments about we're leaving behind a stable iraq which we knew was obviously not true we needed the residual force there it's not there now things are unraveling tragically. so so senator mccain he's essential he's saying that it was a mistake to bring all the troops home he's calling it a political strategy so this kind of implies that he he believes that troops should still be there on the ground and iraq how do you feel about mccain advocating this indefinite occupation of iraq well it's the height of imperial arrogance the united

states has no right to station its troops in a country that doesn't want them furthermore the united states wanted to keep military forces in iraq but the iraqi government refused to grant those troops immunity extraterritoriality immune from iraqi laws and so the pentagon as it did here as it always does when it fails to get immunity for its soldiers took them out but let's not forget that there are sixteen thousand staff members in the new state department embassy in downtown baghdad a compound larger than all other compounds in american diplomatic history it's the size of ninety four football fields as want to have square miles have for those sixteen thousand staff people will be armed guards in other words a private army of mercenaries and contractors so the united states really hasn't left not with a force that big in downtown baghdad a country that's relatively small. well today we saw the deadliest day in iraq in a long time and this is shortly after the u.s. pulled out most of their troops is this

a preview of things to come well you see them a leaky government is already at war against different sunni political forces those that they say were linked to the resistance in iraq against the american occupation or have some ties to the old bastards government clearly the da a party the ruling party in iraq has its own narrow political agenda it is a sectarian agenda it is discriminatory against the sunni muslims and against other sectors the population including the kurds what we see now is the breakup of of formerly unified country so that this kind of thing is predictable sadly for the iraqi people the division of the country along these lines could lead to a renewed kind of civil war something that was absent prior to the american occupation to the extent that there's a civil war in iraq the blood that will flow from it is on the hands of george w. bush dick cheney and of course those who came after him including those from the obama administration that was their policy and you know earlier presented these

statistics that portray the way that the iraqis feel about the war after the u.s. has pulled out and a very very small percentage of iraq ease that feel that they benefited from the war who did benefit from this war well of course american military contractors halliburton those who got the big contracts for the reconstruction during the occupation forces they made a lot of money the pentagon generally made a lot of money spent two trillion dollars i think that's the real budget that all that money goes to american contractors and corporations they profit but four thousand five hundred plus american soldiers died tens of thousands had life changing loans you know as you report there are rising tide of american suicides among some american military people who've been deployed. over and over again and the big losers are of course the iraqi people they lived at peace they had a nationally unified country they had relative affluence for the region women had

rights relative to the region a lot of that has been shattered and is gone and it may take generations to recover now what people are going to say that want to tap out maybe some of the positive things that came out of the war the death of a saddam hussein this is a big year for death of dictators the death of osama bin ladin and these people would argue that the world is safer. without these dictators in place so what is your response to that well i think that's rubbish basically i think the united states government does not have the right by international law or national law to decide what government leader lives and who dies if the united states government is allowed that kind of power which apparently it's arrogating to it so then the whole world is unsafe and there's no such thing as the so-called rule of law or certainly international law the iraqi people are not better off than they were under saddam hussein you can be a political opponent of saddam hussein but just have an objective faculty to recognize that their country was in great shape compared to the way it is now and

what they have to look forward to is not jobs and free education and free housing or affordable housing all those things which existed during the old regime in spite of its political defects that's all been taken away from the iraqi people brian thank you so much for weighing in on that that was brian bakker national coordinator of the answer coalition well the thousands of lives lost as perhaps the biggest cost of the war in iraq but it turns out the biggest enemy may not be and surgeons may not be terrorists but u.s. soldiers themselves suicide rates among u.s. soldiers and veterans today are soaring for the second year in a row more soldiers killed themselves that were killed on the battlefield ad many servicemen that become victims never even leave u.s. soil it's leading some to argue that there is. is something going on in the military experience that is driving soldiers to commit suicide many come back with severe depression post-traumatic stress disorder and face challenges assimilating

back into civilian life i take a look at these suicide epidemic plague plaguing servicemen and women today and what may be behind it. being in this environment. it's killing us soldiers but surprisingly the biggest killers are not enemy combatants i am fortunately inhabits the demographic in the united states that kills itself pretty much more than any other out there for the second year in a row more soldiers killed themselves than were killed in combat four hundred sixty eight soldiers took their own lives in two thousand and ten and even off the battlefield suicide rates continue to soar mathur sure rose in afghanistan war veteran turn anti-war activist we come home feeling terrible despicable about what we did and what we saw sure roe is one of thousands returning from deployment feeling detached and conflicted the laws of decency don't apply to soldiers in

combat and when you go back to having to apply those laws yourself all the time. you know that that for many you know leads either to the grave or to jail an average of eighteen veterans per day commit suicide and many more attempted last year twenty percent of the thirty thousand american suicides was a soldier or veteran kind of cumulated in a. disaster. in that you really start to wonder if you're going to be who you were again dr jan kemp says many soldiers come back feeling disconnected from the world in which they once lived then all of a sudden they're there back things happened in their families while they were gone the situation they can come back to is not often the same one that they left in fact many come back to bleak situations a quarter of the homeless in america are military veterans the unemployment rate

among vets hovers over twelve percent meanwhile campaigns such as army strong glorify life as a soldier and aim to entice america's young men and women. so unless. the. since retiring from the army sharon has been committed to showing students the other side of the army experience the side recruiters fail to show it's all part of the we are not your soldiers tour his message is clear don't don't become one of us. and he hopes that message will prevent students from turning into a statistic from washington. well the veteran profiled in that story joined me earlier today to talk more about this map the sharon has experienced war firsthand and explains why he believes suicide rates among soldiers are

skyrocketing in fact just today on the cover of the express another soldier committed suicide and mathis weighs in on this phenomenon today you touched on a little bit in your piece liz you know the kinds of things that soldiers are up to around the world are really in many cases nearly impossible to come back from. you know the face of war has changed the types of soldiers the u.s. produces have changed you know we're not talking about the reluctant citizen soldier archetype of old we're talking about a new kind of soldier that's coming back from combat combat you know overseas in wars that we can't honestly say have made us safer and that many of us consider wars of aggression and criminal. being a veteran is perhaps one of the most alienating feelings in this country. and

you're going to say i'm sorry to interrupt you you did experience it firsthand i want to ask you on what it's like to go back to civilian society after being at war . well it's not just being at war but certainly being at war contributes quite a bit. i think the most difficult thing i've struggled with and i didn't really spend that much time in combat but you don't have to spend very long in these war zones at all to be deeply affected by them. was for me it's been the children. you know i remember seeing a lot of children in iraq she's me not in iraq i'm an iraq war resister refused orders to iraq but in afghanistan certainly when i was riding around on those convoys i can still remember the faces of the children who stared at me over my rifle so kids. difficult for me just being able just understanding that

i have been desensitized to a level of violence that most people are very uncomfortable with and things that seem normal for me to even talk about in passing are normal for folks and tend to leave me alienated oftentimes and it's a shame. you know. even recently it was a personal tragedy in a way it feels with some very dear friends of mine i i offended you know not trying to be offensive or anything but their kids found out i was in the military and they asked me what i thought about i said i don't like the military because the military kills people and to me that thought is so normal but that's not something that's normal to society you know something that is interesting about this study is that a lot of those that become victims of suicide they don't even leave us so i'll sell it they weren't even immersed in combat yet they still something about being at

this military experience that they're struggling with that can you talk a little bit about that. why it affects people i don't even go into combat. well the military by its very design is a traumatizing institution. really i think the best way to describe the approach is that the military seeks to make soldiers at least like you know ground troops i can really speak for the army most specifically the army seeks to make the lives of its soldiers even in combat miserable to the point that being in combat wouldn't seem like that big of a deal so you're talking about a system that traumatized people and we know that and in the united states in a way it's glorified we see it in movies everybody has an idea of what what happens in basic training i think even the kids i speak to in high school that are

considering the service have an idea that the military traumatized people now they don't usually they don't usually know about the specifics they don't understand you know the specifics of the kind of like sexual trauma for example that they can experience in the military they don't maybe know the specifics of post-traumatic stress disorder but they know that the military is not a friendly environment and unfriendly environments create very unfriendly people and unfriendly people wind up alienated and alone and that to me the feeling alienated in the lone have been the most dangerous states i found myself and as a veteran and so today you are dedicated to showing the youth today's youth the other side of the war the other side of joining the military that perhaps military recruiters show why do you think it's important to get this message out.

well because. the realities of these wars haven't sunk in here and in fact in many cases the schools have been deficient in their duty to teach kids the realities of current events and the realities of american foreign policy. like i said i read i recently read an article about an iraqi child who for the last ten years has lived with the explosions so much that he reportedly didn't even. get scared explosions that much anymore yet children here have no idea that those are the kinds of realities being imposed. by americans on children in other countries and so what they are seeing instead is propaganda written by the military advertising products trying to sell themselves to these kids because they consist of to them the next generation of war fighters and literally the front

lines are the high schools military recruiters prey off of off of children prey off of their insecurities perhaps their economic status be they from poor families and things like that and they try and sell a product which is essentially death. and has not just the potential to kill somebody who joins or lead them to kill somebody else but the military permanently alters people who become a part of it and then try and leave it you know it's it's it's then they don't understand that math and it's and it's heartbreaking thank you so much for sharing your story with us that was war veteran an answer or activist snappish out. well of u.s. troops and wind down in iraq violence is ask only adding and syria although the arab league monitors have arrived there are economic sanctions against syria remain as an artist sarah further reports it's the ordinary people who are feeling the pain

it's been nearly ten months since syria's uprising began the capital of damascus has remained largely sheltered from the conflict in fact in the bustling sun so it seems like it's business as usual when says sets in the winds of change have begun subliminal stronger the arab league's impose tough economic sanctions the effects of which have been felt even hid in a poor area of damascus interests and her family struggling to make ends meet. learning the beauties of the beans for a living that he barely makes one hundred fifty syrian pounds a day three dollars to support him and physically. now the fuel for his vending cart has become harder to get hold of with the economic sanctions driving by myself that. there are less products available and the prices are pushed higher there's

been fights over gas we've been trying to manage by cutting back as much as we can but sometimes when we can't afford it which is don't eat the economic situation in syria was one of the areas president of that happening seems to be making progress . but for a population that it started seeing the results of economic opportunity say look financial transactions. have blackouts that come with. that they could be even the financial times ahead. because of the economic sanctions people rushed to stop fuel and gas just. people are a little bit afraid of the fact that water or gas might home out this is when you see these queues this in place by the arab league it was fake the sanctions were full the government hands when it came to ending the violence in the country is inside syria at the moment many feel it every day people are looking for economic

sanctions so it's just like taking. the one hit that. has become part of the daily life of many people here in syria. from the arab league will be paving the way and observe the mission to at the end of the month which opposition they remain skeptical about whether that to bring about any change . in the west of the conflict areas change can come a moment tesing is imperative to families like. finding life under the sanctions increasingly desperate search. damascus. and while the assad regime cracks down on protesters in syria some scientists here in the us say the government is trying to censor them the government is asking scientists not to publish details of a bird flu study they are justifying the censorship by saying it could end up in the hands of terrorists the fear is that the information that would help terrorists

use the virus against the american people the strain h five n one or the avian bird flu effects are kills sixty percent of people infected but while humans can catch it from birds it doesn't transfer easily between person to person but scientists did find a strain that is transmitted through the air in their experiments with ferrets in this case researchers were deliberately trying to create a deadly superbug to better understand how it mutates in nature now the government is asking them to keep this information under wraps but scientific journals are calling this censorship and things the fears are being blown out of proportion scientists have agreed to print the watered down versions of their results but the question remains is this the latest example of a crackdown on civil liberties over the fear of terrorist threats well more health related fears in europe the european union european union has imposed tough new restrictions on the sale of drugs used to execute prisoners in the u.s.

the move which is likely to squeeze an already short supply across the atlantic is aimed at fighting capital punishment and its controversial methods artie's i were bennett reports on why human rights groups say the export controls are a step in the right direction. they've tried hanging electrocution and most recently a drug used to euthanize animals but now american jails will find it much harder to kill prisoners on death row the main supply line for its lethal injections has been cut off after the e.u. slaps new restrictions on drug exports i really think this will make a difference and we will see the effects of this this control order in the coming months that the the u.s. relies on european drugs for use in executions and without them they're going to be stuck and lives will be saved specifically execution drugs aren't made in the e.u.

but several american states have been importing sedatives instead drugs designed to help being used to hurt. exports of drugs like sodium thiopental will now be controlled to stop their use in a three part lethal cocktail the n.s.a. was being used to put the condemned inmate to sleep as another drug paralyzed before the final heart stopper was administered without that initial numbing stage lethal injections are unconstitutional under u.s. law the usual supply for these drugs has been dwindling since the only u.s. manufacturers ceased production last year american prisons though found an alternative source right here in west london at this fairly unassuming driving school the buildings also shared by dream farmer a british firm exporting british drugs to u.s. prisons to kill people the u.k. government soon found out and banned its use so american prisons searched elsewhere r.t. reported in may now some states have begun using pen to baba told

a drug normally used to put pets to sleep that's never been tested for human executions its primary use for humans is to treat epilepsy but it has no pain killing properties many feel its use on death throes tantamount to torture this can cause excruciating pain if something goes wrong and because we have no test we cannot guarantee that nothing will get around to people at risk of not just being killed being tortured to death. following a report danish manufacturer imposed their own restrictions to prevent misuse the new e.u. embargo covers eight barbiturates in total including printed. u.s. stock poles will eventually run dry but many fear it's only a matter of time before prisons try again with something else unfortunately the death merchants in the us can sometimes be creative in terms of what they put to use in order to put people to death and so i think what we need is

a clause which that if other drugs should appear on the market and we discover that the u.s. is misusing those we can quickly have a quick procedure to those to the list without you know wait another year aside from lethal injection other methods like hanging and firing squad and still sanctioned in the u.s. but in now rarely used these new restrictions may not choke off the drug supply completely but it will certainly tighten the noose on america's controversial death penalty. by the bennetts artsy london well that does it for now for more of the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa and you can also check out our youtube page at c.n.n. dot com slash r t america and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall the ilana show is coming up in just a half hour bankers claim that the occupy wall street movement is an attack on the very productive people of this country tonight a lot of well ask c.e.o. of euro pacific capital peter schiff if that's true so stay tuned for that i'll be

right back here at seven. welcome to the future new year's wishes on technology updates next generation places made from super strong cultural lightweight building material.