look at who benefits from the who benefits the lowest from killing off competition and who could be behind the assassination of an iranian scientist. would we if we had to without using nuclear weapons ourselves take out their nuclear capability well i certainly want them to believe that that's the case. and as iran points its finger at israel and the us both countries are pointing their guns and ships right back at it so is all this saber rattling or is the us close to another war in the persian gulf. it's thursday january twelfth four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well it sounds like something straight out of a thriller someone secretly attaches a bomb to a rainy and scientists car the explosion killing him now the scientist wasn't just

any scientist must suffer rashad was the director of iran's uranium enrichment facilities so those skeptical of iran's nuclear program believe he is a key figure in creating a nuclear bomb for the country and it's not the first time something like this has happened it's happened to three other iranian scientists killed almost the same way all under mysterious circumstances so it's hard to believe it's all a coincidence and this goes down as tensions escalate between iran and the u.s. over israel over iran's nuclear enrichment program as the u.s. threat is to impose sanctions on iran iran is threatening to block the strait of hormuz a critical waterway were about twenty percent of the world's oil passes through so what could possibly be behind this latest attack here to talk about this jamal of joins me here in the studio thanks for coming on this show jamal so no one has taken responsibility for this attack but iran is pointing their finger strait. at

israel. and the united states has actually come out very forcefully and said we are not behind this secretary clinton yesterday categorically denied that the us had any involvement in this and i think that that's very telling this assassination comes just weeks before planned to go she asians between iran the u.s. and the p five plus one and so. while there's a lot of informed speculation nobody knows quite who was behind this but i think that what the consensus is that whoever was behind this is less interested in setting back you grans nuclear program and more interested in setting back possible ratcheting down of tensions between iran and the united states and you know this is something that the g.o.p. candidates would celebrate presumably especially at let's take a listen to some of the rhetoric coming from them that's very telling let's take a listen. well there have been scientists turning up did in russia and in iran

there have been computer viruses there have been problems at their facility i hope that the united states has been involved with maximum covert operations. to block the iranian program we would imploding taking out their scientists including breaking up their systems all of it covertly all of it deny. all of it covertly all of it. i mean when you hear this coming out of the g.o.p. candidates i mean this is exactly what's going on. i love to see president newt gingrich deny taking covert actions after going on stage and saying he would endorse them this is. the fact the matter is that the hardliners on all sides who don't want to see any kind of negotiated resolution who don't want to see iran brought some way into the fold and want to see this tension escalate want to keep iran sort of outside of the security status quo in the middle east are supportive of these actions and that's why you have speculation that perhaps israel was behind

this perhaps in mujahedin e khalq a terrorist organization that is dedicated to overthrowing the iranian government and preventing reproach mom between the u.s. and iran are behind this or you've been happy who think that perhaps hardliners in the iranian government were behind this because they're more interested in preventing any kind of talks and being able to create a security environment within iran where they can crack down on on dissidents and use the threat of an external you know a war with the united states or external threats to actually consolidate their control so in every instance all the speculation falls on those who want to see a continued escalation of hostilities so you're saying the line of asian may not be necessarily to halt a nuclear program but just to further strain the relationship between the west and iran i believe that this attack is more about sabotaging talks sabotaging. negotiations that it is about sabotaging iran's nuclear program because i mean it's

interesting. targeting scientists if you take out a nuclear scientist i mean how effective would that really be and halting a program if there was one you know this might have an incremental effect it might set iran back a little bit but we also know that iran is going to double down and actually probably be more inclined to accelerate its nuclear program if it believes that it's under threat the entire rationale for potentially pursuing a nuclear weapon would be. the need for a nuclear deterrent and if you were on believes that the united states policy is one regime change or one of the hostilities into a war there would be more inclined to pursue a nuclear weapon and we have to remember that you know leon panetta the defense secretary went on one on face the nation just this past weekend and said iran does not have a nuclear weapons program they have not yet made the decision to take their nuclear

program which currently is for civilian purposes and to convert that into a nuclear weapons program if you want to convince iran to make that move continue down the path we're on now despite as you just said the defense secretary denying that iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon we do hear remarks like this let's take a listen i'm on fox news recently john bolton the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. said this. half measures like assassinations or sanctions are only going to are only going to produce the crisis more quickly the better way to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons is to attack its nuclear weapons program directly. so he is suggesting that we attack directly he's saying that what we're seeing so far is not enough i mean what do you make of rhetoric like that basically pushing just to go out to go to war at this all out push for war i'll give john bolton this he

at least is not guilty of intellectual dishonesty that those who are advocating for these so-called half measures that really are a means of ratcheting up to war he's not he's not mincing his words he's saying really what the agenda is which is an all out war with the wrong. i think that that would be disastrous but i credit him for actually acknowledging that that is what the agenda is being honest about it is not so at least according to this covertly let's try to keep it a secret is just putting it all out there and saying well what the intention is he's been advocating for bombing iran for years now and those of us who are calling for diplomacy and saying that these sanctions are really just a trajectory to war similar to the trajectory we were on with iraq are in the opposite camp but at least it's clear where where the two camps are when john bolton comes out and says this is about going to war with iran now all this is happening while another coincidence takes place right now in the water in the near

iran are two u.s. aircraft carriers and supposedly a third one is on the way coincidence or is there something else going on is this more than just a military exercise. i don't know about the details of why those carriers were pulled in there the united states has denied that it has anything to do with the threat from iran of blocking the strait of hormuz. but i do find it hard to believe that when you have defense officials going on t.v. and saying we will not permit for the strait to be blocked off. that these actions don't necessarily coincide with some attempts to prevent that from happening should it escalate to that point i don't personally believe that iran would take that step but the threat has been leveled and the united states is working to assert credibly that they won't allow that to happen especially as we see oil prices sort of skyrocketing now because of these tensions so now a lot of people say that there is this covert war happening and we are seeing this escalating tension i what point do we see an all out war between the u.s.

and israel and iran well there are several sort of inflection points i think that if israel did decide to. there's a potential israel could decide to strike iran iran has made a move in the past week to put some of its enrichment activities into this bunker in the fordo facility and that has been described israel as giving iran nuclear immunity it's a facility that would be very difficult to strike militarily particularly for israel to strike and to take out with their capabilities so the likelihood of an israeli strike has actually i think increased because of that and it's a matter of how long before that immunity for iran's nuclear program sets in. i would also you know i would say given what has happened with his assassination given that the united states has come out so forcefully against it and denounced it if this was israel that was behind the assassination it lends some real doubt about

how much the united states can constrain israeli actions against iran and so it creates some real worries that a strike that is not supported by the defense establishment in the united states and a lot of the civilian establishment could go forward very interesting jamal thank you once again for coming on the show that was policy director for the national iranian american council jamal. well tension between the u.s. and iran is being ratcheted up on what seems like a daily basis the u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton added fuel to the fire calling terrans recent threats to close a vital oil transit route in the gulf a provocation artie's guy and chicken looks at whether a war of words could translate to an all out war. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. seems the slightest thing chris of heat could make it boil over into an all out confrontation. where we'll be that boiling

point the point of no return we're getting closer and closer to war with iran the iranians are playing with fire problems in a crisis if you get where any small thing can really set it off and it doesn't quote washington that the international nuclear watchdog these i'm sorry closely monitoring iran's nuclear activities are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon no but we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability and that's what concerns us and our red line to iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon iran's main source of livelihood its oil exports is in danger the u.s. is imposing fresh sanctions that will dramatically complicate transactions that you grand central bank iran is also close to losing europe as a customer the reason that this is happening is that this is the logical conclusion of our current strategy against iran we have sanctions in place with no diplomacy the only way that that and is through confrontation cornered by crippling sanctions

iran's threatening to block the strait of hormuz a vital artery through which a sixth of the world's oil is should the u.s. replied by moving its test lead to the region and saying if iran goes forward they will attack experts say the policy of isolating iran may lead to other threats from tehran moment by the end a possibility that one day they will go through with their threats but washington signals that it's ready or it wants everybody to believe that it's ready could weigh up we had to without using nuclear weapons ourselves take out their their nuclear capability well i certainly want them to believe that that's the case well is that if i absolutely want them to believe that that's the real secretary would you add anything to that not believe. it's just a war of words and neither sign for an all out conflict entering what it is sastre it will. frankly speaking this tension is artificial it doesn't have to happen it

doesn't need to exist the iranians would do themselves an enormous favor by saying unless. we would do ourselves a favor by ignoring most of it all of this i sadly i think is connected to israel and the israeli fear of iran for rhetorical reasons war the military ones it may be a war of words but actions are already showing thousands of u.s. troops are being deployed to israel an american citizen has been sentenced to death in iraq and convicted of espionage iran might feel cornered and therefore make drastic moves right now it's in a war of words but one bullet shot and the powder keg can blow up the question is what's going to provide that deadly spark i'm going to check our reporting from washington our team. well still ahead on our team the video speaks for itself american troops standing over the dead afghan body is urinating on and it's not the first time the u.s.

has shown the ugly side of war and it certainly won't be the last coming up we'll show you the legacy that the u.s. is leaving around the world. welcome to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. just put a picture of me when i was like no new years old an old wood fruit. i have a confession i am a total get

a friend i love grabbing hip hop music and pretty. much it was kind of yesterday. i'm very aware of the world with its place. well it's a video that has sparked outrage all around the world u.s.

marines urinating on what appears to be dead bodies of the taliban while such an embarrassing display of behavior by american soldiers is surely not helping to win the hearts of people abroad and it's likely to strain relations between washington and kabul this as at a time when washington aims to form some kind of a diplomatic relationship with the taliban but it isn't the first time humiliating humiliating acts by the us military have been captured for the world to see it brings back memories of the infamous case of all who ghraib who can forget these haunting images these photos were released back in two thousand and four from the great prison in baghdad american guards piled naked inmates into human pyramids and forced them into embarrassing positions apparently just for the fun of it. now do these acts serve as the best recruiting tool for al qaeda and the taliban afghanistan. joins me now to talk about this welcome so i mean is this what

war can do to soldiers when you go to war do things like this become accessible to the nicest guys i mean basically what happens when you go to war it brings out the worst of human behavior and from all sides doesn't matter if you're the dominant side or the weak side and you could take them and there was the number two al qaida and you could adam gadahn and the rest them you could give them a million dollars and send them out to a camp in the middle of iran and they could try to imagine the best way to recruit more more al qaeda members and we could give them nothing better than what we do when we have incidents like abu ghraib and this situation here this is the hugest recruitment for al qaida that we can do that a body can do and where really what it shows is that the utility of open ended war long force. open into war and the long occupations the utility of it is has very real limits and so the united states ought to take. the advice of people like me

who have been there and bring the wars to an end it's in our best interest and it's in the best interests of the people over there as well so you know but what you're saying is the u.s. trying to fight terrorism but images like these a is encouraging it. yeah it's absolutely right and the reason is because images tell a bigger story images do great things to influence the psychology of. people that see this i mean and we can't control the media that. militants use in other parts of the world and so they see this in the on all the all that the militants see is anti muslim anti arab anti pashtoon sentiment coming out of u.s. soldiers and and let's let it be known that the u.s. military is not a representation of what these people are but these people are a product of war and when you go to war barbaric human nature is brought out and i

mean this isn't new the native americans how it were subject to scalping and did scalping themselves and there was a cutting off of the years in in vietnam and there was a whole lot of barbaric prepares behavior that happens when you go to war now you can say that this is an isolated case that you know not necessarily this this doesn't necessarily represent all of soldiers and the u.s. military but the action of a few can have profound consequences how can this incite even more violence i mean in other words is this video going to cost more lives. yes it will just show it just to remind people of a few incidents that occurred a while back there was the burning of the koran that happened with. terry jones as then there was the abu ghraib incident and before then there was the decision to invade iraq that had nothing to do with nine eleven so all of these these situations pile on and they add up and what happens is al qaida and other terrorist

organizations and using this video and they put it in their recruiting videos end up on you tube and across the jihad of web channels and they end up reading anti-american sentiment and all over time this is a way to radicalize and recruit young people to join in the suicide terrorist activity and it should be in the it should be absolutely. spoken against by the department of defense and. right now i think they have been kind of incompetent they say well we're looking into it no they just simply need to say this is absolutely horrible and we're going to go after these guys. jake i want to bring up a couple of recent statistics about relations between people from muslim countries and western nations in the u.s. about half say that the relationship between the two groups is generally bad but

about forty three percent say it's generally god but in places like pakistan and lebanon and much smaller amount of people think there's a good relationship but the last other interesting findings the majority of muslims believe and negative stereotypes of the west that people from the west are selfish violent and greedy now it's no secret that the taliban has this anti western agenda and they aim to spread this anti-american sentiment you know and when we see a video like this does this serve to push that agenda. absolutely i mean you know the gallup poll did galloping around the world and did polls and polled the islamic world that asked you know the greater part of a billion people what do you think the united states than as the data you just represented show that. muslims across the world have a problem with what the government does not the american people but what our government does and the policies of the united states government is absolutely atrocious with dealing with the especially the middle east and also in pakistan and

videos like this only make it worse it's one of the worst things we can do it is like the most colossal display of stupidity based upon our government to continue doing the same old policies and it's interesting this is an election season you know there's only one person right now that speaking about doing something different besides the status quo and that's ron paul and he's sort of being booed out of the room as well so i don't see things are going to change that much unless of course there's a dramatic shift in the leadership you know jake it's interesting because i was reading some of the comments i'm in response to this story and not everybody is discussed sad about this story and you see remarks like you know with deserved our you know that this is just the nature of war you're dealing with the enemy and if you look at the other side there's examples of horrific acts on the part of the taliban. you know what do you say to that argument we all i mean that's something to think about because i mean when those four blackwater agents were drugs the

streets of baghdad few years back and. gary gordon and randy sugar in mogadishu were dragged to the streets yeah ok war does bring up fat human behavior but no this nobody in the united states military is trained to pee on dead people this is the behavior of ill disciplined soldiers under my opinion are probably also suffering from a severe amount of p.t.s.d. from long ended war and what happens when you suffer from p.t.s.d. you end the dehumanizing other human beings in the in the battlefield and thats it . it's own fathomable how pathetic this is become because the war hasn't been brought to an end like obama said he was going to do and what we're seeing abu ghraib happen twice now in afghanistan so there should be outrage those are from americans and from muslims and also anybody that says oh this is justified it's war i would challenge them to go to marine corps boot camp and go find out that marines are not trained to do this sort of thing this is the behavior of p.t.s.d.

and ill disciplined soldiers and jake you know this comes at a time that the u.s. is inching closer to forming peace talks with the taliban trying to form some kind of a dialogue with this group how can something like this affect any possibility of this dialogue happening with a group. well it's interesting i actually think that this this can damage it a little bit but the taliban are no stranger to barbaric behavior remember the the acid they threw in the woman's face that was on time magazine a few weeks back in the cutting off of the ears and and all of that so the taliban are not are not shy on cruel human activity themselves but i actually think that with the greatest thing that's preventing us from bringing peace is a drone strikes that are occurring inside of pakistan because we've seen drone strikes there's been an increase in punjab the violence in the middle of pakistan there's been insurgency has increased it hasn't decreased and the myths and the

reason why is we're killing we have accidentally killed civilians inside of afghanistan and pakistan and afghanistan that have agave in the rear the taliban recruiting tool just like this video does so it's not that the taliban are so concerned about it but rather it gives them power in the negotiating because it just makes more people not like the united states and jake this story it's making because there is proof there is video that there is something that people can see how much more of this do you think is going on that the world doesn't even know about or are is this an isolated case yeah you know that that's a great question and the thing is is that these situations that are occurring. more right now nothing is secret i mean a world war two there is behavior that troops could do in the battlefield and people may not know about it but with the digital age with cell phones that have videos on them nothing a secret anymore and so if you just go on you tube and look at war crimes or. you

know the taliban in action or whatever you're going to see loads of activity like this and so it's absolutely devastating the fact that not only that these things happen but also that there's access to it and again we're going to see more and more violent islamic radicals using it as a recruitment tool and all of this is going to go into their propaganda channel to get more recruits lastly we just have a very little bit of time but you are in afghanistan you were fighting in the war in afghanistan there when you saw this video what was your reaction being aware of that yourself. i thought two things instantaneously the first thing was oh man that's terrible and the second thing was well this is the kind of thing that happens in war it's it's brutal it's sad it's horrible and the taliban are no more innocent than the united states and try to claim oh we've been there green just is horrible and i think the military also needs to look and

investigate this and also bring these guys of justice jake i think it's bad we are out of time thank you so much for coming on the show that was afghanistan war vet jake dow that's going to do it for now we'll see you right back here at five. down the official t. hopefully keisha to go on the phone on called talk from the job story.

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good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. so what is preventing the u.s. economy for recovery could it be wait for it education we've heard the president and other leaders talk about the need to invest in education to keep the u.s. from slipping further behind other nations but does this even make the grade is the right kind of education lacking keeping u.s. workers held back toiling for increasingly rich elites entrepreneurial analyst extraordinaire reggie middleton will make the case and speaking of education in america has that help.