lunchers of corn for. ethanol and while the u.s. seems to be hungry for war the rest of the world is just plain hungry but i'm to believe don't make as much money as empty gas tanks we'll show you how the ethanol industry is fueling a food crisis around the world. it's thursday january twelfth five pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . well it's the video that sparked outrage 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 surely is not helping to win the hearts of people abroad and it's likely to strain relations between washington and kabul this at a time washington aims to form some kind of a diplomatic relationship with the taliban but it isn't the first time humiliating

acts by the u.s. military have been captured for the whole world to see it brings back memories of the infamous case of aboud group who can forget these haunting images the photos were released back in two thousand and four from the obvious ghraib prison in baghdad american guards piled naked inmates into human pyramids and forced them into embarrassing positions apparently just for the fun of it how do these acts serve as the best recruiting tool for al qaeda and the taliban to do things like this become acceptable when you go to war that's something i asked afghan war vet jake deliberate earlier take a look. yeah i mean basically what happens when you go to war it brings out the worst of human behavior and from all sides from doesn't matter if you're the dominant side or the weak side and you could take i am and i was really the number two al qaida and you could and adam gadahn and the rest them you could give them a million dollars and send them out to a camp yard 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 anybody can do and where really what it shows is that the utility of open ended war long force. open into war and 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 all 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 that 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 are a product of war and when you go to war barbaric human nature is brought out and i mean this isn't new to native americans how it were subject to scalping and did scalping themselves and there was a cutting off of the years in vietnam and there was a whole lot of barbaric prepared 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 in 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 some 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 is a good relationship with the west 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 this serves 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 and asked you know the greater part of a billion people what do you think the united states and as the data you just represented showed 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 base upon our government to continue doing the same old policies and it's interesting this is an election season and 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 on response to this story and not everybody is discussed sad about this story i you see remarks like you know with. 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 is examples of horrific acts on the part of the taliban so what do you say to that argument we all well i mean that's something to think about because i mean when those four blackwater agents were drugged 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 bad 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 it's.

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 and that 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 has given the rip the taliban a 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 those afghanistan jake tell a barito. well the new york times and hot water again this time for misquoting a report that details iran's nuclear program there are reports that times reported

as fact that there is proof iran is developing nuclear weapons here is that quote now current controversy it reads quote the threat from iran aimed both at the west and at israel to mind with a recent assessment by the international atomic energy agency that iran's nuclear program has a military objective is becoming an important issue and the american presidential campaign. now the problem with that as that that report by the i.a.e.a. it does not make that accusation nowhere as a confirm that iran's nuclear program has a military objective so what is behind this journalism blunder what or how me answer that robert naiman policy director for just foreign policy welcome to the show robert so what do you make of this mistake by the new york times is it simply that a mistake or is there more to it well i think it's very telling and it's clearly not just simply mean a mistake if we were just simply

a mistake then the new york times would have corrected your article given a clear correction you know another context the new york times everybody makes mistakes right newspapers make mistakes but other context the new york times reports to be quite until years about correcting mistakes in this context what they did was remove the paragraph from the article you go to the website now that paragraph not of your article anymore but there's no editors you know you never get any correction and then we explain to anyone oh you know we had this before we don't have it now and here's why and then i think is even more telling than the fact that that paragraph. occurred in the first place we are in the united states in the context of a concerted campaign to her raise distinctions between what is known about it nuclear program and what some people allege about iran's nuclear program.

so for example you know we have. defense secretary panetta went on to be our defense secretary was on face the nation on sunday and he said europe what are they trying to build to develop a nuclear weapon no. in the very next night p.b.s. news hour ed you have that statement by panetta and then used his remarks to try and argue the opposite as fairness and accuracy are poorly noted we didn't alert p.b.s. on this and received any response so this is part of a pattern in the us media and it's certainly part of a pattern in the presidential campaign with republican presidential candidates not all of them number one paul but. rick santorum for example when i meet the press and said well how would i be different from president obama well i would tell the iranians you have to open up your nuclear facilities to inspection or i'm going to

bomb well their arms nuclear fuel facilities are already under u.n. inspection n.b.c. should have corrected that but they did so this is part of a pattern that we're seeing over and over in the media right well as you just detailed this pattern of bad journalism behavior talk about the danger of reporting as fact that iran is developing a nuclear weapon when at this point it's not a fact it's an accusation so there is a difference between the tail. it's you it's an extremely important distinction. because in the united states is there's a widespread view particularly among the elites that in in the u.s. government state is open that if you were going to to develop a nuclear weapon that is a cost as believe that is a cause of war now of course there is nothing international law that says that the united states or israel or any other country has

a right to bomb iran or anybody else. if they try to develop a nuclear weapon there's nothing meant bt there's nothing in the un charter your church says you're not supposed to go on bombing of the countries but regardless of that fact political reality in the united states that leads see this as a cause custis belli so that's why the distinction is so important further and more if your goal is to deter iran from developing a nuclear weapon and iran isn't in fact doing that then that distinction is important to you because if you raise the distinction you're saying well it's too late they've already gone all the way there's no power the military competition and there's no incentive for iran to do anything besides develop a nuclear weapon you know pay all the consequences anyway then you're the messenger so send your letters well you might as well do anything because we're going to

punish you as if you were doing anything regardless of which to now robert does a blunder maybe more forgivable if it was an isolated case but the times has made or has the times made a similar mistake before. yes well first of all the context you know everybody who cares about these issues is deeply aware of is the world up to war with iraq where the new york times particularly porter judy miller although not only her regularly aired ect is that a milf piece for the bush administration to leak allegations about iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction program and present them as fact so then the bush administration say that even the new york times is reporting blah blah well that was information that they planted in the new york times and of course the ultimate responsibility belongs to the editors of the new york times who

allowed that information to be put out as if it were fact that played a key role in the bush administration building the political case for war and getting americans to acquiesce to lastly robert just want to ask what role does the media play and drumming up support for war in the middle east. well it's here it has a here and particularly media like the new york times washington post and networks have a huge impact on public opinion and have a huge impact on politicians in washington game in establishing people's frame about what's known and what i mean if you're you know when people are doing the three of the iraq war. people say well everybody believes. we seen it weapons of destruction when everybody didn't believe it but that was the there was sort of a consensus that was put out in the mainstream media in the united states so they

say no there's an attempt to create such consensus around your arms and everybody believes that iran is developing weapons that's why it's so it's essential that everybody cares about this should really ride herd on the u.s. media not to allow them to repeat the crime that happened before the u.s. invasion of your robert very interesting how the media has such a big role and shaping public perception thank you for coming on the show that was policy director for just foreign policy robert naiman. well so had an artsy hungry for power the us athen all industry is eating up the world's corn supply fueling a global fear food crisis coming up we'll show you why you should it stuck into this energy source.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so small a plea is think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes a big picture. well some new numbers out today that may be very telling about the world we live in the united nations food and agriculture organization found that food prices hit a record high last year according to the f a o the monthly food price index averaged twenty eight points in two thousand and eleven the record before that was two hundred points and that was back in two thousand and eight high food prices one of the major reasons behind the uprisings in the middle east and north africa last year and as christine for south discovered part of those high prices could be

a result of something a home grown in america corn based ethanol. it is a process that. the price. for the american way not just from farm . but from solar to fuel and this is where it all starts where the feeds are planted and the corn grows it is the most simple part of a process that has become anything but simple the production and use of ethanol one largely considered an environmental one has become very political being blamed for everything from the power of the state of iowa to world hunger fifteen percent right now of the food increases in this country. the chief saying in the last year are directly associated with this policy and that policy a subsidy paid by the u.s. government to encourage the production and use of corn ethanol it lasted thirty three years and cost more than twenty billion dollars oklahoma senator tom coburn

led the charge to do away with the subsidy and won but the government mandate requiring oil companies to use ethanol is still in place so just about anywhere you go ten percent of what you put into your car is ethanol. even if your car is a race car. nascar's partnership with ethanol a sign that the pressure on the corn supply will continue forty percent of last year's corn crop. went to ethanol that leaves the other sixty percent to go toward food for people and animals and with the price per bushel more than doubling in the last five years it's no wonder food prices are going up when demand goes up or the farmers plant more corn. and so research

scholar tim searching or says that leads to the shortage and increased prices of other crops and it's not just this country in other countries where people rely on corn meal as one of the only meal for their family. price hike has been devastated . ethanol farmers and plant workers argue that the claims are exaggerated since leftovers are actually used to make high protein animal feed everything else from the farmer from the protein. and the corn oil is left over that is what overrated the animal feed and still it doesn't change the fact that one sixth of the world's corn supply is burned in american cars that is enough corn to feed three hundred fifty million people for an entire year. raising the question of fairness in the increasing competition between fuel and food. in iowa christine freeze out our

team. and to dig deeper into this live from new york contributing editor at harper's magazine and frederick kauffman welcome to the show frederick he's also here also the author of a book we did have it there it is a short history of the american some ik frederick one six of the world's current supply burned in american cars how is up at all feeding the world's food crisis. well it's more than simply the laws of supply and demand in the sense that when there is demand for ethanol the fields move into production for gas tanks not mouths really all the commodity traders i spoke to last year told me that because of this subsidy and because of this mandate the price for global grain his skyrocketed because of speculation in these markets in other words we're putting tremendous speculative pressure on the global futures prices of grain all along with the simple laws of supply and demand and so this is part of what is snowballed

into these doubling prices that has really caused the world so much suffering now the hype surrounding at the knowledge that it was supposed to be this there is a green alternative to fossil fuels but how environmentally friendly it is that that all really they said it's a disaster it's a it's a really it's ridiculous on almost every level in the sense that using corn to create gasoline as we do in this country actually takes more energy to make that gas more fossil fuel energy then comes out of it and on a global level like for instance down in brazil they use sugar cane they're getting their ethanol from sugar well they say well this actually is much more efficient well it may be more efficient but what does this lead to it leads to unbelievable clearing of the rain forest and huge emissions of c o two into the atmosphere and of course it's an environmental disaster and what we see in africa we see everybody

rushing to another kind of biofuel crop called jatropha and so what's happening there we have political chaos when all of a sudden all this land is taken and people are displaced and the global ghetto just increases wow so you're saying that the process of using these bio fuels actually uses far more fossil fuels while we're trying to use more biofuels. yeah it's an absurdity the american way of doing this is completely absurd and it makes absolutely no sense on just the purely pure level of the energy you know al gore he once advocated biofuels but even he has taken a step back and read it that it's a mistake so if it's known that these problems with that then all exists why keep using it. well there is money in it a lot of people lot of the blenders in the refiners are making money and also is al

gore also pointed out his decision in favor of biofuel might have had something to do with voters in iowa voters in the midwest who are really doing well not only with what has been this billions of dollars of subsidies but also with the mandates that there has to be a specific amount of ethanol from corn in the gas in this country and of course there are tariffs up not letting in that ethanol from other countries here and so in some ways politically and financially it's a win and unfortunately it is unfortunate another interesting point am as we saw in that in the story there it's american tax dollars that are funding this that are funding this biofuel business and allows it to thrive i mean how is that able to happen. well this is been this is been a real outrage and of course the policy comes from from the bush administration but

obama has has not put an end to it until recently and it's just spin so outrageous that this whole notion of the bio fuel subsidy that what we've been seeing are these bizarrely strange bedfellows which is you have the conservation is and the environment's environmentalist and the energy people actually holding hands and singing kumbaya with the c.e.o.'s of tyson and domino's pizza because all of them are saying this is absurd this is ridiculous it's driving up the cost of our basic ingredients it's not allowing risk management for global grain and it's been a disaster and so now that those subsidies have been taken away united states citizens are still paying for it we're just paying for it in a different way at the gas tank well you know this seems to be yet another example of some of the outrage we've seen recently of corporate influence in the government what will it take to reverse this trend to eliminate the use of biofuels well like i say it's a growing trend it's not just america it's all over the world the chinese are using to solve all the crushes of of oils that come from vegetables are being deployed

and so really at this point i think what is really needed is the new technology and what we see is very promising technology although still an early stage with of all things algae from the from the sea and so maybe this is going to give us some way some other avenue other than this ridiculous course that we've been on really for the past decade or so frederick thank you so much for coming on the show that was contributing editor at harper's magazine man. well the alona show was coming up in just a half hour let's check in with a london to see what's on today's agenda. well we've got a great show for you and i think one of my favorite stories personally is the fact that even though the r. and c. and the d.n.c. are still about seven months away tampa and charlotte both have about fifty million dollars each in grants from the federal government to spend on security and so they are ramping everything up they're getting tanks they're bringing in new

communications systems all to counter protesters and virtually turning them into many police states before the conventions even begin so running a colleague for alternate is going to give us all the details on that sounds pretty scary that is coming up next the alona show but that is going to do it for the news for more on the stories we covered go to artsy dot 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 at liz wall the alone a show coming up right after the show will be right back here at seven.

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