thirsty government. and what do lockheed martin the government of bahrain and the washington times all have in common they would have you believe in nothing but it's a lot more than you might think so what's really behind this secret partnership. good afternoon it is friday january thirteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you are watching our team let's start right now talking about private first class bradley manning the man accused of being the source of a major dump of classified documents to the whistle blowing website wiki leaks he's been recommended to move forward to face the most serious trial in the military out there a general court martial is pretrial hearing is wrapping up an investigating officer colonel paul munns a says all twenty two charges against private manning have also been recommended to be part of that trial now this is not really surprising news

the odds have been stacked against private manning's defense team from day one this includes just two of the near fifty defense witnesses allowed by the military and by the way the prosecution was allowed a week a full week of witnesses brought to the court the defense team's witnesses testified for one single morning before the hearing ended now the court martial when given the green light will take place in the next three to four months but let's not forget robert manning has already spent more than a year and a half in custody and much of that in solitary confinement and some pretty harsh conditions that hundreds of people and groups including by the way the united nations have characterized as torture us now if found guilty of the crimes with which he is charged private manning stands to spend the rest of his life in prison so again nothing too surprising and i should mention to bradley manning has plenty of support in this country i've been to countless protests and rallies where there are hundreds of people who come out to support him as it has. to show you

a billboard put up or pretty recently right here in washington d.c. this is put up on new york avenue near downtown here free bradley manning this was you know from a lot of people who really think that bradley manning has been treated poorly and has been wronged and needs a little support there trying to bring awareness to his case so there is plenty to talk about and i have here in studio with me is that the president president joe press liaison to the bradley manning support network and that we have let's talk about first of all i thought very beginning of this show we showed a clip of this video that i'm sure you've seen it's gone viral this shows a u.s. marine in uniform urinating on dead militants so a simple question for you to start off what is more harmful to the american national interest bradley manning's leaks allegedly these documents or the leaks by soldiers on afghan corpses well i have to say the video is certainly concerning and something that you know makes me feel. wants me to take

a step back as an american and say you know what is really going on here with this war i think when we take a step back and look at it we can say you know this is unfortunately part and parcel of the day to day realities of war and combat overseas when we look at what bradley manning is alleged to have revealed the day to day you know cover ups of atrocities and crimes and. you know it's oftentimes many of those things that we don't see that don't get caught on camera that he was able to bring to light. and we're showing the video again right here and i think it's an important point i think. for in a lot of ways it was unfortunate that this was caught on video i think this kind of happens probably way more than the mainstream media would would like anyone to believe it is it's a stain on the reputation of the u.s.

it's very sad but you're right private first class bradley manning revealed things that were going on and for that he is facing serious punishment i mean let's talk though about the specific factors in this trial i saw you nodding your head when i was sort of laying out some of the factors that the defense team has faced it seems to me zach that for those who serve this country at least in this case innocent till proven guilty doesn't seem to be a play here i mean for people familiar with this case and there are a lot of people familiar with this case around the entire world what does this story tell the story of the defense team being denied almost anything here well i think it's pretty clear that from day one the obama administration never intended to give bradley manning a fair shot here and as you said before we've seen when it comes to no matter what issue it is whether it's the witnesses that are being allowed the evidence. every step of the way the military has stacked the deck against bradley manning and we

see again here today or yesterday with this set of charges they want to go full force with this they want to make an example out of bradley this isn't about giving him a fair trial this is really more about how this is going to play out in the public eye and what sort of a message they want to send to other people who might want to blow the whistle on crimes or other illegal behavior yet it seems that no matter what the investigation actually finds that this punishment is going to be a severe one and i think it's important i'm not going to list all twenty two charges here but an important one to mention is aiding the enemy now now with the charge of aiding the enemy comes a punished. and of the death penalty the government has that it will not be seeking the death penalty in this case but it is a very very serious charge. it will be interesting to see how you know what sort of evidence is brought forth that he was actually aiding the enemy if he is the one indeed behind this leak i want to talk about the role of the media in this too this has been going on for a very very long time this case and let me just play

a really quick sound bite from bill o'reilly this is host of the o'reilly factor on america's number one cable news network fox news of course wherever you lead all those state department documents to the wiki leaks website he's a traitor and should be executed or put in prison for life as you may know classified information is now floating around the globe courtesy of the traitors and this is typical website which is base and sweet. all right jack now this is of course an opinion show the o'reilly factor but i always thought the job of the media was was to expose government corruption instead here's a news host not only deciding who is and who is not a traitor but that he thinks that this twenty something year old young man should be put to death talk about the role of the media as you've seen it sort of play out in the case of bradley manning or you know if it calls to mind president kennedy's statement that the very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society and i think that that is something that really motivates

a lot of us a lot of us who want to see a free press that is able to hold our elected officials accountable at the end of the day you know we believe in a constitution that starts with the three words we the people the government is supposed to work for us and if they are going to routinely conceal. every day you know things that do not harm national security or if they're going to you know conceal crimes or conceal things just to avoid embarrassment then that's not what they're called to do and so if our elected officials aren't able to live up to that standard then they're just frankly not qualified to govern there are a lot of aspects that we can talk about regarding this bradley manning case but i think it's also important sometimes to sort of take this out and make it a little bigger i know that every year at the united states comes out with a report it focuses on human rights abuses around the world pointing its finger at a number of countries including for example iran and china but what about the

treatment of bradley manning i mean i think this tells a larger story i interviewed the un special rapporteur tour. to united nations and he has been outraged and frustrated he has even been able to meet with bradley manning one on one. talk about this i mean the solitary confinement there's so much to talk about well it's absurd and i had a chance recently to speak with mr mendez as well and he he mentioned the absurdity of the. in his normal mandate is to be able to speak candidly with the prisoner anywhere in the world so that he can have that really private discussion about what went on and the military said you're more than welcome to have that discussion but we're going to have it on videotape so there is no way for them to really speak candidly there have been situations where meetings with between manning and his defense team have been recorded and even unfortunately in this is really strange but the some of the abuse that you mentioned the forced nudity that has also been

recorded on videotape by the military and they refused to turn this evidence over to the defense team that would clearly show that manning's eighth amendment rights to be free of cruel and unusual punishment that's clearly been violated as have many other rights here and you know back to the issue of you know staying true to the constitution i think the real question here is is president obama staying true to his oath to defend the constitution to stand up for the rights of bradley manning and by extension all americans it's an important question and we will keep our eyes on this case despite the fact that it already seems very skewed and it hasn't even really started press liaison for the bradley manning support network that has event president thanks so much for being here today all right let's move on to that video we were talking about that video that's gone viral around the world it shows several marines urinating on the bodies of militants in afghanistan now if you haven't seen it here it is again. and to be honest folks you know we

thought that we had sad enough that today we'd actually move on from the story but we have to scupper that there is actually an entirely other story here it turns out there is a massive level of support by americans for what you're seeing happening here i'm not talking about supporting the troops i'm talking about the support of their actions of urinating on the bodies of these militants. well all right so we're going to talk about a few people who support it and it should come as no surprise that pamela geller the woman who made a name for herself speaking out loudly and vehemently against the proposal to build an islamic center a few blocks away from where the world trade center attacks took place well that she's one of those people geller issued a statement and said quote so let me be perfectly clear i do love those marines we're at war with an enemy that means to slaughter us and overthrow the united states of america i don't care that the marines we read on murderous savages and you see the word care there spelled how it's spelled that that is actually

a knock on the council on american islamic relations all right so i get it turns out though surprisingly this is not a radical fringe opinion in our coverage that we've done on this incident we've gotten hundreds of comments and a video that we posted by the way as of a few hours ago had hundreds of thousands of views but i want to show a couple comments let's put those up on the screen there mr pound pound twenty one writes quote why is this a big deal i'd piss on them if they took my life as the lives of my fellow brother friend. then joker k d d one writes everyone is whining about this did we forget these are the type of people who came and attacked us on our soil these are the people who in the beginning of the war were cutting the heads off civilians and others from our ally countries it's a little pissed i live not like the lives they took or helped take and then seems a lot less offensive than cutting someone's head off the only mistake i see here is the video that part is dumb and that was from dietrich sixty seven well in our very

nonscientific count about a third of the comments that came in sounded like this but i do think it's important to show you that we had a quite a few other comments on the other side as well so i'll show you some of those. t. state seven one seven two wrote as a vet who served two tours there and four in iraq all i have to say is grow up true we were trained better for those who support that either didn't serve or did a college tour in the service by which all of you are a joke i'm now a disabled vet with over seventeen years and i would never condone that and then joe and i with lots of sevens in front of her name says shame on the usa this proves they're not civilized and quack eighteen wrote and the americans wonder why people around the world hate them so food for thought there and it help me sort it all out georgetown journalism professor christopher chambers as it's friday welcome

. we have a lot to talk about here. so i just want to start out with. officials when this first when this video first came out a lot of officials were very quick to condemn what was seen in this video but not a lot of americans i mean this is a separate story here so i just i'm wondering i want to get your take what you think i mean is this a litmus test for where we are as a society well yes and no i mean first of all i have many friends who are current and i'm proud to say current and former. officers the united states marine corps and to a person and these are people who have graduated top of their class at annapolis have condemned this not because they love the taliban but because you saw one of the comments i was trained better than this i'm a professional my job is to go until sam tells me to do do my job as a professional and then get out you know their attitude is that this demeans you

know their mission this demeans their training because if somebody does this they're capable of anything i think it's a good point and i think that it's something that not a lot of people and media outlets are talking about that this actually makes it more dangerous for their brothers and their friends and their comrades because the . enemy this kind of stuff i mean like abu ghraib in the past will make the enemy hate them more exactly because this is that's their country basically i mean yes they are insurgents yes they are part of a of an organization that is out to overthrow the government of that country the karzai government but they're still their country but again my friends have said that's really got nothing to do with it this demeans our training as cracked professionals and as his officers you know and so it really says something to how we don't drill down to the deep meaning of that you haven't seen a lot of pundits current and ex-military people on major media outlets basically saying that well i don't care i don't give

a damn about the taliban what i care about is my training and my duty and what this type of nonsense how that demeans it so you know but we lost that meaning i think it's also important to talk sort of about that the media aspect of this is it's very interesting because you know we have seen over the last few days on the mainstream media on the big networks a lot of people you know journalists and pundits expressing outrage but what about the fact that this war has been going on for ten years there's no outrage there. this incident it was caught on video but the fact is a lot of stuff like this probably goes on a lot more often than anyone wants to talk about so i want to get your take on the fact that you know how this is treated as a scandal and that's why they're talking about it well if it's in a way it's not being treated as a scandal for some of the cable networks and the broadcast networks because all you have to do is look at c.n.n. and you know the tea party pundits they have who know nothing about military policy

security or you know even you know even this kind of thing basically saying yeah piss on them too great you know that's that's that's for the circus aspect these people are not again current or ex-military people you know any any. you know think people academics experts in military policy they're just there to stir the pot well since you mentioned it chris believe it or not you know we have this and this is another aspect of the story that i want to shed some light on as well among those in favor of the actions by the marines c.n.n. contributor dana loesch who said this on her radio show can someone explain to me if there's supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a taliban fighter someone who was a. part of an organization murdered over three thousand americans i drop trial and do it too that's me though. all right so dana has this radio show she's also one of

the co-founders of the st louis branch of the tea party but she is also a paid contributor on the network that calls itself the most trusted name in news c.n.n. now our web team at r.t. got a little bit into a discussion with her earlier on twitter about this and i'll show you part of that conversation basically r.t. america tweeted that the audio of this that we just played and more that we posted c.n.n. contributor dana loesch saluting marines for a year in aiding on that afghans identity quote nice spin good to see you don't bother actually gathering info and only mine it from progressive's ha well in response our web team asked didn't you say that words speak for themselves and we just played the words that she said she said quote i would drop trial also so. let's talk about this i mean do you think that there's a little bit of a conflict of interest here by having a paid c.n.n. contributor say this kind of depends on you know your model of what the media is fifteen years ago when people were brought on who were academics or think tank

people or experts in analysis yes now it's all a circus the whole point of bringing her on and if you get any c.n.n. producer behind closed doors in the couple cosmopolitans they will say the whole point of bringing someone like her on is to is to create that engaging circus atmosphere not real analysis the joke really is on them though because instead of you know on the surface they say it's bringing diverse opinions people will listen to her don't watch c.n.n. anyway they'll coble and they'll watch her analysis on some specific segment but does that mean they're going to tune into soledad o'brien the next morning and pumper parading snow i mean it's all rather of sordid circus she's one of the clowns in the circus and i think it is important we were curious what c.n.n. would would think and since i didn't get a chance to put them in the room with cosmopolitan we did dig up a statement that they put out in. sponsor they said quote c.n.n. contributors are commentators who express

a wide range of viewpoints on an officer of c.n.n. that often provokes strong agreement or disagreement their viewpoints on are their own so it seems to me c.n.n. here defending their. good use you read between the lines it's not about analysis it's about creating this you know point counterpoint circus so it can generate eyeballs on the network generate clicks on their website to come back so they can go back and you know bandy this about you know it's a crisis or a scandal only in the you know how they can stretch it out to get ratings it terms of going underneath i've seen very little real analysis and when it is it is usually by current and past military personnel who were given to a man or woman say this is not what the united states marine corps is about we don't love the taliban you know we're over it you know but i've heard guys say we're really kicked their asses not peeing on them we're cracked professionals that's what we stand on and that's what you hear in the deep analysis not what she

says i think it's certainly an interesting analysis of where we are as a society that goes as people and as you know journalists and media in their years of mirror on what what we've become so such a very good point as always georgetown university who learn a lesson professor chris chambers thanks. quipping on i want to talk about another story about the mainstream media and its masters in this case i'm talking about a defense contractor an oil rich kingdom in the middle east and a popular washington based news organization so here's what happened on november thirtieth the washington times published an op ed under the headline bahrain a vital u.s. ally backing protesters would be try a friend and harm american security. so this was written by vice admiral charles moore formerly commander of the navy's fifth fleet based in bahrain the author is now regional president for lockheed martin which over the past few years

has done millions of dollars in business with bahrain and the op ed was placed in the washington times courtesy of cindy this international a lobbying firm representing the kingdom of bahrain so why is the kingdom lobbying you may be wondering well considering the vast human rights abuses the anti-government protests and the extreme violence unleashed against those protesters they're not everyone's favorite kingdom right now but they still want to be so i want to look much deeper into this with the founder and president of the national security whistleblowers association civil edwards hey there are several a lot to talk about here on one hand there are human rights abuses glore going on in bahrain on the other the kingdom is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to convince americans that we need them and not just using p.r. firms which they're more than allowed to do but using a major newspaper as well talk about this. yes this is such a classic when it comes to washington and united states mainstream media and in

this case actually the lines are pretty flurry because you have to wonder who is lobbying for who we know that yes bahrain is paying or was paying yet has been paying for the publicist for this p.r. war but who was the all. benefactor in the us and then you look at it that way and just back and look you see that who gets the most benefit from these particular example and i'm going to you know other examples that have been happening for poor decades here in the states but mostly in the last ten to fifteen years is the military industrial complex in this case you're looking at lockheed martin and what you have here is yes pot rain is paying for it. the latest in the news the human rights abuses in bahrain there has been kind of

activity in the congress saying well we don't want to come across as too little you will credit so we may want to question our financial our military aid to bahrain and providing them with weapons because these weapons are used against the people and these are the protesters there these are the human rights activists there so who really gets nervous year actually more gunfire rain actually one more. is the military industrial complex because if we have that type of suspension in place against bahrain then well lockheed martin may be losing hundred fifty two hundred million dollars one point maybe you're losing another two hundred three hundred million dollars so it's really interesting because even though the money for this publicist or just lobby just paid by our brain actually i try to make like the suckers. the ones who truly benefit from this that will lobby is the military

industrial complex also all right let me let me ask you because it did say that the author of this op ed in the washington times vice admiral charles when did say underneath that he doesn't fact work for lockheed martin that part was not hidden. and also i mean this is a conservative newspaper everybody knows that and it was not like it was on the front page this was an op ed so what do you say to people who say you know i mean we are readers are not being tricked because it was in the op ed section anyone can write anything and we can choose whether or not to accept it that's our role as a newspaper. well if this was an isolated little example here then you'd be right and people would argue for that side they would be correct but this is not the case because let me give you an example from my own case ok when i was working for the f.b.i. there were severe human rights abuses abuse cases by turkey and this was during the

struggle between the turks and the and the kurdish minority in turkey now during this period they were talking and seriously talking about sanctions on turkey because we had some international organizations also lobbying congress saying you know advocating for or putting stop in sending all these weapons to turkey especially the how popular is because those in returns are being used in charkhi to do to massacre all these people they are the minority and what happened in this case and again in the i.v. got the full picture of this was on one hand there rose the intense lobbying by. real complex the northrop grumman and lockheed martin and on one hand and on the other hand there was this intense again a lobbying fight as think department when the u.s. mainstream media one of the things that way but also you're saying that this is

a i mean as a former member of the f.b.i. you're saying that this is something that actually went on all the time goes on all the time and that the mainstream media is as aware of it as people in the state department and other government officials absolutely because just before i would invite people to go and look at the archives that new york times and during year nine hundred ninety nine a few thousand you will see how all these editorials are all still front page articles are written basically saying that well even with these incidents turkey is a very important ally. back you can have nine eleven well. issues that the conflict in the balkans with iraq you know iran being neighbor basically you don't want to damage just relationship with turkey all right the right i'm so sorry so we are we are out of time i would love to talk to you about this a lot more because it's a very interesting founder and president of the national security whistleblowers

association several admins and sadly that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to our t. dot com slash usa or you tube dot com slash r t america you can follow me on twitter i'm at christine for south and the capital account with lauren lyster coming up next. on.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations are on the day.

good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm more in leicester here in washington d.c. and the eurozone faces another round of credit downgrade is as and p. is expected to downgrade several nations france has confirmed it is losing its aaa credit rating that's according to their finance minister meanwhile although the european central bank is pumping out cheap cash to try to prop up its countries that need it is ending up right back at the central bank deposits there hit a record high so what does this mean for the global economy's future and speaking of central banks does a rotate.