groups that do a lot to sort of stir the pot internationally in favor of the u.s. government even if it doesn't favor the majority of the people in some of these other countries i want to get your take what do you think is the most important thing to consider about these groups. well first of all this is a huge business i mean democracy promotion has has become one of the largest moneymaking business is now around the world for those involved in promoting u.s. agenda and all kinds of different ways i mean the state department and us aid budget for this annually is well over thirty billion dollars national for democracy gets over one hundred million dollars for its operations which then that money is then channeled into smaller n.g.o.s in different countries around the world they operate in over seventy countries around the world the same goes for state department's own democracy fund which is also over one hundred million dollars and this again again is trickling down into n.g.o.s in different countries is that use

the facade of being a non-governmental organization allegedly working to promote their citizen's rights in different areas and sectors of their society but in the end it all comes back to one source they're all getting funded from the u.s. government and they're getting funded precisely to promote u.s. agenda so you know that the groups may take on different different issues and may appear to be working in the interests of their own citizens in their own country but in the end they're following orders from washington and when we talk about promoting this u.s. agenda let's take a look now at what's going on in egypt i don't think that we can downplay how big of a deal this is you know what we're seeing right now members of these groups actually taking refuge at the u.s. embassy in cairo i think this is unprecedented and i want to ask what you think this means i mean these people who work for these groups do you think they did something that was just over the top that egypt's military found to be horrible or something else going on here well there's

a suspicion in almost every country around the world where these types of organizations are operating for many reasons coming from those governments because they're aware of the funding the foreign funding they're receiving particularly from the u.s. government although it's not just exclusively from the united states the. u.s. has also forged different agreements with some european foundations and canadian foundations as well to channel funding through them so that it it doesn't always have u.s. fingerprints all over it although it has the same agenda but it's actually maybe unprecedented what's happening in this sense in egypt where it is where the groups are being targeted and they haven't been directly attacked and they're taking refuge in the u.s. embassy but it's not unprecedented in the sense that over the past two years several u.s. democracy and geo workers in particular for usaid and there's a contractors in afghanistan have been targeted and have actually been killed and they've been accused of being basically cia operatives at the same time i mean they

they have been working except contractors particularly for a u.s. a id contractor by the name of development alternatives which is one of these multi million dollar contractors for the u.s. government working in this area of democracy promotion i mean they're basically like the blackwater you know u.s. security contractors but they're doing the same thing promoting regime change or promoting u.s. agenda just under different cover and with with different sort of objectives or appearance and as it may seem but no i mean i think that this is going to be reoccurring it's happened also in venezuela where they've become targets of you know those that know that they're that these organizations are not promoting the agenda of the venezuelan people they're promoting a foreign agenda and so therefore they should answer to the laws of that country for what they're doing and it seems to me that despite these clear associations with certain heavy hitters in washington a lot of people do think there's great these groups as independent and yet you take

a look at you know the i.r.i. john mccain and lindsey graham are both on its board of directors such as well quite even talk about these relationships and how they've really had a hand in shaping actual policies. well it's outrageous for the international republican institute to claim that they're somehow independent they're also fully funded by the state department by us by national not for democracy and by congress and they represent the interests of the republican party in abroad in countries around the world the same with n.d.i. which is the national democratic institute this is these are organizations that were formed at the same time as the national now for democracy in one thousand nine hundred three one thousand nine hundred four with that goal precisely in promoting us for us agenda particularly political agenda in countries abroad so i mean if you look at who they are who sits on their boards who's managing their operations you'll see that i mean these are the high level players of the political and economic elite of the united states government there's no question about it and i

do think it's important you mentioned some of the historical underpins of this going back to the eighty's i do want to get more perspective on all of this so let's go to a place where this all began yugoslavia and eva we will bring you right back into the conversation in just a minute. while ten years ago an uprising in serbia overthrew president slobodan milosevic with the careful guidance and financial support of the united states today the same activists train opposition groups around the globe exporting how to lessons in revolution but as art is loosely caffein of reports the game of regime change can sometimes be dangerous. this is the business of selling a lot of sky high heels barely there clothes revolutionary styles exported in the fashion capitals of the world hello i'm moderately evil on my road and this is the business of selling well revolution is fresh

exporting how to lessons and revolution aided by the democracy capital of the world democracies after all aren't born knowing how to run themselves a decade ago merivale launched the serbian student movement that helped oust president slobodan milosevic. the group was called out for resistance and adore the now familiar symbol of the clenched fist but behind the spontaneity of the uprisings was a carefully researched strategy guided by the west no boy somalia is a balkans columnist who's been chronicling the events in serbia since one nine hundred ninety nine the or poor movement itself was just a tiny student organization that it got subverted taken over the operatives then expanded it turned it into a branding empire and ended up basically one ing the ground the grassroots level of the revolution thus turning it into an astroturf when they were run by the needy

which very openly goes in and says our goal is to more promote democracy a new york times investigation documented the extent of u.s. assistance according to journalist roger cohen poor was no ramshackle students group but a well oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the u.s. but the objective is regime change the objective is to install a government that will execute orders the worst thing about all of this is that it's undermining a concept that enabled the united states to claim moral leadership in the world in the first place with milosevic gone ivan marriage now spends his time advise young activists abroad. ever since i've been traveling the world and teaching people how to get rid of their pesky dictators so you come up with these three easy steps so you too can get in on the action and laugh your way to freedom the video was made by students at the school of authentic journalism in mexico for narco news t.v. but ivan has helped develop a video game called

a force more powerful in which players can practice scenarios like organizing mass protests and overthrowing dictators today are poor is called canvas and with the help of the internet their methods and symbols are exploited the world over from the color revolutions in georgia and ukraine to venezuela and the arab spring uprisings in egypt william engdahl has written for over thirty years about washington secret geopolitics he's convinced the canvas is not acting alone the instigators of those so-called spontaneous protest was twitter revolts in cairo and tunisia and so forth have all been pretty organized should you assume some of the people leaders of the protests have been trained in the belgrade in serbia by all poor activists financed by the state department. this thing has the state department and u.s. intelligence all over it three easy steps and that's all it takes to overthrow your very own government so this revolution become a commodity

a product that could be branded popish to mass produce an export of all across the globe well just like ivan's video this too of course is a spoof but the game of regime change is quite real and it's unintended consequences can be downright dangerous. for the american taxpayer i think who's getting. the short end of the bargain because there are there are bankrolling people that are going around the world fomenting astroturf revolutions that are eventually backfiring and they're backfiring all over the place and once the people find out who was behind this their anger to. to the american government and the american people to a bus tour this is going to be. an easy recipe but the aftermath may be the hardest to see captain of washington. all right so you've got let's bring you back into this conversation and let's just

talk for a minute about this connection here between you know the egyptian arab spring and also what happened a decade before. well i think it's unfortunate and those well meaning interests in the case of egypt have been co-opted by this u.s. strategy of promoting regime change and using groups like up or canvas to train and really get into get themselves infiltrated into those organizations that were legitimately legitimately working to change their system in egypt i mean there certainly are always in all of these different such situations organizations groups and individuals that really do have you know a true interest in trying to improve the situation in their country the unfortunate part is that they're manipulating it and some of them are funded by foreign interests particularly the united states that are looking to promote their own agenda and that's what i think has happened in the case of egypt and now we're seeing that play out where they are targeting those u.s.

democracy matters and saying we don't want you here we don't want this kind of foreign intervention and we've seen it also play out over the years with these so-called color revolutions in libya ukraine they had their orange revolution in two thousand and four and now it's backfired i mean the same president they got out of power then back into power now and the same is happening in the keys of georgia it's happening in kyrgyzstan where those so-called colored revolutions were really just astroturf and as the other guest says in in that report and i mean in the case of venezuela which is another country where they've tried to do it they've taken students from a right wing opposition and each of his opposition trained them in belgrade heavily fined and then they represent a minute part of the population there that has absolutely no level of support in the country and they're trying to work to overthrow a legitimate democracy to implement one that would not be supported by the majority of the people i mean so i mean these are cases where it's obvious that this is

a strategy that's a big moneymaking effort that is just about promoting u.s. agenda. well that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we cover and go to our team dot com slash usa i'm christine for. the issues that so much going to do you should be sitting on the mark with siri on the brain islands escalates in the same battle country the calls for strong sanctions and even a military intervention grow in intensity. wold

. haue i have. a terrible incident unfolding on the campus of virginia tech university in blacksburg virginia that's a couple of hours south of washington d.c. at least twenty people have been killed in at least two separate shooting incidents there is still a lot of activity there are still officers up above crouched high trees busy enough police out there weapons drawn. going through the campus business but it's been

like all maureen very chaotic very rushed through the thirty three people killed here at virginia tech including the gunman this is the worst campus massacre in united states history but of course it isn't the first it's almost eight years to the day since the columbine massacre. have been able to confirm the ability of the gunman and the response the person is cho started with. the gunman needed only to i.d. . and a credit card to buy the weapons and ammunition he used sadly virginia tech has just become an all time mass murder site and students here will never feel the same . it was a normal monday morning and. also from my nine am french class to another

class that day in both the campus and we were pretty late about five or six minutes late. and we both ran in to sit down like normal we started hearing banging noises for the first time i had my teacher stop lecture and and as she went to the door to look a member teacher's face dropping in her expression she closed it again and she came kind of back and said everybody so we called on one everybody get their desks as when i pull on nine one one and seem only a couple seconds after that i never seen bullets comes in the door. she started shooting everyone just jumped to the floor and i kind of jumped underneath a bunch of desks and you hear just constant gunfire just bang bang bang and then a clip would change and then just more gunfire and i'm or him being just about at

my feet and this for i felt a force of a bullet underneath my shoulder and flipped my whole body around and exposed my right hip where i was shot of forced my right hip and it wasn't too long after that it just got quiet again sousa police came in they said shooter down i didn't know he had killed himself in the front of our classroom as it was shot four times in total and i have want to exit wound sorry of the bullets are still in my body in pieces above my knee and in my hips. put a cop on each leg and a cop on each arm and pick me up upside down and brought me down the hallway and down the stairs and out the front door. in a full class including the teacher i think was seventeen students and i think i'm one of seven or still alive.

this is a senseless brutal and noble tragedy i believe it could have been prevented i believe if there was a way that we had done a better background check on this kid this kid can go according to our laws right now can go out and even though he's on medication can get a weapon if he has no criminal history it's the same. they were doing a tech massacre has renewed debate on the passionate issue of gun control and the second amendment chosen we legally bought both guns in virginia which has some of the most relaxed gun laws in the nation critics say those laws need to be tightened do you think these things are happening because there are too many guns in the united states it's too easy to get too high powered weapon rate in this country it's been eight years since columbine we've done nothing as a country it's been six months since the school shootings we've done nothing i

wrote an open letter to the president of the university as well as times and in it i asked them to let me take responsibility for my safety legally licensed to carry a firearm anywhere in the state of virginia except for some very limited places and yet when i come on campus it's not illegal it's just i'm subject to disciplinary action which means they'll expel me. i just couldn't help but think that had one person in that classroom been able to legally carry and defend themselves that things could have been very different. some people seem to think that carrying it on is some sort of vigilante behavior or something like that and that's not that at all it's an awesome responsibility and sean mcquade is waking up in his own bag he is the final victim of the virginia tech massacre to be released from the hoss. but look twenty two year old was shot in the face during that horrific incident and it is reignited that national debate over gun control the debate being led in large

part by new york mayor michael bloomberg new york city's mayor michael bloomberg blames gun crime here on lax gun laws in other states congress should also be doing more to stop illegal gun sales before they occur and vince didn't want to contribute to violent crime in his city bloomberg decided to sue twenty seven firearms dealers in five states seven of them in for ginia mayor michael bloomberg is going after rogue gun dealers there this week they fought back with a controversial gun giveaway. giveaway. we're going to have a drawing the drawing is to simply send a couple of messages message one is going to new york mayor bloomberg that if you're going to come into virginia you don't go around virginia law enforcement and the other message is that human life is sacred innocent human life and people should be allowed to defend themselves wherever they are guns in the hands of law

abiding decent people are not a problem in fact you can't have enough guns with that type. the right to carry is exactly that it's a right it's not an obligation it's an important option that we all have as americans this is a semiautomatic beretta nine millimeter handgun it's a very dependable weapon it's currently in use by the u.s. army. while in washington today the supreme court took up a landmark case a case that could decide for the first time ever whether the second amendment guarantees americans the right to own a gun the second amendment says plainly the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed but that comes at the end of a much longer sentence giving states the right to keep a well regulated militia. in one nine hundred seventy six the d.c. council in reaction to rising gun violence decided to enact

a law basically banning the registration of new handguns and from one nine hundred seventy six on that has been the law. think clearly the washington d.c. law is out of sync with the constitution i mean you look at all the american history from the seven hundred nineteen it was unfortunate that it was an individual right you're looking at a landmark decision. a lot of elected officials for some time have used the second amendment as an excuse not to adopt commonsense gun regulations are hope in the future is that places like d.c. and all have the right to do reasonable gun regulations. to very important point guns or why america is the most abundant wonderful country ever known on the face of the early years morning america is the greatest country on seventy percent of the united states supports gun control seventy seven americans own fire all seventy percent supported gun control in a lot of. looking at gun control laws in united states this john and the only class

of guns that are outlaw and his are fully automatic guns. otherwise americans can own and you as you know just about any kind of gun they would like. there was an historical moment in the one nine hundred sixty s. when you had all these threats to gun rights because of the political assassinations in one nine hundred sixty eight pass gun control legislation that limited who could own a gun by age or by mental health status how you can acquire a gun no more mail order guns and then after that nothing really came on the radar the federal level until the brady bill one thousand nine hundred ninety three. the brady bill was named after james brady president reagan's press secretary who was shot and paralyzed during the handgun assassination attempt on president reagan

it took twelve years for legislation to finally be passed in congress when a democrat bill clinton took over the presidency. what is that brady gun control act do all the brady bill does is let's make sure that at this moment right now we're not selling a gun to someone who's got a criminal history that's the thrust of the brady bill the instant background check system. a year later clinton passed the federal assault weapons ban which did criminalize possession of almost an entire class of firearms. the assault weapons ban expired a little fanfare in two thousand and four and democrats have not spoken about renewing it since returning to power. how did the n.r.a. did the so-called assault weapons ban take fingerprints burning waiting periods gun registration gun owner licensing and two generations worth of a and i gun schemes and i gun schemers the n.r.a.

is able to prevent publicly supported gun control legislation from passing because their members are so deeply committed and passionate about the i. that if you pass any form of gun control legislation it's going to eventually lead to the loss of all gun rights from my cold dead hands. i brought a brand new python never been fired. intra tech infamous tec nine. as long as people are fearful that their government may take away their guns they're going to keep buying them as long as they can. over the years as a lobbyist in the pro-gun movement i understood the most effective lobbying america

is when you can motivate and energise huge numbers of ordinary american citizens to call and write their congressman and let them know in no one certain terms what their views on a particular issue. and frankly no one does it better than the national rifle association of america. the newspapers have dubbed him the subway vigilante the man was riding the subway saturday when for use apparently began hassling him neatly dressed suspect pulled out a gun and calmly shot all for national rifle association so what's the. right for citizens to obtain firearms lawfully the first day i ever ended up on the national media as a lead story was a pretty big news conference and that was kind of

a fun high visibility day on citizens to prevent crime the thing about ridge is he took risks he took risks that. nobody get in or a war to take the greatest single deterrent to crime is an on citizen national rifle association was a group of basically retired military police who love to shoot holes in paper. they were like walking around on eggshells oh my goodness oh my goodness somebody is use the gun for self defense richie went in there he says look the guy is somebody we should defend. he's there it became a civil rights issue the right of people who were victims to have the means to defend themselves. after congress passed the gun control act of one thousand nine hundred sixty eight there were some in the in the national rifle association that felt that the group had become too complicit or too weak or should have fought

against that legislation in one thousand nine hundred sixty and so there was a revolution of the n.r.a. and a group of hardliners took over that wanted to basically say we need to be political we need to be fighting against any gun restrictions these folks behind me on capitol hill they know that gun owners in this country are very well organized and there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of them that will vote for or con on the gun issue alone and that can determine the outcome not just of congressional and senatorial elections but it can alter the outcome of the presidency of the united states. i believe very strongly absent his anti gun positions al gore would have been president back in two thousand and one. if you take nothing home from this conference but this next sentence please listen

. you are one election away from losing your second amendment rights one election you like the bill of rights the teeth and the bill of rights is the second amendment because if push comes to shove you can't defend free speech with your mouth as chairman of the citizens committee for the right to keep their arms and founder the second amendment foundation i really want to welcome all of you to the two thousand and seven gun rights policy conference nobody gives us permission to carry a gun we get them when we're born we live there i make my living pound on a keyboard in writing news and i don't have to run this for some government you live this second amendment just like you live the first amendment when we say something like well they should allow licensed trained people with concealed carry permits.