and also the importance of their geographic claims the resources surrounding the fossil and ok i want i want to eat what i want to eat does it want only shoot i want to tell you i should a second look i'll jump in go ahead you yes i do firstly that they don't want to become british that they are british in terms of the history of who is had control of the falkland islands you made the point that the the spanish the falkland islands are neither control but the last spanish settlement actually left an eighteen eleven and i believe that they argentina declared independence from the spanish in eight hundred sixteen so at the time that this argentine declared independence from spain no one had de facto control over the falklands and was until a two hundred thirty three with a major british settlement that really became permanent around eight hundred thirty eight that the falkland islands were actually settled by anyone and this argument about a geographical location is i'm sorry holds no water at all because look at canary

islands for example then morocco would have a claim over the canary islands ok larry if i can go to you i mean as a result of the war thirty years ago there was it was the united nations that should be a compromise or should be negotiations between britain and argentina why can't wait can't this just be resolved i mean if there's just no political will is there. well you have a lot of little elements here one is the argentine is not particularly famous for good governance and an argument is repeatedly made to remind us that back in nineteen seventy six eighty three some twenty five thousand arjan current civilians were murdered by. military. secondly. in terms of pressure and so forth you clearly can't look at this self-determination issue as either strengthening or weakening the respective positions of the two

countries because you can find compelling arguments going either way and sovereignty issue isn't clear cut and you know both countries can score their points. the real issue at this point is that there has to be a solution because the argent tines are going to continue to mine over the issue because this is a great national cause that can be exhumed when. you need a big whenever you need a good distraction waves a bloody flag of frogs. and even even a severance go right ahead. yeah let me jump in very quickly can i let me tell you one very easy way for me to lose this argument by defending the military junta and argentina and i would never do that i'm not going to defend a group of murderers and murderers who are currently serving life sentences in jail

now the real issue here is that art and the argentine democracy today which has not only distance itself from this military dictatorship but has been proactive in finding justice for for the atrocities committed why should they have to pay for the stupidity and the. just the actions of these these military generals the violent actions of these generals i think we have to i think what mr burns is doing is he's equating the government of cristina kirchner to that of fidel or some of these more of these these dictators and that's just not fair so i think we have to really look at modern day argentina today ok just to get to a second point this issue of what ok i'm going to raise your second point quickly. the an easy argument also to say to discard argentines claims here is that it's bloviation they're whining this is all political but if you actually look at the past thirty years their claims to the islands are and i'm talking the last thirty

years very in keeping with foreign policy and economic policy after the the actions the belligerent actions of the military who with with the birth of democracy following the failure of the war under menem in the ninety's he kept this issue low he wanted to get on the good side of england of britain but what happened with the kitchener first minister and the christina with their governments is they didn't want to be dependent on these strong western countries the united states england so they said we are going to build our national sovereignty we're going to make him do it we're going to make this country great alex i want in let me do that involves let me jump in because there's another huge issue out there that we haven't really talked about and that's called oil and there's a potential there vast reserves could be there and the british are now unilaterally doing exploration. is this what it should really now all about is about oil because maybe the britons don't care about the falkland islands but they care about oil b.p. does go ahead. well that's a forgive me it's a bit of

a simplistic way to look at the situation you're absolutely correct in saying that there is exploration going on around the falkland islands but i also believe and correct me if i'm wrong alex about think there is some actual there was some joint fall when argentina and exploration going on as well but the matter to me is quite simple if the oil that is found is found around the falkland islands in the area. under its sovereign control then we know where the oil belongs but this sort of back and forth between margin. than that and the following that continues to dominate alex go ahead so i could say yeah like i said the only the only colonial asking me to this whole debate is the fact that argentina wants a colonized three thousand british subjects on the hawke and i and i think that's a bit simplistic alex you want to record i heard david cameron too but oh no that's not right yes something i know what you are aware of us that us of the great and wonderful as the three thousand people who live on the falkland islands and they

will want to remain british ok larry if i can go to you how do you how do you see the oil playing into this here go ahead go ahead larry. i'm sorry i didn't get your point now my but you know we throwing in oil now here how does this change the mix all right right right. this becomes an economic determinism argument. you know the british certainly like the sniff of oil. but you have to face up to the fact that income we have to call in the nigeria and so forth which have plenty of oil the british had no problem giving up. colonies. it is not. and the. british are going to come here come these what you have here is that the conservative party margaret's. sure the iron lady who was able to describe

general be known many as ten pot dictators but how did no problem in hugging and gracing general pinochet of chile because chile was of use to the british in the fortunes that is the tories adopted this issue as the as the great pottery out of the issue of the decade and it was a very heroic one and the british sending their v. bombers thousands of miles an improvised oil tankers that had landing strips laid down on them it was a it was really a glorious war and there is a subset of the british population that is deeply committed to that war and also. a much larger percentage of the british population that can have their enthusiasm be revived very quickly if there's any threat to the fore croons and the tories

know they can work this issue and of course is a domestic component to this but it's not something that the world has to get away with because the british have quite quite as a matter of fact have as bonafide a case no better no worse than the arjan time and i don't think the argentines have so there's another scenario there's another element here look if i go to you what about the the antarctic ok because it's become more and more important and this is a nice nice foothold for the for the brits to be on what they call the falkland islands i mean there are other places and they did these islands are moving but political reality and economic reality is moving. yeah with it with these islands and the south atlantic you know the days of the british empire are over the sheer t.j. value of these islands now in the twenty first century are. not really relevant this isn't about for great britain this is not about oil this is not about power

this is a. strategic influence on the subtle and think this is a simple matter of three thousand people living on some islands that wish to remain british subjects and say is listen i'm going to give you we're going to give alex the last word here is this just a principled issue here there's no it that's that's the top priority you think in this conflict it's principle. of course not you have political rhetoric of course on both sides christian teacher saying give peace a chance which everybody i think gave a little sigh to this is about i mean this is about sovereignty and this is about the issue of what are we going to leave the colonial past behind are we going to look to the future are we going to face up to reality which is that it's not sustainable for the islanders on the falklands and the argentine citizens to keep up a good relationship if there's this tension and if there's this ridiculous divide between them trading lines their relationship in many different ways is very clear so we

should just acknowledge that all right gentlemen we've run out of time but a status quo has lasted for thirty years maybe in another thirty years that many thanks to my guest today in washington thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember. to . you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you 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 hartman welcome to the big picture. wealthy british style. that's not on the time.

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to the still get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to talk about the possibility of the white house making drastic reduction to the u.s. nuclear arsenal to buy the budget for twenty thirteen so far shows the exact opposite then there is some army psychiatrist downgrading p.t.s.d. diagnoses to save money we're going to talk about a very disturbing speech in which an investigation has now been launched and get this a private prison operators offering to buy up state prisons all in exchange that

they remain ninety percent full so we're going to talk about the dangers making criminal justice a for profit industry we'll have all that and more fit in a including it does of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. yesterday's show we spoke to glenn greenwald about how the media seems to be beating the war drums on iran even louder than the government itself and today we saw more direct proof take a look. defiant iran taunting the west iran is calling it a major achievement and its nuclear program scientists have loaded nuclear fuel rods into the core of a research reactor tehran is fueling it centrifuges with nuclear fuel and that is stoking fears that the rogue state is indeed one step closer to an atomic bomb is this another step potentially on the road and road to potentially making nuclear

weapons it is certainly a step down the road towards a nuclear weapon escalating nuclear tensions with iran this morning president mahmoud ahmadinejad is shown supposedly loading nuclear fuel rods into the tehran research reactor but it is a huge source of pride for iran. but should it be a source of worry for the west or rand has ballistic missiles with a range of about one thousand miles obviously putting israel well within reach this is a ron doubling down on moving down the path towards a nuclear weapon. so did you hear that defiant iran taunting the west a rogue state one step closer doubling down on the path to an atomic bomb should be a source of worry for the west how many ballistic missiles do they have after watching news this morning and hearing all that can help them feel scared oh here you have the mainstream media playing fearmonger in chief actually taking over and expanding on what we normally hear from the warhawk pundits and lawmakers now they

just have their own reporters and anchors doing it but listen is there a lot to talk about in the developments of iran's nuclear program yes of course but is that mean that we automatically have to jump to conclusions about nuclear war ballistic missile strikes firstly i'd say no and just like we discussed yesterday perhaps the most frustrating and hypocritical thing about all of this is that it's always perceived as if iran is the constant aggressor and the west is just idly sitting by waving flags of peace this is a game being played by more than one side but if you're the media shouldn't you at least explore both sides explored all don't you at least owing to audiences to remind them that well there's the possibility that iran wants to remain defiant because it's being cornered in sanctions by u.s. military presence and has it surrounded by a covert war that's being waged against it in the form of drones flying over their sovereign airspace and their nuclear scientists being murdered to point out any of that doesn't mean we're coming to iran's defense quite the opposite it just shows that you have an ability to apply logic and analysis to your coverage but from what

we're seeing coming from the mainstream media it really doesn't seem that they're able to do that now does it now you know what else i haven't seen the mainstream media coverage is the fact that those in our military leadership have been doing nothing but urging caution in regards to beating these workshops heard it from general martin dempsey the head of the joint chiefs who said last month that a war with iran would quote be. really destabilize he said i personally believe that we should be in the business of deterring war as a first priority air force major general charles dunlop it said almost any use of force carries a great risk of unintended quantic consequences so many of those who serve and command in iraq have also given several similar warnings reminding everyone that engaging in a military conflict is a massive endeavor that involves danger risk the loss of life and it's not by any means something that we should rush into and so you think of the population which is war weary from iraq and afghanistan from ten years of constant war would be cautious as well but as we discussed with glenn yesterday a recent poll shows that more than fifty percent of respondents so they thought the

u.s. should use military force to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon that's despite the fact that our secretary of defense and the director of national intelligence have both said in recent weeks that there is no evidence that iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon and so once again we have to return to the mainstream media and the role that they're playing in building this in fanning the flames and making conflicts seem inevitable and serious on civil it's dangerous and yet somehow they want to help provoke more war to scare people enough that their eyes will be glued to the t.v. screens and chills will be running down their spines but a semblance of being calm collected responsible professional that's what they choose to miss. now since everyone is on the topic of nukes let's talk about where the u.s. is heading and their nuclear weapon drawdown officials are saying that the obama

administration is contemplating further cuts to the u.s. arsenal possibly by reducing the number of deployed long range nuclear weapons to as low as three to four hundred warheads be about an eighty percent reduction from what the u.s. agreed to in the new start treaty with russia which limits both countries to one thousand five hundred fifty however if we look at the budget that the administration just released for twenty thirty even something doesn't really seem to quite add up not only is the budget more than last year's appropriation but it's twenty percent higher than ronald reagan's largest nuclear weapons budget at the height of the cold war and yes that is adjusted for inflation but is this a double game what can we really take away from all these reports here to discuss this with me is peter creil nonproliferation analyst at the arms control association peter thanks so much for joining us tonight for having me ok before we get into the obama administration's plans let me at least just get a comment from you on what it is that we're seeing you know what do you think that we should take away from what iran is saying about having their own nuclear fuel rods well i think we've seen two three interesting things from iran today on the

one hand they announced all of these major nuclear accomplishments accomplishments they made today but at the same time they also delivered a letter to the catherine ashton calling for responding for a call for a new talks on the nuclear program so it seems that iran is simply posturing they're trying to steal the world that look we're not going to bend to the west's will we've managed to have some serious accomplishments in our nuclear program but at the same time you know we're willing to talk and it's we're they're trying to say that they're coming from a position of strength even though they've come under the most serious sanctions that we've ever seen i mean do you think the people are going a little bit overboard with the nuclear talk when it comes to iran especially when we talk about the idea of iran having a nuclear weapon of hiding. you know they're higher enough high enough excuse me and rich uranium you know i think so i think there's a certainly a lot of her probably going on i think the iranians are engaged in a lot of hyperbole a lot of things that we've seen today are not very serious nuclear complements they don't seriously advance iran's program very far but at the same time you know

a lot of things that they're doing are very worrisome but they're not necessarily on the cusp of building nuclear weapons and i think that's one thing that we need to keep in perspective ok so now let's get into the obama administration and what these reports are saying that there might just be an even larger drawdown i mean how would something like that even have to go about happening right specially if we look at this budget they've been in now for twenty thirty and if we look at the way at the start treaty to be ratified there is a lot of congressional disapproval there so what would be the process if they wanted to bring it down to only three or four hundred warheads absolutely would what the administration is looking to do essentially is they're looking at what the options are for the role of u.s. nuclear weapons so it's not necessarily trying to decide on a on a number and drawing down there this process what schools kicked off a couple of years ago when the united states had concluded a nuclear posture review which is certainly done once every administration and that offers some broad guidance about what u.s. nuclear weapons are supposed to achieve what they doing now is looking at well what

are the specific missions that nuclear weapons are for and drawing from that how many nuclear weapons do we need to achieve those missions so it's not simply a matter of trying to ping one number another it's deciding on from from a range of options what can we live with what can we afford and how can we meet our goals while still meet the nuclear mission goals while still maintaining u.s. nuclear security now is that necessarily something that we're going to know about because we had just been here on the show a couple weeks governor ploughshares fund has talked about how obama had this big decision coming up but it's not something that he makes public in terms of you know currently we have to be able to deploy to five different nuclear enemies or powers whatever you want to call them at the exact same time right this is all classified process. we're not going to know all the details at the end of the day in fact one of the things that we're going to be looking at is when the u.s. tries to engage in additional nuclear arms reductions with with with russia whatever is decided now is going to form the guidance for how low the u.s. feels it can go in those negotiations so what we're seeing with the last round with

the new start treaty the the the levels that the u.s. went down to work were divided by the bush administration policy guidance on nuclear weapons so what we're doing now is looking at where can the next round of cuts go have we actually really fulfilled our obligations with the new start treaty yet is that a done deal we're down to fifteen hundred or one thousand five hundred fifty it's still an ongoing process the there are different levels that we're looking at we're looking at both the level of nuclear warheads and also the the means to deliver them russia is down below in terms of the delivery systems that are looking at us is still going down a little bit further but also an important aspect of it is that this is a constant exchange we recently had in several inspections on both sides so that each country knows what exactly the other is doing so that there's no you know they're trying to eliminate room for miscalculation and things like that so it's an

ongoing process i would say if this process is already under way then explain to me why this twenty thirteen budget is so much higher than it was. adjusted for inflation but that it was at the peak of the cold war part of it like i said we're looking at a range of options and what the administration is doing is trying to plan for for what all of those options mean so i mean give us some options right in that case if you're telling me that we're still spending a ton of money on our nuclear arsenal i want to know what it's for well i think one important aspect is that as part of the agreement to get the new start treaty through the senate the administration agreed to to invest eighty billion dollars in do u.s. nuclear infrastructure with the idea that it's not a surly to build up nuclear weapons or to maintain at the same level but to. to modernize those systems to make sure that as we're drawing down the lower and lower numbers we can rely on what we have left ok but then are there some areas where you feel like there is some waste there is perhaps in this management we are part of a couple of weeks to go to new funding for the continuous building at los alamos where nobody can figure out exactly why less and less would be needed and less they

really want to start building new nukes there now i believe that's been taken out of this budget but it's not the only facility i'm sure you know there certainly is where we can get some cost cutting and also to tailor our nuclear arsenal to the threats that we're actually facing these days we don't face the same threats that we did during the cold war so we don't need to maintain thousands of nuclear weapons and you know the levels that we have on high alert status we're looking out decades into the future to build new systems including new submarines and new bombers and or deliver them but we're looking at a very different world decades in the future and i think that the role of nuclear weapons is actually going to be declining they're not where they are during the day they are where they are were during the cold war now and as we look at threats out in the future they're not we're not going to need the same level of. nuclear arsenal that we maintain now so instead of making those huge investments now and deciding on maintaining a huge stockpile well in the future let's take a good look at what our needs really going to be what can we live with and perhaps

you know invest in fewer of those systems and gauging a lot of cost cutting which the defense department need to do anyway and haven't lost all that also meets the president's pledge to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons all right so if you had to make a guess like you said this is going to be classified we're never going to know exactly what it is the president decides what's he going to go with do you think of this three to four hundred number is a good guess it's difficult to take a guess i think that i don't see it going in that direction i think what's what's reasonable is that we can go down to about one thousand nuclear weapons and i think that's it's a level that. should be you know politically acceptable it's a level that would meet our our needs and it was something that would still be able to meet. u.s. national security programs. i don't know what we need at least a thousand nuclear warheads for but you know i guess that's the game is played peter thank you so much for joining us tonight good to be with. our time for a break and when we return the best of drones or go after the president signed

a bill that opens up the skies with a message from within months why now it's quite common in this town has something to do with the benjamins and are responding too much money on treating p.s.t. that's a what army psychiatrist trying to say is we're going to dive into his comments and investigation that's been launched but you're handsome with that. people calling what you said for free and fair elections. and we're still reporting from the. as you can hear behind me loud explosions.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charming welcome to the big picture.

last week we told you about a bill that went through congress that is aimed at helping the f.a.a. tell the surface this bill seeks to hasten the transition from outdated radar to g.p.s. based system for air traffic controllers would also seeks to hasten is that when you will see draw drones excuse me flying in the skies above you see the bill affirms that within years the drones will be sharing u.s. airspace with relational airplanes and orders the f.a.a. to come up with an integration plan to open up access to drones more broadly by two thousand and fifteen but some groups will be flying them much much earlier groups

like law enforcement and emergency responders will be allowed to fly on manned aerial vehicles within the next few months on the name of public safety of course now eventually the integration plan will extend to private sectors to a so that t.v. stations other private companies all get their hands on their very own u.a. the isn't it comforting to know that eventually corporations all over the us will have many spying machines at their disposal because like all you need is a little cash to make it happen now so let's just say that this bill should have set off alarms for obama and those in congress if they cared at all about our civil liberties as we've been saying for months there are quite a few concerns raised by fast tracking domestic drone use here in the u.s. and it's hardly giger of the policy counsel at the center for democracy and technology explain to us there wasn't really an outcry when congress had its hands on this legislation. bipartisan effort and passed overwhelmingly in the republican controlled house and then also in the democratic controlled senate there were no hearings the bill passed the house and three days later passes.