fair trial even possible at this point. and new york's finest might not be so honorable after all the new report shows they're actually profiling and monitoring muslim americans so let's put the good cop bad cop act and whatever happened to a reasonable expectation of privacy. i mean this goes to plan. i'm a trace of sir director of operations and. you on some advice don't get on this man's bad side that's right leave it to the republican candidates to assemble a ragtag team of neo conservatives to act as their political henchmen they're ready to meet some questionable characters the g.o.p. has up its sleeve. it's thursday february twenty third seven pm here in washington d.c.

i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well the man accused of the biggest leak of classified information in u.s. history had his day in court today twenty four year old army private bradley manning was arraigned in a military court in fort meade maryland he faces a slew of charges including aiding the enemy today manning deferred his plea he allegedly gave hundreds of thousands of secret documents and cables to the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks some celebrate manning as being a hero for exposing the truth behind military operations but his critics say he put lives at risk by making the secret information public but as he faces a military judge some question of manning stands a chance at a fair trial especially when you have the president of the united states saying this.

so at this point is a fair trial even possible for the whistleblower but i answered this question i turned to kevin zeese organizer of the act tobar two thousand and eleven movement take a listen. i that's a great question and i think it's one of the judge to consider and dismiss the case president bush obama is the commander in chief all the jurors in this case will be officers and the military the judge the prosecutor in that courtroom we under his command i can't imagine anyone think they have much a career left in the military if they came out and found manning not guilty to the commander in chief to say he's guilty is called undue command influence in military law and this is unlawful and it should be enough reason to dismiss the case and some in addition to that some say he's already faced harsh punished punishment he was held for nineteen months while he was awaiting for his day in court allegedly

he was tortured while he was in custody is subject to forced nudity so i mean is he being punished before even being tried. there were almost two years in do is arrest for a year of the time he was held in solitary confinement which would be torture in most countries they did take away his clothes for him as well during that time period they have not provided his attorney with all the all the videos and documents requested concerning how manning was treated that's one one area of many where mean these lawyers are being kept in the dark i think that should be something considered to affect this the outcome of this case i think another example why we're likely to see if your trial it means found not guilty and he was tortured and is even worse of his own guilty. and you have in like many theme manning as a hero just this month he was nominated by and for a noble peace prize by the atlantic parliament but what about the argument that he put american lives at risk by making the information public because by entering the

military you do take this out of honor and he was violated that oath what do you make of that argument. well this is a case of very low level classified documents in fact there's questions as to whether they should have been classified at all the documents have been released they've been released fully including with the names of everyone mentioned the documents and no one's been injured from it no there's been no troops killed there's a note troop troop movements known about no strategy the true spirit is a very low dot level dockets is another area by the way where the court has or if the court martial refused to provide manning's lawyer with information as you quested he's requested information about the internal reviews done by the white house the state department in the pentagon concerning the impact of these this release that's not been provided to him he's requested the opportunity to cross-examine the people who classify the doctors to understand their rationale because if doctors don't have an undue negative effect on national security they

shouldn't be classified and so man is essentially being prosecuted for allegedly leaking documents that probably should not even then classified and had no adverse national security fact that he's facing life in prison or that this is i think really an overstayer step in by the military but the refusal by the information that means or one shows that we're going into what is very likely a kangaroo court with the outcome already already known. going along with our argument have been what would happen if people were to follow in bradley manning's footsteps. to you know it would be a military that how would they know that there are secret documents cut in fact a secret especially highly classified information when you know when there were members of the military are leaking the documents in it for you know like what does this set a precedent for for it to be ok in the future. why the reason why we're seeing a kangaroo court we're seeing manning tortured for

a year in solitary confinement isn't a very clear message to anybody who attempts to follow in his footsteps i think they're really trying to show anyone we can do anything we want to you including give you a fake trial in front of the whole world so i think that's part of the effort here is to prevent that but in terms of these were these were documents were hundreds of thousands of people had legal access to these documents there was very little security with with these documents those pictures from frontline has video showing the computer terminals where these documents were accessed with the passwords and and codes in order to get in the documents but yet we have to also realize that one daniel ellsberg released the pentagon papers those are very high level secrets and even those were not releasing any national security information that should have been kept secret all we're finding out from even the highest level secret of the pentagon papers in the lowest level secrets that meanings accused of is crimes unethical behavior misbehavior by the u.s. far by u.s.

foreign policy were showing how corporations and the government work closely together the support corporate profit rather than public interest we're showing all sorts of inappropriate behavior by people like secretary say clinton who ordered u.s. diplomats to spy on u.n. officials when they came to meetings in the united nations that's illegal yet she's not being prosecuted manning who is accused of sexually telling the truth is being prosecuted facing life in prison while people who commit war crimes and other crimes are not being prosecuted at all haven't laughed they want to ask what do you think it would take for a gas to be served in this case. well i think the only way you can have justice case now is to recognize that president obama is under to command influence combined with the fact that these were very low level secret documents that should not have been classified the first place had no negative effect on national security all that adds up to drop the charges or even punish more than should have been it's time to put this behind us and not embarrass the u.s. military and u.s.

government for there with a kangaroo court proceeding and one more question there kevin what does this all have to say about whistle blowers in the u.s. and the message being sent out to potential whistleblowers in the future. why that saying that president obama is not honest with us when he says he wants have the most open administration in history that he respects whistleblowers and that kind of political rhetoric because his actions are quite the opposite his administration has been the most closed most aggressive in going after whistleblowers and i think it shows the american people in the world that this is a close government a secret government that has no tell its citizens the truth and we're supposedly the ones that are in charge of this government cabin nice to have you on as always that was kevin zeese thank you organizer for the october two thousand and eleven movement. also had an art to protect serve and profile the n.y.p.d. is going out of its way to monitor ordinary muslim americans so when did

a person's religion start to terminate in which civil liberties they are entitled to hear from answers next. that first break that just burns your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything in the bio absolutely thousands of times were stronger than any kind of debris you ever put in your. just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and just you know with truth. i'm a confession i am a total get

a high low gravity copy is like the and pretty sure. i do is kind of the case today. i'm very aware of the over the edge and see it's place. well if you think racial profiling here in america is a thing of the past think again recent reports show that for years the n.y.p.d. has been secretly targeting and monitoring muslims and this includes gathering information on mosques and muslim owned businesses even spying on muslim college students and apparently there doesn't need to be any suspicion of ties to terrorism in order to be tracked by law enforcement you simply need to be muslim so what does this mean for the freedom of religion in america profiling on the basis of religion

is alive and well while to talk more about the implications of this is linda sarsour our executive director of the arab american association of new york welcome to the show linda so what how is the muslim american community reacting to this news. these revelations from the e.p. have basically just been a confirmation of something that our community has been saying for the past ten years and right now our community is are joining other communities have been affected by police brutality as well as racial profiling within the african-american and latino communities and building coalitions iraq demanding accountability and an oversight mechanism over the n.y.p.d. because while the n.y.p.d. spying and watching our communities we don't know who's watching the n.y.p.d. and as a muslim american yourself how does it fear how does it feel to have your fears and suspicions verified through this report i mean it's just unfortunate that many of us as you can hear from my x. and i am a born and raised brooklyn new york and to know that just because i'm muslim that

my everyday life is being monitored from what mosques we pray out to the stores we shop out to the bookstore and we attend to the cafe views that are unfortunately our resources are going to surveil an entire community based on religion instead of going after real imminent threats and doesn't make you wonder how racial profiling i mean this is the united states of america we are supposed to be a nation that is tolerant of different religions different ethnicities to appreciate diversity i mean how does it make you feel to see something like this happening and being allowed to happen here in the u.s. . this is happened throughout the history of our country our country was based on you know genocide on native americans based on slavery racial profiling has existed for years for centuries in this community as a matter of fact the chief bodyguard of malcolm x. was it and why p.b. and foreman and we know that malcolm x. was assassinated in cooperation with the government so it's very it's for me it's

just a continuation of history and it's very unfortunate that we continue to ignore the core values of what this country supposed to stand for and here in the u.s. police before they do an investigation they are supposed to have probable cause does this just prove that just being muslim in itself is as probable cause mayor bloomberg and commissioner kelly have continued to defend their tactics and say that we just follow the leads but as you can see from the a.p. reports and from the secret documents that are being revealed to the public that the only leaves in those documents are the fact that we are muslim or muslim owned businesses or mosques that's the only thing that we have. an interest saying interestingly the polls show that new yorkers they do support the n.y.p.d. as you just said the new york mayor michael bloomberg he is defending the actions of the n.y.p.d. what does that have to say about the mentality of some of the citizens even in new york city today. and why petey has instilled fear in new yorkers and has used

talking points like the last fourteen foiled plots were by the n.y.p.d. which is absolutely incorrect it's actually been by citizens who have helped in that informing these pottsville this national security paradigm is really causing fear among people to believe that what the n.y.p.d. is doing is ok to profile and surveillance spy on an entire community in the name of national security so it's just a smokescreen and it's very unfortunate and if it were any other racial or ethnic group do you think that there would be even more of a public outcry than there is now i mean there isn't too much publicity over this do you think if it were another ethnic group that there would be more of more outrage over this i think the war on terror has made our country believe that we are or with this quote unquote enemy in the enemy of god i do represents this particular community i'm not sure because i feel like the police has been

brutalizing and terrorizing african-american and latino communities for a very long time and there hasn't really been any outcry from mainstream america on that issue either perhaps if it was another community there might have been a larger outcry or public you know direct action and we're hoping that with more education more a.p. revelations that there will be more outcry on this than a demand for accountability of the n.y.p.d. well the n.y.p.d. their response is that they're only tracking and monitoring people that they're in which there is probable cause and which there is potential ties to terrorist activity is this true. as you see in from the recent controversy around the third jihad movie which is the anti propaganda film that was being told the office there is paul brown deputy commissioner kelly lied multiple times to our community so as a as a new yorker i would caution people from believing someone who has numerous times lied to the media lied to new yorkers and lied to commissioner kelly what would you

like to see happen in order for this kind of mentality to change and do you think that maybe some leaders within the police department need to go that have allowed to go on i absolutely believe one hundred percent that commissioner kelly and paul brown need to go that they are not fit to run the largest police force in the country i also believe that there needs to be an oversight mechanism put in immediately that does not only deal with the spying but deals with the stop and frisk on and deal with the harassment of journalist and the arrest of peaceful protesters and most recently in occupy wall street so these two guys have to go and there have to be an oversight mechanism immediately do you see that happening yes as a matter of fact there are some works right now between us some of the civil rights groups in new york that are going to be. presenting a oversight proposal that's going to be backed by multiple groups across new york city also we've seen mayor cory booker from newark new jersey demanding an investigation into the spying on not only in new york new york muslim communities

but also in new jersey and also in connecticut so we're seeing outcry from local states on this illegal spying on muslims across the tri state area and. i'm sorry in the wake of all this do you see this whole issue of profiling based on religion based on ethnicity as getting better or where do you see this issue heading in the future. looking at nine eleven which was ten years ago on where i see our community right now is actually in a more hostile environment than we've ever seen even days after nine eleven i don't see this issue getting any better as you watch the geo g.o.p. debate you see that the muslims and islam and radical islam is at the forefront of these debates so i don't see this going anytime soon unfortunately especially recently with the passing of the national defense authorization act which basically says that we can a detained without charge even potentially american citizens so it's a very scary time in our country and i am sorry that you are dealing with this that

was linda sarsour soar executive director of the arab american association of new york. well in the race to be the next republican presidential nominee we see candidates trying to outdo each other on who is more conservative but aside from ron paul of course if one of these guys beats obama could we see a repeat of a previous administration and its policies are to correspondent on the stasi a target takes a look at how bush era players are influencing the g.o.p. candidates or scorer's a blast from the past rhetoric and a pretty good idea about america's enemies kill them been there done that any action of that nature will be considered an act of war an act of terror fear mongering on repeat dictatorships respond to strength they don't want to weakness the rest of the world looks at it they don't laugh said it basically thinks it's a theater of the absurd a circus or if you will defy republican candidates advisors my name is black.

i'm a case of service the direction of operations of the central intelligence agency notorious for promising bush to leave terrorists with flies crawling across their eyeballs and the afghan enemies with their heads on pikes putin trying to put together the evil empire again reaching a neo con jon bonet than even a small national missile defense capability would be a threat to their first strike to which i say herat torture and wiretapping defender michael hates we've got to overthrow this guy iraq war supporter robert kagan is the right tactical thing to do and i'm consistently amazed at how little responsibility any of these people have taken for the really truly horrific things that occurred during their watch michael chertoff feeling with hurricane katrina and pushing through the civil liberties killing act and self described medieval sort of guy and dick cheney's buddy david wurmser look at all these guys they

played very important roles in in the bush administration they don't seem to be particularly humbled from all the massive failures that they that they were responsible for while their track records are far from enviable how could any self respecting person bring in any of these people that brought us that great big whether the afghan war oh that wasn't good enough how about the iraq war i got another one for you how about the war rods there are these people are losers you are right it's going to be so no surprise is one provocation resurfaces the president should have built credible threat of military action maximum covert operations. to block and disrupt the iranian program including taking out their scientists most americans don't know the men behind the scenes they're

not thinking about john bolton and what a weirdo he was at the un and how he. almost destroyed america's international reputation or. or for that matter really any of the you know any of the people that romney wants to bring but some embrace the rhetoric of coersion there are still i'm sure many americans that would that would love to see flies and eyeballs and other things of people all over the world us versus the world and who should we demonize today mentality promoted by recycled cast of characters keeping americans in a perpetual state of war readiness and the rest of the world on edge to truth you know archie. earlier today i spoke with michael hughes independent journalist and foreign policy strategist about who's advising the g.o.p. candidates and what it would mean for america if one of them were to be elected and take a look actually i think compared to george bush that there are these characters is

even more frightening than bush which is amazing even you can say you know. for black i mean they based on their policies they want to see was on the. you know americans who. are almost obsession with the right wing christian. back in the whole thing in the in the israeli connection they have this obsession with armageddon kind of frightening and they're back and people like santorum and gingrich they want these guys in office you know making these decisions earning frightening. and it's it's funny to use the word armageddon because we saw words similar to that in last night's g.o.p. presidential debate where the candidates took turns kind of pandering to their base and talking tough when it comes to cracking down on syria let's take a listen to what rick santorum had to say. we are going to have

a cataclysmic situation with and a power that is the most. prolific political writer of terror in the world and here is mitt romney celebrating the demise of the syrian leader one little piece of good news and that is the key ally of iran syria is as a leader that's in real trouble and we had a grab ahold of that like it's the best that we've ever seen. so michael when we hear things like this how can we expect their foreign policy approach to be like especially when it seems like they're not at all afraid of jumping into another war . or even more. you know more. hurt. obama has. invaded. under the guise of humanitarian. or killed an american citizen and.

that he doesn't he doesn't. need something even worse if. we're going in the wrong direction or. right now it's interesting because that they would choose these guys because the bush administration wasn't exactly popular that you know that's why president obama was elected a lot of the country was calling for hope and change a change from the bush administration so why would the candidates revert back to that. i think some of it is. when the g.o.p. nomination they believe they have to say that they're probably right but it'll be interesting to hear their retort when the general i get a feeling. what we know how they really think this is how they really so it'll be interesting as they backpedal him back out of the general. michael the

exception to all of this ron paul as expected last night he used the opportunity as he had done and g.o.p. debates past to push his anti-war message let's take a listen to part of. the sanctions already back firing what we're doing is literally enhanced think of the sanctions is what we do with cash fifty years in castro is still there it doesn't work. so why don't any of the other candidates they're all kind of looking at him like he's crazy there. but he does make a valid point why don't they seem to see this as a good question and ron paul is very interesting character of all all the candidates you have. what the trinity was. on the. civil rights legislation you wouldn't mind or people died in the streets. so it's

a tragedy that i like this more. we can have a guy like that office for other reasons. and i have no idea why don't they see that i think. there's interest like the sense in the street is real and all types of other issues driving these other. militarist. and ron paul has had this consistent message of less government both when it comes to foreign policy and when it comes to domestic policy doesn't sound like you like his domestic policy at all what should ron paul do to appeal to more of the conservative base you know as this race continues we see the other candidates trying to appeal to more of the poll more votes what does ron paul need to do to expand his base even more so. right from the from the conservative and. you're pretty consistent and you would technically meet a lot of the definitions of

a true conservative but today's conservative and republican isn't your father. part of the conservative branch to day you have to bring a strong and it's. done a phobic racist undertones that that kind of goes along with it in order to win the primary and ron paul as you know it is far and as far as that goes you just need to step up his retort again. against our enemies. and then you know most to let you know he's almost too relaxed and off the cuff about what which you know troops from around the world you don't want to ensuring that his report. there probably turns a lot of people off where they don't trust the middle thinking that you know he's going to reduce the military budget. so you don't post to ensuring that his report can you should tell it that many people. all right well that is an argument that

people make when it comes to ron paul going back to the team for foreign policy team that mitt romney and some of the other candidates have have a align themselves with coffee or black john ball and these guys and what are they pushing their candidates to say what kind of policy are they pushing. but their portion of policy you know this is why you know santorum is the perfect to have it's not a war on terror it's a war on islam you know that's the type of ideology i mean john bolton i mean his biggest criticism is always he comes forward when when the enemy is the muslim enemy and all these guys what is quite ironic is like a guy like. you guys for example helped create the taliban the message and now the taliban are all sort of the most evil thing in the world but back when there are they're just you know a little bit extreme on religion but no one in there they are terrorism and they are they rightly are but they always were they always were and these guys love the

men who were still in. there the mujahideen were helping to fill so well that it was fine you know the want is for find today. well michael you don't seem too happy with any of the candidates not even with president obama who is your best bet for this election well just you know thomas paine said about governing government itself sometimes the lesser of two evils it always comes down to that because you know what there can be and are you so you got to choose someone alternately almost every election the lesser of two evils then i would have to go with obama as. well that is the argument that some people make that obama's best shot right now despite unemployment rates are his g.o.p. rivals michael thank you so much for coming on the show that was michael hughes independent journalist and foreign policy strategist that's going to do it for this hour i'll see you right back here at eight.