they cortex to be for some time saying sorry just isn't enough people want action and they want answers so is this attempt to little too late. sorry they have called the sterile code a little town called. serious serious people ticking toward intervention the international community is making moves in syria however it might not be the people's interest they have in mind but their own show you why the situation isn't black and white. and which country do you think poses the greatest threat to american national security the wrong china russia from cold war era suspicions to downright phobia american fear mongering has evolved to a point beyond recognition but what is the rationale behind this rhetoric will sift through the stereotypes.

it is friday february twenty fourth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our t.v. . well protests in afghanistan today grew more violent and more bloody as anger and distrust for american there grows the protests are in response to a bunch of qur'an is being burned on air base and it has been met with quite a bit of violence there yesterday a man wearing a mill afghan military uniform shot and killed two american soldiers now most people know this but muslims consider the qur'an to be the literal word of god and treat each copy with deep reverence and desecration of course is considered one of the worst forms of blossom for me as soon after this incident was reported there have been another a number of apologies issued. from general john allen commander of the international security assistance force. i've ordered an investigation into a report i received during the night that i said personnel that bob remember base

improperly disposed of a large number of islamic religious materials which included koran president obama also apologized in a letter he wrote to afghan president hamid karzai in which he expressed regret for the religious materials that were quote unintentionally mishandled at bagram air base but the president's apology came several days after the incident and many people who live in afghanistan say it just wasn't enough. apologies and not enough. they have to be put on trial and the culprit should face them or so how will this incident affect the current war in afghanistan and how could the situation have been handled differently to help me answer those questions we spoke with former u.s. marine and current r.t. blogger jail berto. well this this is extraordinary unfortunate event and i think that the press has done. and it is important job of

identifying that this is really really problematic for the nato and i step forces that have been trying to win the hearts and minds for ten years inside of afghanistan it's detrimental to the effort of winning the hearts and minds it's extraordinarily you know it's in comprehensible how people could let a koran be burned from a muslims point of view and this goes with the general position that the u.s. has a p.r. problem with the islamic world i mean i've been i've been tell you christine i've traveled to fifty eight countries i've been the military of done diplomacy and we americans just have no idea how bad our people view us what the public opinion of the greater islamic world is of america and here people are just here's another opinion jake that's sort of going around i think that's a really good point because we see mostly what the american media tells us. and we did we saw john allen general john allen the policy president obama of course also apologize in that letter but. i want to play something that republican presidential

candidate newt gingrich said about those apology and then we can talk about a. president apologized for the burning but i haven't seen the president demand. the government of afghanistan apologize for the killing of two young americans. hamad karzai the president of afghanistan doesn't deal in kampala judging and i think we should say goodbye and good luck we don't need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who's. so jake i mean it you again brought up this point about the way people and all these other countries who don't live here view this mentality. talk a little bit about what newt gingrich said and what you think how that plays out well you know newt gingrich is you know he's pretty much one of the biggest

international knuckleheads that i've ever seen come out of the republican party that has been utilized seems to be somewhat prominent among a lot of conservatives you heard the applause there when he said that well the second part of what he said was goes with the broader american opinion that we shouldn't be in afghanistan and that's done by the libertarians done by conservatives and democrats so of course you're going to get a prods for that so yes we shouldn't be in afghanistan this war should have been over a long time ago that's parts right but the first part about is demanding that the afghans do this and this is like you know where does it get off without i mean it was it was an accident that the soldiers or marines didn't purposely try to commit this problem but it's you know. he's just he's just so clueless about how to conduct international affairs and i just say the broader the general speaking general allen and obama and leon panetta and everybody else has apologized there's nobody left to apologize so it's not a matter a week thing it's a matter of diplomacy and newt gingrich doesn't understand that we need more

diplomacy and of course we saw you know one of the afghans that was interviewed there a lot of protests right outside of bog around and people are angry and they say i'm sorry but sorry is not going to cut it we need a trial we want actual justice. i mean do you think this thing is going to die down or do you think that the afghan people are going to continue to push i would say intel there is some sort of trial or investigation into this but it doesn't look like there's necessarily. going to be something that would appease them. christine you know that's excellent point i mean this they're not going to they're not going to forget about this i mean this is the koran regardless of whether they can read it or not it is irrelevant the fact is that these people have been offended they've been seeing their country torn apart for the later part of you know thirty years going back to you know one hundred seventy nine and they're just fed up with everything and they just want everybody to leave and i think that the u.s. would be in its best interest to leave and let them have it and you know the thing

here is most importantly the americans have to know that we need to become more sensitive towards the islamic world and these kind of events we don't understand how bad it makes our image it's so dr mental to us i mean i think that's a good point but it's also jake not the first time this has happened there have been incidents in the past when qur'an have been burned like what i found by from the white house briefing back from when george w. bush was president and the president yesterday had a regularly scheduled secure video teleconference with prime minister maliki he opened. the meeting i believe it was either the first of the second issue that the president brought up to tell prime minister maliki he had heard about the incident when the koran was desecrated and he apologized for that in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously we were concerned about their reaction we wanted them to know that the president knew that this was wrong and that the commanders in

the field had. publicly reprimanded the soldier and removed him from iraq. and this is not to mention the qur'an burning pastor terry jones and the rage he sparked i mean this should be religion one hundred one for military folks especially those living in afghanistan why has that lesson still not been learned foreign terror was started that the pentagon is not properly called trained its soldiers for cultural sensitivities and awareness the pentagon has not been interested. in that generally speaking the hearts and minds campaign has largely been counterproductive and every in every possibility and all that we need to see this is a broader part of fourth generation warfare where now the information war is a part of it now the. taliban are using this against us that the karzai government is using this against us and you know the islamic world will use this against us as

well and rightfully so because the us should not be in the business of burning korans or burning books remember that's what the nazis did the nazis burned books and we don't want to be like them all right former u.s. marine also r.t. blogger jack alberto lending his perspective to this matter that is still going on right now thanks so much for staying well today in tunisia a gathering of leaders from about seventy countries the mission to try to come up with ideas for ways to better deal with the violence and the chaos in syria especially when it comes to trying to get into the country with food and medical supplies but several other conversations were had as well including ideas like arming the syrian opposition and other forms of military intervention not at the meeting leaders from russia or china are to correspond a morass a notion that has a look at the friends of syria conference that took place today. the maids you know the countries calling themselves friends of syria raised many questions before it even started why would iran seventy arab and western nations get into nature has

been a mystery till the last moment. and if they are real they should not think about economic sanctions that really affect syrian people in a negative way so. i hope the arabs will play a role in mediating dialogue between the opposition and the government but it's become clear that none of these issues will make it onto the meetings agenda our priority is to facilitate the humanitarian the delivery of the humanitarian assistance and we have some proposal on the table to prepare. the best way to deliver this assistance as quick as possible. the u.n. estimates about six thousand deaths in fierce clashes between the government forces and the armed opposition with the humanitarian situation described as a catastrophe allowing aid to get in and immediate cease fire are key points of the friends of syria ultimatum tak age but some claim the friends have an ulterior

motive they don't want democracy in syria they don't want in their farms they want a political price and they want to give five to two different state governments bring with country your political position because he is important then. to iran then to hizbollah this is a real. plan against syria but all behave of democracy to have a human right to force assad to go is on the agenda of the friends gathering to russia and china will need to convince the syrian regime to put in power since it lost all its legitimacy and that a political and peaceful solution of the city in crisis is not possible while there remains you know china and russia those still among the few countries in dialogue with the assad regime have refused to attend the news. has been invited to participate in the tunisian summit because none of the government representatives were invited that means the interests of

a large portion of the population will not be represented in this case i doubt that this conference will need a nationwide dialogue on ways to resolve the internal crises. a regime making war on its own people families suffering in cities under siege a nation brought to the brink of chaos we cannot allow the obstruction of a few countries to stop the world community from coming to the aid of the syrian people and as with us all of them want to start a war against syria no one is yet ready the only side of a could do the us is nato and they are not ready the syrian national council. is not ready they gather to unify pressure in efforts to get justification for an operation in a mosque. in tunisia is a meeting of an invasion. surprisingly enough an internet search of the friends of syria reveals a totally different community this website claims to reveal the truth and collects

evidence of and to government activity among syria's enemies are the country's name in themselves friends friends of syria get together across the sea to thrash out their solution to the conflict many here wonder if their answers will really benefit the people on the ground or is it a case of with friends like these who needs enemies refreshing r.t. the maskers syria. so what exactly will come out of this conference and one of the true purposes earlier i spoke to robert naiman policy director with just foreign policy about what his thoughts are on the mission take a look. will we see the super different elements reflected in the conference there were we describe in your poor memory there are some voices there are looking who are an opportunity who are western military intervention in syria and their own

voice in their hurry skeptical that so for example within the congress there was a push that the final conference communicating explicitly bar western know their intervention. but was that the same time. with certain voices western government voices or some media is saying well we ruled out western military intervention so it's very confusing to understand what is it that the u.s. and its western allies are really trying to do they really were willing to rule western north or intervention now be a part of the step because then we can focus attention more constructive political and diplomatic good for example the red cross trying to negotiate in to four homes so people can be evacuated you call that intervention but of course very different kind of intervention and dimension based on

a good education based on consensus the. attempt to cooperate who are the well being of civilians but i think quite at the sound of the ever as we saw with libya western military intervention intervention means different things to different people for some people it means getting involved at all for other people it means well we're just not going to send you know trips and we're not going to you know do airstrikes there. still our ways to get weapons sent into this country to arm these opposition forces that's what a lot of people have been calling for obviously russia and china do not want this to happen talk a little bit about what i mean certainly that was an idea floated today and that keeps getting a lot of support we see you know senators from here in the u.s. john mccain lindsey graham and joseph lieberman talking about that you know these opposition forces need to have weapons to be able to defend themselves. talk a little bit about some of the consequences though if that sort of avenue is taken

. well who says what you said that according to some reports it's already seeking place not western shipping a weapon but weapon coming from. qatar saudi arabia other places according to reports so is one of them all the them this is already going on i think be there in objection to this call even in the winter one of the arguments you see me in there's no likely prospect. shipping weapons to the opposition is going to allow them to utilize the syrian government forces here in the syrian government can get weapons from russia iran other places so the prospect is kind of in the. forces in homes or other places can we in the military confrontation with the

syrian government if they get more weapons from the west or from arab countries so all you're doing you send in more weapons is just as glee in the conflict militarily let's talk a little bit is a clone a see here i mean there have been reports that the assad regime has or is trying to move forward with plans for this national referendum on a new constitution it would certainly decrease his power the power of his party. what are some answers i mean what are countries like russia and china china trying to do here and what do you expect to see happen diplomatically in the next couple days. well. it's hard to judge because there are so many voices on all sides being different doing in your earlier in the congress the. western the. spoke more favorably over diplomatic

in consensual solution recall of the russian going out earlier that if you look at the u.s. and saudi arabia in yemen they were very patient at negotiating a political solution we just saw an election in yemen. that turned the page on grevious brother. and was supported by the men in the election was supported by the main action they've been in jail so there are alternatives there are no immediate goal as they walk on who are very very different from glee robert naiman policy director for just foreign policy we appreciate you weighing in certainly that situation changing by the moment really there and here in the u.s. there is a new red scare mainstream media has been bashing russia and china for several weeks the two countries of course as we just talked about drew the ire of the media

and the u.s. government after vetoing the u.n. resolution that would have forced syrian president assad from power now while the media like to paint russia and china as enemies of the state do americans really fear these two countries the resident nets laurie her finance took to the streets of new york to find out. if you believe the news media you should fear china and russia this week let's talk about why if they wanted to china could wipe out the u.s. in probably three minutes but anyone with an atomic bomb could true so why china in particular. chinese people are very dangerous why what is made you think bad have you ever been personally threatened by a chinese person no so why do you feel that way they know kung fu i don't think were in the good of relationship with them so should we fear them is that going to make relations better and we should fear them i think they should fear us i think

there's a legitimate concerns about human rights there and i think we need to pay attention to what are their legitimate human rights issues everywhere don't we have them here in the us sure i think a different scale there but but yes we do have another places when there's there was stuff to find out so well that is a step to find out so well that will screw nobody's going to give us some money or would be but we're participating in that why is it their fault because they're acting smartly. it's hard to resist last year i was in china. i wasn't scared at all so i don't think you should be i don't think we should run our country like china or russia but i think there are some ideas and some kind of plans they have that help their economy so maybe we can learn from that so that's more amul aiding and looking up to rather than fearing but we're talking to fear them why do you think that it is because fear keeps you in control

if you are afraid it's easier to be manipulated by somebody telling you to do something rather than questioning what they say everybody is freak scared today because the news and all the media makes people scare them specially in america why china and russia in particular are we made to feel scared because they're very powerful that's what we think ultimately they're going to be a part of the growth picture and they need us as much as we need them so why are people scared of them why are they painted in this more of a picture it's always the same so maybe we should get to know them invite them over for coffee like that whether or not you believe the world should fear china and russia the bottom line to me is the old adage those who live in glass houses should never throw a stone. so there you have it straight from the mouths of regular people there is a fear out there of china and russia whether those people know why or not but if

there is indeed a scare orchestrated by the mainstream media why have they centered on these two countries and when if ever will those attitudes change earlier today we spoke with danny schechter in our new york studios he's a filmmaker and blogger for news i sector dot net and here's his take. well you know we have the series in the world we're competing all the time with other countries and the best way to compete with them is basically to try to discredit them the american people the american people won't take what they say seriously it's part of the whole psychological operations information operations that goes on regularly to try to discredit other critical voices about the united states particularly in other countries and what better way to do it than to cast aspersions on their leaders or suggest that they're not telling the truth there's of course if you want to look at what's going on now there's this decision by china and russia not to intervene militarily in syria and you know if you turn on any

number of networks there have been and list pundits out there talking about why this is bad but you know we should also mention this china russia fear goes back to the days of mccarthyism and before i wondering do you think that some of this fear have blended together from the two sort of arrows or that there are two distinct generational views against these countries. well you know fear works the mobilizes people it gives them pause it makes them think again about what their views are if their personal security or the country's security is by implication being threatened in some way we're not in good shape economically china is doing better than we are russia is doing better on the energy front in many cases than we are so there is a tremendous amount of insecurity in american insecurity leads to this sort of

a certain overzealous attitude to try to assert supremacy which may not be backed up by the facts but we live in an age of perception trumping reality people don't have the context they don't have the background they don't really understand what other countries are doing and saying because there's very little attention paid to it there's much more attention paid you know to various republican candidates beating up on each other and then what actually is happening in the world at large so it's not surprising that these tactics are used because they're basically directed at an audience that's really not very aware of the underlying dynamics i think it's really interesting you know if it's perception and there was a recent poll i think it was a survey just taken in the last week or so and a lot of people more people do not think that china's economy is actually larger than the u.s. as the u.s. is still much larger of course china is growing much faster certainly in an

election year i'm sure you and i will start a lot more election ads invoking this you know china taking our job kind of thing and of course iran is a whole other story for another day but then i mean what do you think does this so-called free fearless an independent press even exist. well i think you know it did but it's becoming an endangered species in terms of the american media. that's why so many people are getting their news online and not from regular newspapers or network newscasts they're listening more to contentious argument than they are to you know informed speculation and information and as a result the public is being dumbed down it's not their fault because that's what they think they know and you know that that's what they think they're supposed to know that's why it's important to have independent media outlets you know i car t.v. and others who are trying to offer other perspectives and other points of view and

without that you would have a total domination of the media by basically misinformation that's being challenged today and there a lot of people when asked if they trust the media they say in large numbers that they don't are is that any i mean as you say the public is being dumbed down and quite frankly i think for many people ignorance is bliss but other than a less informed the thigh eighty what do you think are going to be some of the you know the real impacts the real negative impacts of having people get the wrong information. well the consequences of all this you know are really quite major you know this is what leads to more people war other people believing you know the enemy is about to attack them you know bombs from iraq are going to go to london within forty five minutes you know all of these you know claims that were used to mobilize support for a war that turned out to be a total flop and failure and the same thing in afghanistan where you know we

started over a war against al qaida ended up in a war against you know the taliban and the war against often civilians in afghanistan no wonder they're not real happy with the united states this is why i think our you know challenges as viewers and as citizens is to try to find information sources that we can trust not to rely on the same sources over and over again to seek out other types of information and to inform ourselves because the media is not doing a very good job of informing us and that was danny schechter a filmmaker and blogger for news dissect or dot net and be sure to tune in to our team next week for a brand new line up president obama an american politicians are attempting to scare iran into submission with some of the harshest sanctions ever imposed but that's leaving people back home feeling the pinch at the pump and

a spike in gas prices could mean a slippery slope back into recession for the u.s. so will this do or die mentality kill the progress the economy has made and what will it mean for the presidential elections plus the right to bear arms might just be the only right that's left these days from a crackdown on internet freedoms to the debate over women's reproductive rights it seems like liberty is kind of a loose term these days. we'll show you how buying a gun in some cases is easier than voting and finally if you thought the occupy movement was slowing down you ain't seen nothing yet it's not just wall street and congress that the movement has its sights on these days corporations are the newest target and the occupiers are willing to do pretty much whatever it takes to rewrite legislation that favors corporate interests now next week massive demonstrations

are planned across the country and we have been there since day one so of course we will bring you the latest developments with the occupy wall street movement of course that's just touching the surface those are just a few of the stories that we are covering next week along with much more news and in-depth interviews so be sure to keep it tuned right here on our t.v. for now that's going to do it for more on the stories we cover to go to our t.v. dot com slash usa you can also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america we post all of our segments on there in case you missed anything and you can of course follow me on twitter at christine for zone for now have a great night and a great weekend.