we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used it's a slippery slope from sanctions to an all out war but it's a path the u.s. might be sliding towards when it comes to tehran that is all of this warmongering actually doing anyone any good but we've got director sean stone in studio to tell us why we shouldn't be afraid of iran. and they're sticking it to the man or the men in this case from occupy wall street to occupy corp it's going to bring you the latest from today's nationwide protests.

and syrian protesters are making a call to arms but who is are exactly is supplying them with weapons that's still up for debate generals from the free syria army say that it's the u.s. and france so does that mean that diplomacy is dead. good evening it's wednesday february twenty ninth happy leap day to you it's four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine of when you're watching r.t. . well north korea says that it is ready to halt its nuclear program and missile tests in exchange for food aid from the united states it may be one less nuclear threat to worry about for now but here in washington all the attention seems to be focused on iran's alleged quest for the atomic bomb but the islamic republic insists that its nuclear program nuclear program is essentially peaceful earlier

today the supreme leader ayatollah khomeini said that holding nuclear weapons is a sin of course that's not likely to quiet the drums of war israel has threatened to launch a preemptive strike against tehran's nuclear facilities a position that seems to have wide support here in the u.s. congress and it's also an issue that's likely to dominate the agenda next week in washington when the israeli prime minister is scheduled to meet with president obama right after a pack of the pro power the powerful pro israel lobby holds its annual policy conference and it does seem that public opinion is echoing in washington to a recent pew survey found that a majority of americans would support a strike against iran in its sanctions failed they also named the islamic republic as us and be number one however that is not a view shared by my next guest twenty seven year old sean stone is the son of director all over stone and he made headlines recently over reports that he has converted to islam he was in the country earlier this month and joins me now to

explain why shawn thank you so much for being here on the program now you've been getting a lot of criticism for all this and considering the rhetoric coming out of washington some would say are essentially palang around with the enemy what's your motivation here. well i would ask in terms of the polls that american people are being asked about attacking iran preemptively or as we do with iraq i would say if that was just as easy as attacking iran you know that's one thing but if that leads to world war three are you still so sure that you want to do this and this is. my ultimate point is to prevent or stop what i think is we are walking into world war three at the moment between syria being destabilized and iran and so on this border being threatened by israel in america to me it's very dangerous time and we don't recognize what the concept consequences will be not only not only regionally but to the world because russia has stated that they don't want to see the overthrow of

the syrian regime or the iranian regime because these are countries in its backyard and basically on its border across the caspian sea so we are in a very dangerous geopolitical situation having studied this is sturrock lee i recognize the great game that is being played out between british imperial factions using america against the russians and the american people just don't have this background or knowledge to recognize what's at stake here and the thing is though we're talking about background and knowledge and what's at stake here but the rhetoric that's coming out from our own politicians that we as americans are direct elected into office does not seem to support what you're saying it seems to support the idea that iran is a giant threat how do you account for that. well i count for it from the fact that we have no diplomacy engaging with these people we know in america we don't really understand that for example the president ahmadinejad who you know on being alleged as being a defendant of his i'm not trying to defend him he's on trial but he's not the

military commander of that country i mean he is he has to you know basically answer to the supreme leader of this parliament he cannot sue headley pull a nuke. the fact to my mind is this what's happening is we are now in a state of martial law and war a global i was told back in december by a very close friend of mine who has who who knows what former presidential candidates i want disclose who that is this candidate's office told my friend by march of this year he should consider leaving the country and i didn't understand i understood why because the n d a but i didn't realize it and the a national defense authorization act actually comes into effect tomorrow this act that obama has called for and signed stipulates even american citizens can now be targeted by the military picked up and imprisoned indefinitely without civilian trial thus throwing out our due process our hideous corpus clauses so we are now in the state of martial law as of tomorrow which obviously if you counting now the use of drones on u.s. soil the fact that our president has assassinated american citizens everything is

now in keeping conditions for a total war state i mean mccain called for the whole america becoming part of the so-called battlefield america is now a battlefield the whole earth is a battlefield so rather than trying i'm worried that what's being done is that rather than trying to address our economic our continued economic depression and the reforms necessary domestically what we're trying to do then is critic martial law state using using iran as a terrorist enemy or threat and you know even making these claims that iran is ready to use terrorism abroad you know you have instances like that iranian in thailand who blows himself up this could be a false flag instigation. well different country to make iran look like a terrorist so you see everything is now in motion as a pretext that you can go to martial law here and war abroad and obviously the war abroad has tremendous consequences because if you attack iran hezbollah and hamas can unleash on israel which then brings in america potentially russia into the

equation so this is a horrible situation people not being educated as to what's really going on and so on have that if that is indeed the case then who would profit from that kind of sort of push towards martial law a push towards war who would benefit from that. i mean my calculation you're dealing with is an economy the wall street economy that has not really recovered from you know for their overall deficits that deficit their overall debt i mean they basically have have driven lives that are still unaccounted for they ultimately can't really you know get good things going in obama's you know continuous bailout of wall street and europe as well by the way is not actually helping the common working people so if you go towards an austerity program for example i mean you could ultimately lead to lead to fascism in this country and in western europe and i think you are trying to harness our in our america as america trending towards fascism do you think that that's the trend right now. well in terms of advocating a constitution that's already in place i mean the fact that no one is because they

have you know is is creating a stir an outcry about this the idea that u.s. citizens can be picked up by the end detained by the military without civilian trial you know where is our constitution where the outrage the facts because we're so scared of terrorists i can't believe american people this frightened of terrorism i mean if you study com if you study the cold war you remember that you know communists were also in our backyard and they were godless they were trying to destroy our way of life so you know if you study history you know that you know war and terror is a part of history you cannot overreact to destroy republican values in europe in your constitution your tradition from fear well right and yet it seems that fear is precisely what's dominating sort of the agenda here and i want to play you a little clip of some of the republican candidates for the white house and i want you to sort of react and let me know what you think about this fear in this sound bite let's let's play that clip if we have it. listen john we have a president who isn't going to stop here's are going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon if you think

a married man is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that man is going to use those nuclear weapons then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used by sean you're talking about sort of educating the american people one of these guys could be president of the united states what's her reaction. well my reaction is we already have obama as president that's bad enough what he's doing is a very dangerous game he's not making a clear stand even though his joint chiefs of staff dempsey and the military i think are very much opposed to the danger that israel israel preemptively striking iran obama has only stood by and said we are you know an ambiguous the supporting israel we're working hand in hand with them this is not a clear message or a good message we do not want to let israel instigate something that can escalate

into as i said the world war i think obama has to be much clearer and trying to first of all we're already to war with iraq we're at war with iran where economic sanctions now an economic war exactly in the point is that you can't you can't engage people diplomatically if you're already trying to isolate them and what are you basically creating is more radicalism on their part because you're trying to push them into a corner and that was the test that they've been running by for example killing their scientists in tehran this was attacked act of terrorism by mossad dean is working hand in hand in tehran if that had happened in america for example would have gone to war i'm sure right away and shown i mean you just came back from iran you know a lot of the rhetoric here sort of paints the iranians as these crazy people who might be a threat to america their leaders are crazy i mean that's what we're hearing from the media how do a rainy and the americans what it was what is their perception of our leadership given all this war talk. well i would say if the iranians think that if people

think the iranians hate americans why would they let me come into their country and greet me so warmly it's just it's misconception is a misconception on our part to really believe that the iranians hate the americans the have a loathing for imperialism and this is historical it goes back to the british and russians it goes back to the shah who was backed by israeli and american regimes and frankly you know the shah for example the secret police were largely trained by israelis and american so there's a lot of antipathy to the regimes the governments. abroad because of that but it comes to the american people i mean i never once felt any kind of danger or threat from the iranian people very sophisticated very much like americans my first instinct and i still believe this is that iranians israelis and americans will become good friends again as they were historically you know until the overthrow of the shah and then the iraq iran war where they'll forget that iraq was being support sponsor of saddam hussein was being sponsored by the americans against the iranians so there is you know there was a lot of anger this is a long this is

a protracted it your conflict that killed many iranians and so the fact that they're still as calm as they are and sophisticated in this regard goes to show that we can deal with these people i mean i had great conversations with many politicians including one of the top advisers to the supreme leader these people are sophisticated trained in the west many of them trained in america or one in europe speaking english russian and i had a culture and i want to interrupt you but are almost out of time so i can have a dialogue. we're talking about dialogues here we're talking about your experience there and i want to bring in barry very briefly before we run out of run out of time the role of the media coverage in all this because you know a lot of the coverage that we're seeing here in the u.s. doesn't really reflect this view that iran is a same sort of rational actor and in fact your trip got a very specific to change in the media coverage i want to play a quick sound bites from your recent interviews on c.n.n. and fox. look look look there one thing that he said that's undeniable was he said that the holocaust never happened and once you get into that kind of

a fringe lunatic assessment i don't care if you believe the holocaust i don't want to see when you go to war. when you met him did you bring out this to non of the holocaust that he keeps. i mean he seems very perverse that you would wish to spend much time with this guy given your family upbringing dealing with a guy who is an extremist he's a fanatic and it would be like if you were in germany in the one nine hundred thirty s. and you were talking to him. so here you are trying to talk about the threat of war there talking about your relationship with off my debts out what does that say to you about the role of u.s. media. well it's the role the media played in the build to the iraq war i mean my father's done a good job of trying to point this out in his documentaries for example on chavez and castro trying to get the other person's point of view across why can't you know rather than trying to vilify the guy why don't you at least hear his point that's the nature of dialogue that's the nature of diplomacy but if we're trying to be

become an empire and act as an empire would in terms of forcing policies down a sovereign nations throat then this is exactly a trajectory that we're following as far as the holocaust by the way i mean i'm not trying to say that in a way i agree with anyone who denies the holocaust but over the japanese still don't acknowledge their holocaust of the chinese in southeast asians from world war two and they've they've been our great trading partner you know since since we dropped the bomb since forty five so the question is you know it's obviously not a question of principles and morals there's an agenda here you know in the fact that which they're trying to create a war with iran it helps that purpose by saying that a major artists a mad dictator which he is simply not he doesn't even have that power in his country and in terms of whatever he may or may not have said regarding israel i try i would love to see more of a dialogue opening up regarding israel the west bank in any case in jerusalem specifically all right well unfortunately we're out of time but i want to thank you so much for your parents here and you know a lot of that a lot of critical issues that we don't really see an honest discussion of the actual threats the u.s. faces in the media by our politicians and you know sometimes it just takes folks

from nonpolitical lines of work i guess to call attention to all that thank you so very much that was filmmaker sean stone thank you. all right well a new chapter in the occupy wall street movement demonstrators have found out all across the united states today protesting at major corporations their messages to get big corporations and all their millions of dollars out of politics now more than sixty protests were planned across the country today including in new york where my next guess is there were some arrests there and i'm now joined to speak about all this by jesse from daily coast he participated in the protest earlier i believe i could be wrong about that but jesse all right let's talk about this money and politics corporations have always been the prime focus of the occupy wall street movement what's different about today. well today the focus is really on the fact that not only are corporations really just fleecing the entire american public

but that the system is just so broken that in a democracy of one man one vote if money equals speech and people without money are totally voiceless so the idea is really to focus on the fact that a country that only benefits the wealthiest one percent corporate profiteers is a country that is no longer a democracy and very good to see people getting on the streets and doing some about you know one of the sort of targets at least in some of the blog coverage the media coverage of today's protest actions is this shady organization that's known by the acronym alec i want to play you a quick sound bite that sort of tries to explain what this is and we'll talk about it. the american legislative exchange council or alec is an extreme right wing membership organization comprised of state legislators and powerful multinational corporations including the corrections corporation of america so who are these guys and talk more broadly about the symbolism of groups like this and

their role in u.s. politics. well there's a trade organization comprised of some of the largest companies in america and what they basically act as is more or less word to shadow government they set up legislation to be distributed to corrupt lawmakers across the country so that you see this seem entirely worker anti consumer bills coming up in state after state the basic fact is some of these corrupt politicians believe in outsourcing so much they outsource their own stupid ideas and it's not a democracy if it doesn't matter who i vote for are going to get the same special interest written legislation of matter who ends up in office how can we possibly call this freedom how can we call democracy so i think that really strikes at the heart of what odds by wall street is talking about as well as millions of other people in america russia syria around the world the idea that bridge working class people are voiceless in this is them and it's all a force of democracy to prevent anything otherwise we're talking about democracy here and i just want to bring in sort of the security issue here because we're seeing it seems to me at least increasingly lawmakers cracking down on occupy wall

street out of national security threats right and i thought and democracy we're supposed to have freedom of speech congress on monday approved a bill called three forty seven it's the so-called trespass bill which essentially would give the government the power to bring charges against americans protesting anywhere in the country would make them better at it would make it a federal of professions to disrupt any at events that's attended by a person with secret service protection even if it's accidental now this may be an isolated bill obviously we don't know if obama's going to sign something like this into law but the question is what does that say to you about where we're trending. it says that we're moving away from a free society you know when we really look at society in general you can either have an open society or closed society and bills like this trespass that pushes towards you know people would say the dissent is the highest form of patriotism now how can we possibly say that we're free if we don't have the freedom to dissent and especially given the fact that our first amendment is the hoard of the idea of the

american justice system to say that you would have to ask permission from your government in order to protest that government is silly but the say that we darn allowed to be in certain places secret services there is a total farce the reality is this bill is an attack on our most basic freedoms the right to assemble and to meet with other people in public spaces and talk about the issues that matter to us and i guess my only real question is this is obviously a travesty of justice but where are those freedom loving tea partiers who are so vocal in their dissent against this president i wonder if they're aware that many of their own house of representative elected tea party members just voted to take away their right to protest president obama i wonder how they feel about that if you say at the same time this legislation was passed three to three overwhelming majority in the house and i don't want to focus on this bill alone but what that majority says to me is that most lawmakers do seem to just sort of see the occupy movement as some sort of a threat you were talking about you know protecting democracy it seems that dissent is already deemed as

a negative activity something that we're already cracking down on so how do you go forward from here if you guys have already been identified and targeted as a threat. you know i think back to american history in the civil rights movement martin luther king jr was arrested repeatedly i think anybody who stands up for their basic freedoms who's going to face incarceration is standing alongside of martin luther king jr if anything a three eighty three to three vote shows that the entire system is corrupt and it's no surprise that they're attacking us we're going after their gravy train they want to stay corrupt and stay wholly owned subsidiaries of the special interest the fact that we're bringing up this conversation about getting money out of the out of politics toning down corporations pervasive role in our elections i'm not surprised that they're going after us but i would be outraged if people weren't on the street fighting against it because you know justice is on our side so to me these are the basic freedoms we're fighting for how can we possibly reform this country if we can't even maintain the same civil liberties that our founding fathers fought for to me this

is about our future and i keep saying it and what the politicians are doing is the total repeal of the twentieth century it's time to fight back now or never and jesse you're talking about getting money out of politics relisting of course this isn't something that's going to happen overnight what is a realistic victory for the occupy wall street in your view let's just say in the next year what would you consider a victory. well i think every little thing is a big victory in a certain sense shows opening hearts and minds to use that term and getting people where of just how broken the system is is in and of itself a small victory i don't think this is the kind of thing we face in one year i think this takes a movement and you know like i keep saying there is no one law that we could pass to fix all of our problems i think starting with the repeal citizens united and the corporate personhood and federally funded elections would be a great place to start but we really need to lay the foundation for that to happen so in the course of this year i think defeating alec sponsored corporate owned politicians and elections is a major important but i think it's also very important to be in the street in voicing our dissent because if we don't they're going to take that right away too

well that certainly does not look like it's coming to an end anytime soon thank you so much been tracking the story for you guys that was activist and writer for the daily coast jesse and with us from new york i will the u.n. security council has urged china and russia not to veto a new resolution on syria and then reports that the death toll in the context has topped seventy five hundred meanwhile anti regime rhetoric has intensified with the u.s. branding syrian president assad all. a war criminal that was comments by the secretary of state hillary clinton yesterday and amid all of this the free syrian army claims to have received weapons from the french and u.s. sources r.t. is maria takes a look at the growing outside influence in this war. but the borders doors and windows do est despite international isolation syria's borders have remained opened and easy to pass through and that may have played

a crucial role in the militarization of the country's conflict almost immediately after the crisis began here last marginson they were reports of weapons being smuggled through to arm president al assad's opponents one thousand dollars for a truck full of weapons capable of delivering wholesale destruction and death that's how much al qaeda will pay to smugglers usually iraqi or lebanese drivers according to ziad ismail chief of the customs service on the border with lebanon. these people bring and we've been here to destroy our nation to try to get syrian people on the syrian territory to our enemies. syria has more than two thousand kilometers of front here with five states a stray iraq jordan turkey and lebanon the syrian cities where the most violent clashes have taken place homes and there are all over that an hour of the border is a fact that some believe has determined their fate or destiny is. this is one of

three checkpoints on the three hundred fifty kilometer syrian lebanese border in the last year as we've been told here there were only three attempts to smuggle weapons across your business confiscated thousands of bullets dozens of guns and hundreds of kilograms of little metal pieces like this one used to may worms but the source is main concern and make little parents like this one but parts of the border where there isn't any security at all like here look at this in the middle of nowhere there is nothing only one road across the road right now and at the same time across the border and i'm already in lebanon. and further south she remains extremely vulnerable the city of daraa the cradle of the syrian uprising it all started here and it continues to play a role in the country's crisis with what it was jordan just several kilometers away from here and numerous reports suggesting that foreign weapons and troops going is

only flow through it has become one of the weakest points in the country's security the city has become the scene of fierce and bloody clashes at least twice in the conflicts twelve month history the authorities have claimed that many of the so-called free syrian army have in fact come from across the border. they appear shoot and kill and then they disappear immediately they arrive from abroad but they are not from jordan they use this country's border many of them are from africa. we're showing the weapons allegedly seized in military operations now. in the army we don't have weapons from israel and america sniper guns and night vision binoculars advanced developed weapons we don't have it in syria. this what we confiscated was killing innocent people and even more so while the international community condemns the assad regime and supports its opponents many believe whole

sides in the conflict should be held responsible for violence across syria and with so many foreign russians involved it's clear that the crisis threshers far beyond these borders regional reporting from syria rival capital account is up next on our teens let's check in with a warm lister to see what's on today's agenda hi lauren what do you have cooking for us. in this kitchen so m.f. global that huge monstrous collapse where customer money one point six billion dollars of it is still missing u.s. regulators held a roundtable today to talk about how to shore up those laws so that customer money isn't stolen we have the attorney who is representing eight thousand and. trying to get their money back pro bono mind you who says that nothing is going to change as long as people banks brokerages can skirt u.s. regulators and go to the u.k. where their regulations allow for all timidly unlimited leverage what brought down

m.f. global lucy this is the same thing going on that led to the collapse of a id and lehman brothers it's all connected it all goes through london we are going to spell out why you should all be very concerned well it sounds like our. viewers may be interested in this a lot of interesting stuff so stay tuned for that coming up in just a few minutes. and as for us that is all the time that we have for now but new stories for you in just about thirty minutes we are going to take an in-depth look at the defense budget what's in there why the defense department is adamant against any sort of cuts we're also going to give you an update on the occupy corporation's protests across the country and that's where the stories that you just saw always more details and in fact our web site that address is r t dot com slash usa and of course don't forget to check out our youtube page you can watch the full clips of all the stories old interviews new interviews everything that address is you tube

dot com slash r.t.m. america and don't be shy don't forget about me i want to hear from you just follow me on twitter my handle is at lucy catherine of c o five. culture is that so much given to each musician mind the friends the right to protect the rights to penetrate as syria continues down the path of destruction and civil war there are a loud voices on the international. download the official anti up location on the phone oh i pod touch from the i.q. stops to. watch on t.v. life on the go. video on demand on t.v.'s mine gold costs an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the

dot com. wealthy british style. market why not come to find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our. mission in three cretaceous three guns for charges free. range humans.