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tv   [untitled]    March 2, 2012 4:00pm-4:30pm EST

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can. i am. no no. nobody's a announced a war young lady so. correction nobody's announced a war against iran yes but with pressure from both the israeli lobby and the republican lawmakers that stance might not be so said found sound for all we'll show you how the u.s. is stuck between iran and hearts. but we know it's very spectacular. fighting the current survive. that's going on there is a country that's been in and out of conflicts for almost three decades in the fog of war and the battle of the so-called good versus the ounces of evil military
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ambitions overshadow the will of the afghan people civilians are the ones left up the shrapnel when the fighting is done we'll bring you one of those stories. someone is going to step up at some point and they're going to say we've had enough of this the real issues are not being addressed and the race to the white house while the donkeys and elephants duke it out maybe it's time for a dark horse to emerge so are americans ready for a third party candidate to shake up the political system well explore. it is friday march second four pm in washington d.c. my name's christine and you're watching our team all this weekend thousands of people will be heading into town here and to washington for the annual conference it back of course is the american israel public affairs committee and both israeli
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prime minister benjamin netanyahu and american president barack obama will be speaking at the conference they also have a meeting scheduled with one another on monday and no doubt back to scratch and will be dominated by talks about iran the u.s. and israel. of course longtime friends but at least in public there is a disagreement about what to do about iran and its rumored nuclear program the us seems to prefer sanctions to action israel seems to want america's assurance that will stand by israel if a decides to take action i've got brian becker here he's the national coordinator for the answer coalition and brian what's this about i mean what do you think comes out of this weekend there's a lot of high profile people in town quite a few of them will be criticizing obama for his quote weak stance on iran what do you think happens well i think we are witnessing a carefully coordinated and calibrated assault against iran that's multifaceted it
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includes economic sanctions that are very powerful as president obama said this week it's creating a world of hurt in iran i mean quite interesting the course these people in iran are the ones suffering because of economic sanctions but at the same time you have assassinations of scientists you have subversion and commando units and covert operations and of course the always looming threat of actual military strakes by either israel or the united states so the idea is to keep is iran in a state of extreme tension as part of the destabilization effort of the current government but do you think that israel actually feels a legitimate threat from iran or is this you know more of building up the height or as you say trying to keep them in a state of tension no i don't think israel's assertions are real at all i think it's part of a game plan that's part of a coordinated assault iran does not have a nuclear weapon israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons or one subscribes to the i.a.e.a. the international atomic energy agency its nuclear program is monitored israel
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won't sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty israel routinely invades its neighbors as it has over the past four decades iran has never started a war so when you look at all of these actual facts i would say the. real menace to the peace in the middle east is israel iran is not a menace is iran is being targeted and i think this is part of the israeli hype arrogating to itself the rate destroyed as it did in iraq in one thousand nine hundred one against nuclear facilities as it did in syria in two thousand and seven as it would like to do now in iran but the united states government is somewhat afraid that if israel carries out a unilateral scrape within the middle east this will play out as a paradigm by the israelis ainus government against a middle eastern country and those lines all of the middle east will unite against israel and so the united states is as concerned that israel might act too promptly in terms of carrying out unilateral military aggression let's talk about those who
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are opposed to war i mean what's the answer here take let's take a look back into the one nine hundred eighty s. in great britain we had the british government basically give the green light to allow on the americans to keep their cruise missiles at the grand canyon base and i believe berkshire england literally had it started you know with a few hundred but it built up to seventy thousand protesters most of them women we see pictures right here they actually join hands around the base to block access to their i mean kind of a call story in history but is this what it's going to take i mean are we going to need seventy thousand people to come out and say this cannot happen but there should be seventy thousand people who come out because it's very dangerous the united states invaded afghanistan it's going to ten year long we're invaded iraq more than a million iraqis died according to the windsock medical journal around as a country of eighty million people if there should be another another war a full scale military conflict or the impact on the iranian people the people the
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region the people the world is very groups of people should come out and in fact are coming out to start to demonstrate against a possible new war with iran but even short of a military conflict with all this drama we also need to demand an end of the economic. engines which are designed to destabilize punish collectively punish the iranian people and topple their government in why a lesion of their right to be self determining when it comes to about right to be self-determined there is just such a heightened build up especially in the last few weeks and months about. whether or not that should be the case about what to do and there is a disagreement in a lot of the use of language here there are disagreements among jewish people there are disagreements among several different groups and a lot of people complain that when they criticize israel they're called anti semites just because of you know the history and they feel they can't criticize it you know netanyahu policy or they a pac lobby without being called that yesterday r.t.
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had a colonel lawrence wilkerson on the alona show he's also the former chief of staff to colin powell and i want to just play a little bit about what he said and then we'll talk about it. this is true irony we have one group of jewish americans calling another group of jewish americans who are funding the efforts to stop war with iran any some rights this is incredible never thought i'd live to see this not just not just small groups of people but huge groups of people on the left like the j. street group and groups on the right like a perk or trading barbs of any senators of between one another or using about as there are two sets of rules for those who do the criticizing and those who criticize the critics well indeed i mean you can't raise a voice in the united states in support of the palestinian people for instance in their legitimate rights without being accused as we have been has all of those who
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have stood with the bills and accused wrongly by the zionist forces in apac another from a right wing groups associated with israel as anti semites it's trying to create an atmosphere where anyone says anything against israel is labeled anti semitic the fact of the matter is millions of jewish people in the united states and around the world disapprove of what israel is doing in the antiwar demonstrations and the demonstrations in support of the palestinian people many jewish people jewish americans are out in the streets so it's wrong it's terribly wrong it's part of a propaganda effort a propaganda machine by the by the israeli zionist government and its supporters in congress and the media to label wrongly those who criticize israel is it the sentiment but i just think that that effort is starting to lose some of the that it's had historically and i think we see a turning tide and that's just sort of bring this back full circle here and talk once again about sort of what we may see this weekend in terms of talks in terms of the disagreement between the u.s.
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and israel president obama spoke last night and one of the audience yelled out a hand something about it's hard to hear her but she said something about a war with iran take a listen to what he said. no no this change none of nobody's announced a war young lady so. let me push your sentiment. well president obama seemed a little rattled there for a moment of course the u.s. is already at war with iran when you impose economic sanctions like an economic blockade it is according to international law an act of war when you deprive a country of food and medicine and needed to sustain life that's an act of war but what he's talking about is whether the bombs are going to start falling and the united states has made it clear that it true not just israel but it too is prepared to carry out military strikes against iran but it's not the preferred choice at the moment they're hoping that economic sanctions are very tight sanctions
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a lot of suffering a lot of pain a world of hurt as obama said will help the stabilize the government the u.s. goal in iran is not to have a nuclear free iran it's to have a puppet government in iran as they had during the reign of the shah from one thousand fifty three to one hundred seventy nine and in other words an extension of american power in a very important geo strategically important and oil rich region of the world. or national coordinator for the answer coalition keep our eyes out for this weekend with a conference in town. let's turn now to a film that was just released this week on d.v.d. and brings to light i history of the occupation of afghanistan and the violence and the struggles that continue in afghanistan now some documents years of the history there and how that history is paving or is playing a role in our world today it's called shadow of afghanistan and it's made up of twenty years of footage of the soviet occupation in that country which led to the exile of millions of refugees a violent civil war there and the evolution of the taliban and its relationship
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with al-qaeda here's a few scenes from the documentary. in the 1980's. documentary film which began covering the war in afghanistan. one would survive together with. one crew was focused on the afghan people fighting a superpower soviet union. the other was making a documentary on refugees around the world. to film projects would finally. dr susan bowman and jim burroughs they gave this story a chance to be told and retold once again zimbra was also made a memoir on the making of the film called blood on the lens of filmmakers quest for truth and afghanistan jim joins me now from our studios in los angeles there jim so the film starts with white eisenhower's visit to afghanistan in the late fifty's
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details a lot of the soviet occupation of the country the rise of the taliban up to america's invasion following the attacks on nine eleven and i know that in the film one of the commander says quote your planes were hijacked my country was hijacked. what what's the larger picture of this. i would say that that statement. sums up what really happened. afghanistan drug so this day people don't realize for example that there were no afghans involved in the twin towers whatsoever afghanistan was used as a training ground. for al qaeda and the taliban because we had left afghanistan i guess pretty much a pretty much in a rush because we had to get to rocky deal with the first gulf war and when we left afghanistan we broke our promise to help them to rebuild the country. i mean they
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basically won the cold war for the u.s. so we kind of owed them something we think but we never gave them what they asked for a little help with building new roads there are virtually no roads that are not bombed . in afghanistan from what i understand they were there's no clean water electricity is very spores and. but there are there are a situation where we are looked at when i say we the american military there is looked upon was looked upon a bit as an occupier. the the uniforms may have different between the soviets and the u.s. but a soldier is a soldier and actually a soldier can't be asked to be. independent be on
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a mission of mercy a soldier has a job to do and it's not a pleasant job so let me talk about and i think you get him earlier if you were talking about the things that the afghan people wanted they wanted help rebuilding the country i haven't been to afghanistan from what i understand there are quite a few. signs and symbols of what was going on there back in the sixty's and certain things being built now left skeletons of old buildings and infrastructure that was meant to be built and never got finished talk a little bit about how that impacted the culture there and if that was ever a good idea based on you know how different culture is ok you say i'm sorry. the question once again just if you would and that's ok but you were talking about you were talking about the afghan desire to have the country rebelled after it was destroyed and what it seems to me there are
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a lot of kind of bits and pieces things that were started that had started to be built at one point but never were been asked to talk a little bit about how you know visually and more than visually how that impacts the country or. well what impacted the country i remember when i visited my friend who was a commander in and one of the seven parties and in one nine hundred ninety two we were i was actually filming in pakistan and it just happened to be the moment that the gates were lifted and people came back. from pakistan many of the refugees well this commander. we went to his house but he couldn't get closer to it there may be a block or two blocks because of the land mines and the land mines were left everywhere and the soviets left no mapping of them or the land mines even for her own soldiers which is really a strange situation so landmines. of the situation with
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the water is horrendous people get poisoned. electricity i mean what they have right now is the remains basically of what happened during the civil war and the civil war is a very important part of the history that we should take seriously because if there is one person that is the number one. journalist on covering afghanistan for the last twenty years it's been ahmed rashid and he is actually a pakistani lives in lahore he says that civil war may have destroyed the fabric of afghanistan. so that afghanistan as it was known before the soviet invasion may never be able to come back together because really a relationship you have with you have the shias you have the people in different
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regions there who were in the civil war came along they took sides and started killing each other let's just talk really quickly about with the soviets just when you let me get in your real quick we're almost out of time but i want to ask you right now about what's going on in afghanistan right now as we speak i know another two u.s. soldiers were killed yesterday at the anger and the violence there part of an ongoing uproar of course over the burning of the copies of the qur'an by u.s. soldiers were you surprised at all by the strong reaction of the afghan citizens. no surprise at all however they're cooling down this is not going to be this the match that lights the powder keg but when that barricade comes it's going to come fast they know we no one really knows what caused how this really happened i mean there are taliban could have put those korans in that particular treasure i mean there are so many stories that are possible we don't know the answers to that but
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there's one thing that we should realize right now and given the fact that today there's been more trouble between the pakistani taliban and pakistan is that there are so many elements in this war we must not just think of it as the afghan taliban and the afghan government and the u.s. because there is also the pakistani taliban which is separate in many ways from the afghan taliban you in you have the government of pakistan which is trying to stand between the taliban and stand for the people in general and in the middle of it you have the i aside which controls the military which is another entity basically all its own so there are really like six players in this game and to look at just one one side you'll never know what's really going on i think it's a really good point game and big battlefield and a lot of complicated situations going on as you say it's a really good point that
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a lot of americans especially are just unaware of appreciate the film appreciate you coming on today jim for us director of saddo of afghanistan and author of blood on the land the filmmakers quest for truth in afghanistan. well i thought politics now there are republican caucuses in washington state this weekend and of course super tuesday just a few days away and let's be honest these last few months have been a roller coaster over iraq fluctuating polls sharp jabs traded over cable networks and way too many presidential debates so what are we left with now well in the eyes of many it's a field of candidates that very few people seem to be excited about a former member of that field republican jon huntsman who dropped out a few months ago said this last week said this last week about what needs to happen in the country. i think we're going to have problems politically until we get some sort of third party movement or some alternative voice out there that can put
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forward new ideas and that ain't going to be me by the way i thought the tax question i'm not interested in that but someone is going to step up at some point and they're going to say we've had enough of this the real issues are not being addressed all right so this is not a new concept of course but it's one that's often considered sort of out there for ins so what's it going to take to have a viable third party candidate about madison report editor of and of why him out of then in order to be a third party candidate it would seem you need kind of an alternate set of values that you can actually defend or do you think those values. well based upon the margin and nature of the current political landscape i think what we the american people really need to see is a candidate who values the constitution who values our most essential liberties which have been eroded over the past year at
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a pace which has never been seen before along with them and by intervention in and by serialist and by colonialists and so ordered ordered policy which is not among anyone in the republican field or obama or except maybe ron paul the only person in. putting forth a dialogue that differs at all from the narrative that we heard from both sides for so long now and the continuity of agenda that we've seen bush to obama has in my opinion disillusioned many americans from the two parties that become completely i think the only viable truly viable all party of the one who's presenting something that is completely absent from the platform of the mainstream republican and democrat party well i think it's
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a good point so you know you brought up ron paul let's talk about him he's running as a republican but as you say when it comes to the well you know what he's calling for he's very very different from any of those republicans i want to show you an interesting poll this is a recent rasmussen poll that shows if ron paul were to be the nominee he could actually be president obama with forty three percent of the voters surveyed camp forty one percent choosing obama i mean what do you think of that. i think that is a come we will oh i think that is a very realistic finding because when you look at obama you see someone who has made a lot of wonderful promises his rhetoric is a. vice when it comes down to it spending is george bush to point out he's continued to defend the warrantless wiretapping in. the national defense authorization act for fiscal year two thousand and twelve
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which contains the indefinite detention provisions which ron paul spoke again many times and republicans and democrats voted for that by dysplasia and obama recently issued a presidential directive which is a nonbinding statement claiming that they would use the indefinite detention provision begin the merican but when it comes down to it i don't think americans trust him to follow a non-binding agreement when he's broken everything or one of his campaign promises whereas ron paul has been very consistent in his views very consistent voting record and i think americans are more willing to trust ron paul but as we are talking about the viability of a third party candidate ron paul is running as a republican i know in the past there spent some grumbling about whether maybe he might question and run as an independent a libertarian. but he the fact that he's running as
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a republican what about somebody else what if somebody else came in to the right i mean what would it take how would they differ themselves from wrong some republicans and from the president. well i think. we as third party candidate would be very similar in iran in their views on foreign policy but domestic policy i think there could be a lot of difference there especially in terms of how ron might move toward the gold standard or something along those lines how you would cut a lot of the social. order but honestly as we have seen a lot of people have called it a two party dictatorship in the united states because marginally what it is i think that is very accurate representation because the money behind the republican and democrat. anything they could get behind a third party candidate let me let me stop you there madison let's talk about the money you know people complain about candidates and about congress but the two
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party system now seems more than ever it will stay in place because of you say like you say the money and of course the supreme court decision on citizens united. got a good candidate it's going to take a lot of resources money i mean don't you think the chances have now diminished. fortunately i think that is an accurate representation. but i believe that it's partially ron paul has decided on running as a republican because i think he is well aware of the fact that he probably would be included in a single poll if you was running as a third party candidate and he's not included in a lot of the polls running as a republican so i think realized and been a lot of people realize that running as a third in a third party is a political best wishes of sorts because you're just not going to get the money and
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you're not going to get the backing of. the big money players you really need and i find it very interesting that ron paul actually is getting a lot of money not only of course from the military but also from prominent investors like one of the boundaries of pay pal so. i really. heard. libertarians or i think. it would. almost have been. both what you mean. by. it certainly is interesting when you take a look at the field and you take a look at just so far here we are in the very beginning of march the role of these super pacs have played in this election i think we're only going to see it getting bigger and more robust when it comes to that money that is in report editor for an ally dot com thank you well the capital account is up next on our team last second
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floor of the star to see what's on the if that's today or and i know a lot of talk about fed chief ben bernanke on the hill yesterday and how his testimony ended early which must mean the economy is improving you can be talking about bernanke you say yes christine the economy must be improving because that's why we think central banks doing so much right you're on the right track with ben bernanke you're going to talk central banks but we're going to talk currency wars ok we see brazil coming out saying they are not going to sit passively by while developed nations print print print more money which is what we've seen from the but what we've seen from the e.c.b. just this week their latest liquidity operation d l t r o as it's known was locked up by banks and they're storing that money right back at the e.c.b. so we're going to look at how does currency of ones are likely to play out and just stop right so soon for that but for us here on the news side that's going to do it for more on the news we covered that r.c.
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dot com slash usa or you tube dot com slash r.t. america and you can of course follow me on twitter at christine for sound see you back here in thirty minutes. culture is that so much a commercial code and what kind of culpability of voting for the future in today's time russians will go to the polls to elect their next president what is the nature of russia's political system how is it changed. it are sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture .
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