a massacre in afghanistan this time at the hands of a rogue a u.s. soldier sixteen dead and thousands outraged and the second time in three weeks that president obama has had to apologize so is winning the hearts and minds of the afghan people a losing battle. and as if the u.s. military didn't have its hands full the u.n. security council is meeting today in new york to discuss the ongoing unrest in the middle east a million dollar question will the u.s. intervene in syria over you the latest. plus while the u.s. debates the rights and freedoms of other nations taking away many of those rights right here in the u.s.

for the national defense authorization act but a team of authors activists politicians and professors are trying to stop a wall in the tracks i'll tell you how. it's monday march twelfth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine frizz out there watching our team. well there is worldwide shock and outrage today after a weekend massacre in afghanistan a shooting rampage led by an american soldier who left his base saturday night walked more than a mile and broke into three separate homes killing sixteen civilians that includes nine children and three women and happening as the village of the punjab my district of khandahar this area actually considered to be the birthplace of the taliban where this is day after the shootings the man gathered some of the bodies and set them on fire before returning to his base and turning himself in and that

man is now in custody according to u.s. officials is the staff sergeant based at a joint base lewis mccord in washington state he's married with two children and have already served three tours in iraq and have been in afghanistan since december now as you can imagine this incident has been a major setback in u.s. afghan relations already on extremely shaky ground after last month's incident in which u.s. soldiers burned several copies of the qur'an which muslims consider to be the holiest of books and the direct word of god and the incident over this weekend has raised questions about the psychological impact on u.s. troops the u.s. justice system and the war in afghanistan itself we want to look into this a little deeper and it's help me do that i'm joined by michael for brian the author of america's failure in iraq. michael is this the point of no return i mean is there any path to recovery for u.s. afghan relations will hoard to say this is this is

a terrible thing i mean you know the as you mentioned the koran burning big big mistake i mean just it was a handy where i put it happened and then there's some more will come out and you know i'm sure as the days go by the incident that happened saturday night. it's about as bad as it gets though you can't get much worse the nurse in the thing is the. three three deployments in iraq the staff sergeant both three deployments in iraq this is his fourth deployment i don't know many of the details about how long he was in iraq and you know he's been in afghanistan since afghanistan since december but the fact is the way these wars have been handled back and forth back and forth back and forth these soldiers it's rise from her you see where i was in iraq or there were i were i met more than one soldier who had been deployed five times. you know six months on on samar going on syrian rampage is absolutely not

but there's a very high high rate of suicide. god only knows what the divorce rate is i think i read somewhere eighty percent or something like that it's has to be bad how can it not be you know of course of course this is an excuse me or a one off incident. and you know it's not happening a lot but it is just it's an indicator which shows that. you know obviously the sergeant snapped who knows what happened but i do i do think it just it just is an example will be in an extreme one of the constant rotation constant rotation combined with the years drear going on and on over our involvement in iraq and afghanistan is specifically afghanistan and you just said michael this is as bad as it gets about sort of the reaction from top officials here in the u.s. on today we heard secretary clinton saying that this will actually absolutely be investigated that the person responsible will be held responsible president obama

called president hamid karzai as he did with it with a letter or a few weeks ago after that rendering incident what do you think about the obama administration reaction because they said they have anything different. on honestly i don't really you know it doesn't surprise me or i would expect the reaction such as this put. the thing about it is it's all words i believe these people are going to want to see action the afghan people it does make sense that the barack obama and secretary clinton would meet these statements but it's got to be it's got to be followed through the afghan people are going to expect that karzai is not of a fan of our being over there and you know we keep pumping money into afghanistan and into his government probably into his pocket but you know it can only go so far there you are a walking at tightrope here trying to get over you know deal with the u.s.

government a lot of people say sort of is the reason that he's in power and also trying to fill it with the people it can't be easy you know on one hand michael a lot of people across the world right now are shocked and appalled by what happened but there are a lot of people also especially those living in afghanistan who are not as socks they sort of group this together with all the other myriad atrocities that have already happened on talk to me about this verse as we're talking about the qur'an burning and how those actually resulted in immediate riots in the street why is it you don't think anything riots quite yet with this. question i really don't know i think i think the afghan people are going to morrow. the koran burning night i don't know on maybe it's even to them worse then them these sixteen innocent civilians being killed because they're so used to death but burning the qur'an you know. that's another that's another whole story i'm just you know kind of guessing at that. but you mentioned the you mentioned cars are walking

a tightrope he's getting stuck between a rock and a hard place real quick here because we're supposed to be here for another two years and we've been there for you know over ten years now and the afghan people when they rioted after the qur'an burning what what else can they do there they're sick of it. sick of the whole thing but they're powerless they're powerless to do anything about it via the average afghan he person is powerless the only ones who have any kind of power at all are the insurgents that are able to you know get guns and get bombs and blow people up about regardless i mean the u.s. and afghan people are trying to work on sort of an agreement for this transition to take place and twenty fourteen are handing over power and getting the right people trained how is that even possible for smoke and mirrors yeah i mean it's not going to happen it's all it's all talk it's all diplomatic effort not they're going to go and then why doesn't the u.s. just get out now i mean even the most hard line conservative people who support

this war people who even faith it's thing that the afghan people should be happy that we've installed democracy there here and they now have an example pointing in their face as to why the afghan people are in fact not happy about the u.s. or not we're not instilling democracy anywhere we're not and still you can't instilled a lot of that is the argument of course use for those who for the purpose of course and it's a bogus argument because you can install democracy when it's have been a tribal system for thousands of years for three four five thousand years since the time of abraham and before you can't all the sudden because the united states wants to say you know what we're going to be a democracy we're going to show you how here's the money and the but your question hits goes right to the heart of the matter i was thinking about this before i came on your show because it comes down to one thing why are we still there why are we still there we won't hear if the after nine eleven and i read so i

read in one of the oracles today you know somebody made reference to at the time i didn't secretary clinton somebody or i should say that somebody made reference to we have been there fighting the fight since nine eleven. since nine eleven but when you know nine eleven to think you know we're lovin years ago or seventy eight years ago. the person who said that we didn't realize that they were also highlighting the fact that we've been there for them ten i mean if yours when does it end and when things like this happen the qur'an burning happened and all that other kind of thing and i get to the back to the point look does this have to do directly to have to do with the safety and security of the united states of america i think it's very easy to argue that it's making the safety and security of the united states of america much worse because people from other countries see incident like they're really good points and they were out of time thanks so much michael bryant author of america's failure in iraq i'm sure you're seeing

a lot of similarities to those failures that you witnessed in iraq with what we're seeing here in afghanistan thanks so much. also have your own r t squaring off over syria it's like the united nations isn't as unified as its title suggests as officials meet in new york to discuss the ongoing unrest in the middle east over you very likely. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is you with the global reach where we had a state controlled capital city school sessions when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

broadly counseling i'm mr. all right let's turn now to new york where russian foreign minister sergey lavrov met with the secretary of state hillary clinton last night central topic to their talks what to do about the situation in syria now you might remember russia along with china already vetoed previous attempts by the u.s. and the u.n. security council to try to pave the way to bring down the government of bashar al assad leaders from both russia and china say they're simply following international law and they want to try to help the region come up with a diplomatic solution r.t. correspondent on a saucer churkin now is in new york she's been monitoring all aspects of the routes visit and brings us more. i was out here to talk to me about the meetings today

what's come out of them and what you think we can expect. well luck kristine us of russian foreign minister sergei lavrov and his counterparts at the united nations got together for a security council meeting really a rare occasion when foreign ministers descend upon the united nations to hold talks because everybody acknowledges that the seriousness of the situation on the ground in syria and unfortunately from what we know as for the last several months the diplomatic community has not been able to reach a consensus in terms of what to do on the ground as we know of course the united states and the western countries have been calling for regime change on the ground they have been saying that it's important for assad to step down just to to for there to be a solution but russia of course has been saying that this is in no way the international community's business and really what's important is for the rest of the world including the u.s. to acknowledge the fact that opposition groups are in fact armed forces and they include forces even like al qaida so certainly russia says regime change will not

be a solution and what's important is avoiding a libyan scenario so to the talks continued as the russian foreign minister said it was an important juncture to keep talking but still no compromise and russia believes that unless there is one compromise found it's going to be very hard to move forward and i think one of the arguments from the other side what is the u.s. saying in terms of this need to be involved this need to see the assad regime fall . well the u.s. you know kind of traditionally believes that regime change is a way to find a solution to a crisis but unfortunately history has shown that that is not the case and sometimes regime change can bring even further violence and a situation that is even worse for the syrian people but the united states continues to say that. the world has to stand up to the syrian people and standing up for the syrian people means backing the position of the united states and its

counterparts but that is something that the u.s. keeps saying and they're saying that really the bloodshed will be on the hands of russia and china because the world's conscience really this is the time when it's affected and this is the time to act so really there is a do a big misunderstanding there in some ways that the u.s. thinks this is the appropriate thing to do we know that the words intervention have not been said out loud yet at least not openly but there have certainly been reports that this is something that's being considered and you know we're going to have to wait and see how this develops whether the diplomats find a joint solution or somebody will start acting unilaterally i think it's important that you ation to take a look at this it wasn't too long ago that we saw the u.s. and russia working together on things like the start treaty. but as you say you know now there isn't finger pointing going on and there is sort of this notion that the u.s. wants to blame russia for getting in the way for the violence continuing in syria

did you sense that energy did you sense a sort of. weird mood between. clinton. well you know there's definitely been some tension in the official positions of course of the two countries and i'm sure that kind of energy continues to exist and so there's still no solution everybody came to new york and hopes to kind of move forward but that has not happened importantly russia however said that you know it's the finger pointing and blaming people can continue for as long as other countries want but the fact of the matter is that one country and this particular case russia cannot find or you know be responsible for a specific solution and the russian foreign minister was very clear about this earlier today take a listen to what he said his notes or the statement people say of its interest and defense of marriage i would love to see such situations with the russians or the russian in the world affairs and the like i would also like to know to hold that

the united states can measure going to resolve the middle east crisis the arab israeli conflict or. stop the drug trafficking from afghanistan but we all understand that today's problems of the world then would be resolved by the desire for us even insistence even action by one country alone. and russia's position christina's very clear circle of rob was meeting with his arab league counterparts to d.d. for coming to new york and they agreed on five key principles of what should come next those things include a halt of violence and a ceasefire both sides of the conflict something that the west still refuses to recognize creating a strong monitoring mechanism providing full support to coffee of don's mission on the ground as well as humanitarian aid to all syrians involved in the conflict and really the unacceptability of outside intervention and this is something that's key because we're going to have to wait and see whether countries including the west in

the west will be able to refrain from such an intervention all right archie correspond on a saucer churkin to keeping us up to date with these meetings thanks so much well this year two thousand and twelve started off with a brand new law of the land after the signature of president barack obama and a piece of legislation called the national defense authorization act and c.a.a. among other things gives the united states military the power to legally detain suspects indefinitely and without charge or trial and that includes american citizens so basically the due process clause in the constitution that gets to be ignored thrown out with the garbage and the language in the bill which targets not only terrorists but associated forces coalition partners and those who substantially support terrorists i've got a language is a little cloudy and it also offers no exemptions for journalists or many other people so we want to take a look at a lawsuit that's challenging the legality of this specifically the author

authorization for use of military force aspect of it one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is chris hedges the former middle east bureau chief for the new york times a columnist with the truth did or is also the author of the book death of the liberal class and earlier i spoke to him and asked him what he hopes to achieve with this lawsuit. well if nothing else to raise public awareness i think it's clearly unconstitutional certainly the lawyers for ancora mayor were bringing the case believe it is unconstitutional whether we will get a hearing we will find out soon to be in court in a southern district court in new york on the twenty ninth if i am ruled as a credible plaintiff then we can go forward in the first thing the lawyers do ten tend to do is to file an injunction because the law went into effect earlier this month that is a decimation of the most basic civil liberties that americans have taken for granted it overturns two hundred years of domestic law which has prohibited the

military from functioning as a police force and as you pointed out when you began it removes due process for anybody who is deemed not not just a terrorist but to have contact with these associated forces that's not a term that's defined it's nebulous it's quite a frightening piece of legislation i know and someone like you who has worked. over many years working as a middle east correspondent i know you've now with some of these terrorist groups you spoken to members of hamas and the palestinian liberation organization. are you concerned at all that you could be you know charged her guilt by association. well yes precisely we went through the state department list of terrorist organizations and i have had direct and personal contact with leaders or members of seventeen of those groups as you pointed out hamas jihad i covered

for the new york times based in paris after nine eleven and was in mosques interviewing clerics and figures some of whom are now in prison. who were have been charged as being members or leaders of al qaida yes when the state department or the government the white house dislikes reporting that we do this happened to me when i covered the civil war in el salvador under the reagan administration or even in the balkans or the middle east they tend to shoot the messenger or attempt to shoot the messenger and i have been you know in. dinner at the homes of a doctor and he see a new user on two of the leaders of hamas who were later killed by the israelis in targeted assassinations and as you know again as you said there is no exemption for journalists because of the amorphous nature of the language it is

a very short step for those of us who do have direct contact with these individuals and with these groups to be branded as accomplices and we are seeing now with the use of the espionage act on the part of the obama administration six cases and since the espionage act was passed in one thousand nine hundred seventeen by woodrow wilson between then and the obama administration only three cases there were only three uses of it none of those cases went to the supreme court certainly one of the cases maybe bradley manning maybe sterling maybe another will reach the supreme court i think it's widely assumed that the court will uphold the use of the espionage. people who have spoken to the press and given what is considered secret classified information to the press and at that point we have a de de facto official secret act we shut down any anything but the official

narrative the official version of events so when you put what's happening within the court system and the espionage act with the n.b.a. the national defense authorization accords this latest incarnation of the n.b.a. it really. you know is a giant step towards. a kind of corporate fascism and it will put more than a chill because anybody who leaks that centrally can be sent to prison for life and part of the you know one of the biggest criticisms of course is that. american citizens which is new to the president president obama issued a signing statement that said it would not be used on american citizens why isn't this good enough. well because it has no legal standing and dianne feinstein had proposed when she discovered u.s. citizens indeed could be caught up in this dragnet essentially extraordinary rendition on the streets of american cities and not only sent to military

facilities but sent to these penal colonies abroad. that they insert into the language that u.s. citizens would not be subject to this kind of treatment and that was rejected by both the obama white house and the democratic party so we know from leaks out of carl levin's office he was the democratic senator a co-sponsor of the bill with john mccain that all of the disputes of the white house were never over whether or not u.s. citizens would be deprived of due process over who would decide which citizens were going to be subject to that treatment and which citizens would be exempt the white house wanted that authority they got it once they got it they signed a bill and you know something i find really interesting is as unprecedented as this law is a lot of people have never even heard of it and you know those who have for the most part don't think that i think i read between two and nine percent think it's a good law how did this come brady and how did it how is it that so many people

still have no idea that this is a lot. well this is just part of the failure of the corporate media. you know at this point because it has bipartisan support because the acceptable range of political discussion in this country runs as dorothy parker once said of. katharine hepburn's emotional range as an actress from a to b. . you know anybody who raises these kinds of issues is automatically pushed outside of the mainstream and let's remember that obama signed this on new year's eve i mean he signed it at a moment when most americans attention were focused elsewhere and there has been official spin by both the white house and the democratic party including this signing statement that mask what this kind of legislation what this bill can actually do and it's not a long bill i mean if you're interested you should go read it it's it's pretty

clear cut and pretty frightening it's not that difficult to pull up and kind of get through. while i have you here i want to switch gears for just for a second and talk about what happened over the weekend in afghanistan sixteen three billions killed most of them women and children and that was apparently a u.s. soldier acting alone as the former middle east correspondent as somebody with a lot of experience here i just want to get your reaction when you first found out about this. well that's what happens in war you know the thing is when you're fighting the kind of war they're fighting in afghanistan you essentially have an elusive enemy an enemy you rarely see attacks were carried out by improvised explosive devices or ambushes where people then melt the assailants melt back into the landscape and this creates what the psychiatrist robert jay lifton calls atrocity producing situations so when you have casualties taken within a unit and you have an inability of no target to strike back against it becomes

a very short step to just branding everybody even women and children as the enemy and taking out packs of vengeance against them this is something that we saw repeatedly in viet nam and i think that this is an incident that illustrates the frustrations that u.s. military personnel face and let's not mince words the fact that we are losing the war in afghanistan and one wishes that the pentagon and the political leaders of the united states said sat down and read the ten year history of the red army's attempt to occupy afghanistan we might have learned something yeah certainly interesting we do appreciate your perspective on this and the national defense authorization act you keep us posted i think you said you'll be in court at the end of the month will definitely keep our eyes out for what happens there pulitzer prize winning author and columnist for truthdig chris hedges in our new york studio . turning now to the european debt crisis and let's take a look at the impact of austerity measures in greece we have told you for months

now about high unemployment rate there so new pictures of the violent protests in the street as are some correspondent tom barton reports there are other very dark facts as well. curriculum brucey threatens to throw herself from her office window in downtown athens she and her husband have had their salaries cuts have debts and a mortgage they can't pay and now they've just learned their jobs are under threat she was eventually told down after many hours on the ledge. this is where her ron barassi worked and this organization tried to provide housing support for people on low incomes or they did until two weeks ago when the government announced this place was closing all over seven hundred staff here could lose their jobs because of frantic meetings in corridors and offices distressed workers try to find out what will happen to them or that these are going to zation has been going strong for sixty years and it's not fair to send them money to other departments they want

to take our money to cover other holes they want to take money for other necessities put all our families will be unemployed if we could save greece ok but there's no way that money will fill the gap you know with the old so stacked against them some desperate greeks even contemplate ending it all. and this is the only phone line in the country that's dedicated to stopping them line ten eighteen is greece's single volunteer run charity suicide prevention line in two thousand and eleven calls here doubled calls like one that a learner picked up from a mother standing on the fifth floor of a building threatening to jump she had a family member with it was handicapped and received the benefit and this benefit then for it was about to become outs and she was about to lose her job and said there's nothing i can do what can i do to help what can i do to help myself into

that that i don't want to suffer anymore the charity too short of money it's volunteers unsure of their future although many greeks grudgingly accept the need for austerity they're adamant that m.p.'s should combine compassion with the cuts the main problem now funding is strategy because this was the one thing it's like playing football it's like the size of the problem of the market in the household everyone agrees that greece's road to recovery will be long and painful but greater and greater numbers of greeks worry that the debt the country is in could cost their families much more than just money tom martin marty. well be sure to stick around for the a loaner shell that's coming up at the top of the hour and you're a person sunshine but i'm not talking about the unseasonably warm weather here in d.c. . a week a week dedicated by journalists to bring transparency to the government by reporting important yet.